User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 55

EKD member churches

have you moved them back as well? Would be the logic consequence. --Mk4711 (talk) 16:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I moved the ones where I could find an English name on the church's website. For the others, a requested move may be better. +Angr 18:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

There are English translations for all EKD member churches on the EKD homepage: http://www.ekd.de/english/regional_churches.html Additional questions, like whether another translation should be preferred should take place at the discussion pages of those member churches I guess. --Mk4711 (talk) 19:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for changing my error. I also appreciate that you have reverted the redirect that was made without consensus. Keep up the good work.--Drboisclair (talk) 19:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg

Thank you for moving back the articles to the English name.

Your choose translation "state church" appears incorrect. This is the translation chosen by the WCC http://www.oikoumene.org/gr/member-churches/regions/europe/germany/ekd-evangelical-lutheran-church-of-mecklenburg.html

Mootros (talk)

OK, the EDK link Mk4711 gave above also says simply "church" rather than "state church", so I'll move it again. +Angr 20:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Mootros (talk) 21:04, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Finally a compromise. Praise the Lord! --Mk4711 (talk) 21:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up

....for Brunswick. I see you discussed this for Mecklenburg, and I have independently done the same for Brunswick, but I missed an RM on that talk page (just as I missed this discussion, I thought Talk:EKD had emerged as the centralized and only place of discussion, but...). I have also adapted the list in the EKD article and the template, please Angr, Mootros, Mk4711, anyone watching have a look. Best Skäpperöd (talk) 09:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

English language

Could you check that the changes to this article over the last few days (specifically to the phonology section) are appropriate? I can't even read IPA stuff but the removal of footnotes causes concern. Rmhermen (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Welsh Wikisource

Hi, I thought if I left you a message here you'd see it sooner. A user named Y ddraig felen, who's been causing trouble on all the other Welsh wikis, has been vandalizing the Wicitestun. You're the only admin so it would be great if you could delete the nonsense pages he's created. Hwyl, --AdamSommerton (talk) 14:34, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I did see his changes before I saw this message, but I had assumed they were in good faith. They seem to be Welsh poems by a Rhisiart ap Harri, but Google doesn't inspire me to believe there is any such Welsh-language poet. (I'm not going to bother googling the name Richard Harrison, though!) I'll go ahead and delete his pages. +Angr 15:27, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

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Cyrillic Albanian orthography

Sorry I have replied so late to your comment on my Cyrillic Albanian page. I have been ignoring Wikipedia for a long time now and I am finally getting back on here. I really do think your orthography is better. I only tried to use the basic Slavic letters, not the archaic forms or non-Slavic forms. But your alphabet really is much more efficient than mine. L' Orgoglio 23:59, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Gaelic

Hey there — I noticed you applied manual of style to the article today, thanks for doing that. Part of me feels the manual gets some important points wrong, but I get that its an important standard, the product of consensus, and I'm glad you put the work in that you did.

Unfortunately we have a minor edit war going on at that page, and all your changes have been reverted. I put a link on the Linguistics Project attention list yesterday to get some assistance with the problem, but it may have been in the wrong place. There’s another editor User:kwami who has been helpful, reverting the reversions, issuing warnings, but I’m not sure how to proceed here. Are you knowledgeable on this stuff? I've never encountered a dispute like this. Some impartial arbitration would be nice.—Muckapedia 14:04, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Wait. You are the one who changed my edits. Of course goidelophone is word. Maybe your stuff hasn’t been reverted, just mine. —Muckapedia 14:11, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Both of our edits have been reverted, because he simply went back to an older version of the page before my stylistic changes. But Google Books has no evidence of the word "goidelophone" being used in edited writing, so we should avoid it and just say "Gaelic speaker" and "Gaelic speaking" instead. +Angr 14:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

In Canada the common terms for “x speaker” and “x speaking” are anglophone, francophone, or allophone. I was trying to follow this precedent and had seen both “goidelophone” and “gaelophone” used before. Gaelophone seemed ambiguous, but I guess without a proper source for goidelophone the whole thing’s moot. Any advice on the edit war? Can you refer me to protocols, or a similar example?—Muckapedia 14:33, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Goidelophone is any less ambiguous than Gaelophone, and the Google hits seem to imply that Gaelophone is primarily a proper name. I know that Anglophone, Francophone, and allophone are widely used in Canada, but coining new words for the various allophones seems like a bad idea, at least within Wikipedia article space. I'd hate to see monstrosities like "Mi'kmaqophone" or "Inuktitutophone" popping up. I haven't really read through the new guy's edits to see what the content of the edit war is. The basic rule is Bold, Revert, Discuss: Editor A boldly makes an edit, Editor B reverts, and then instead of reverting back to the bold version, Editor A is supposed to take it to the talk page if he doesn't accept the revert. That doesn't seem to have happened in this case. +Angr 14:59, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Yue/Cantonese

Hi Angr,

Would you mind deciding on a move request at Cantonese (Yue)? You're one of two admins on Wikiproject Languages that AFAIK has not been involved in the debate, the other being User:Danny.

The article, which had been at 'Cantonese', was moved by straw poll to 'Cantonese (Yue)' as a temporary name until we could decide on where to put 'Standard Cantonese', as its placement at the original name was interfering with that debate. After the decision on where to move the latter article (it ended up at Cantonese, the old name of current 'Cantonese (Yue)'), we were to come back and decide on a permanent name for 'Cantonese (Yue)'. The one name with clear editor support is Yue Chinese,—the Ethnologue name and the one that would follow our Chinese naming conventions,—but this has been held up by the strenuous objection of several editors. The arguments for keeping it where it is have revolved around Common Name (generally iso3=yue and Canton dialect are both called 'Cantonese' in English), the inappropriateness of a Mandarin-derived name for Cantonese, and an argument that Cantonese speakers should decide what their language is called in English. (Although AFAIK the editors arguing to keep the temp name are all Cantonese, there are Cantonese editors on the other side as well.) The arguments for moving the article are that we shouldn't have two articles going by essentially the same name; Common Name (when a distinction is made, sources generally call the two topics either 'Cantonese' and 'Standard Cantonese/Canton dialect/etc', or 'Yue/Yue Chinese' and 'Cantonese'; there was consensus when moving Standard Cantonese → Cantonese that this was the primary meaning of 'Cantonese' in English); Ethnologue and iso3; Wikipedia's Chinese naming conventions (which have the format "X Chinese" for primary branches of Chinese, in order to avoid the language/dialect debate); and WP dab conventions ('Cantonese (Yue)' would mean either Cantonese as a subtopic of Yue, which actually is the other article, or Yue Cantonese as opposed to some other Cantonese, when in fact all Cantonese is Yue. 'Yue (Cantonese)' would avoid this problem, but that name was defeated at the straw poll and has little support now). I've tried compromise names, but none received any support, so the decision is basically do we follow the (slight) majority opinion and IMO reasonable argumentation for 'Yue Chinese', or the walled-garden argument to make the temporary straw-poll name permanent.

I'd appreciate it if you could weigh in or make the move. There are multiple archives on the debate, but the recent arguments on the current talk page pretty much sum them up. —kwami (talk) 07:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'm glad to see that the argument hasn't followed you back here! kwami (talk) 16:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Angr. It is my sincere belief that Kwami has grossly misrepresented the situation at Cantonese (Yue). He first suggests that "Cantonese (Yue)" is not a permanent name, but only temporary contingent on the page move of "Canton dialect". However, if you read the discussion when the move to Cantonese (Yue) took place, this was not the case at all. "Cantonese (Yue)" was meant to be a compromise - the 'least bad' name for the article, not a 'temporary name'. Secondly, he asserts that "Yue Chinese" received "clear editor support", which is simply untrue (let the archives speak for themselves). He also claims that "Yue Chinese" follows the "convention" of other Chinese languages - when no such convention actually exists. Kwami unilaterally moved all of these pages himself in September 2008, without consensus, and then simply declared that to be "the standard convention", creating extremely awkward names such as "Min Chinese" - a name not used anywhere except for as a code to maintain pedantic consistency on Ethnologue. I urge you to read a bit into the depth of history that surrounds this issue (at least three archives before the current one) - it is not nearly as simplistic as kwami has portrayed to advance his goals. For those three reasons, added onto the fact that the current move proposal (initiated by kwami himself) has not yet received much outside discussion and fresh views, I urge you to reverse this move in accordance with the policies and instructions at WP:RM, WP:RMCI. Thanks. Colipon+(Talk) 20:32, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I should point out that the Chinese naming conventions are by consensus. The articles had been dab'd with the (linguistics) tag, which was decided inappropriate for non-linguistic topics. We summarized people's suggestions into three alternate proposals, discussed them with numerous editors for I forget how long, whittled them down as people raised objections to various details, and settled on one. I then moved the articles to conform to that consensus. Cantonese and Taiwanese were left open-ended, as it was clear even then that unique factors would come into play in those two cases (e.g., should the former be "Cantonese" or "Yue"). Taiwanese was settled later, though there is some remaining dispute as to whether it should be Taiwanese Hokkien or Taiwanese Minnan. Hakka was later moved it its current name (which surprisingly hasn't yet raised objections) because "Hakka Chinese" could be understood to mean ethnic Hakka. With that possible exception, Yue was the last trouble spot. kwami (talk) 20:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Just so we shed some light on Kwami's claim that "Yue Chinese" had "Clear editor support" - if we look at the poll numbers, it was almost split 50-50, with "Cantonese (Yue)" garnering 5 votes, "Yue Chinese" 4 votes, "Yue Chinese (Cantonese)" 2 votes, and Cantonese just by itself 1 vote (not counting a vote striked for unclear reasons). This is, firstly, not a "majority" for "Yue Chinese", and even if it was, it would not justify a page move; it most certainly does not have "Clear editor support". Colipon+(Talk) 20:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to keep posting on your page, Angr, but I thought since you weren't part of the debate, I should respond to at least a couple of Colipon's misrepresentations. "Yue Chinese" was the only proposed title with significant editor support apart from keeping the temp name, which I believe I was clear about. It also had a slight majority (s.t. like 7-to-6) of the poll over the temp name, if you count the votes the way the poll stated they would be counted (that is, reassigning people's votes to their 2nd choice if their 1st choice doesn't make the cut), though of course that's not what we decide moves on. kwami (talk) 21:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

"Cantonese (Yue)" is not a "temp name". The archived discussions do not indicate anywhere that the move would be "temporary" when it took place. Colipon+(Talk) 21:36, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

It was a non-consensus name decided by straw poll purely so that we could move on to Standard Cantonese → Cantonese and settle that half of the debate. That was the only reason for moving it there, as was quite evident by the comments at the time. Really, your objections have been answered numerous times. kwami (talk) 21:58, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

We should both back out for a second and let User Angr decide for him/herself. Colipon+(Talk) 22:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

(I'm a him.) My decision to move the article was based on my reading of the discussion and my interpretation of the arguments presented, as well as my knowledge of Sino-Tibetan linguistic classification. My thinking is outlined inside the green box on Talk:Yue Chinese. Although Kwami brought the issue to my attention, my decision was not based on his description of "Cantonese (Yue)" as a temporary name, so whether that description is accurate or not doesn't matter. What it boils down to is this: the article currently called Yue Chinese, until yesterday called Cantonese (Yue), isn't only about Cantonese, so it can't be called that. The only reasonable contenders for the article title are Yue Chinese and Yue language; of those two, Yue Chinese is the one preferred by Wikipedia's naming conventions for Chinese languages. +Angr 09:38, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I read your thinking on green box. However, one point you have not put into the consideration involving the ambiguous nature of the term "Cantonese" which is to mean either the collection of closely related dialects on the Canton area or Cantonese (as one dominated form defined this language). Please I urge you to read the discussions found in the archive of Talk:Cantonese. Editors like User:Bathrobe made very good points. If you look back into that debates, "Cantonese" is not therefore excluded name for the prestigious form but also so-called "Yue Chinese". The "Yue Chinese" is clearly a Wikipedian construct - has no meaning to many readers, especially to those whose mother tongue is Cantonese. Also, re-consider the argument that Cantonese is a member of a class of languages called "Yue" such that two articles must reflect this relationship. It is unclear that this relationship exist outside the mind of some linguists. A linguist construct is not reflected by the content of the article which is about a language. "Yue"+"Chinese" is really lack of reference...--WikiCantona (talk) 16:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Yue Chinese is certainly not a Wikipedian construct; see for example this quote "The third most commonly used language [in China] is Yue Chinese (Cantonese being one variety of it)...". (That's just one example of many.) I don't understand what you mean by "It is unclear that this relationship exist outside the mind of some linguists". Linguists are the ones who do the classification of languages; they're the experts in this area. It isn't as if language classification exists in some tangible, measurable way in the real world that's independent of linguistic theory and research. +Angr 17:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

User WikiCantona is a native speaker of Cantonese who clearly knows a lot about the subject. If he doesn't even know what "Yue Chinese" is, I can understand why he would be frustrated that some linguist he met on Wikipedia is telling him what to call his own language. As for myself, while I am not a native speaker of Cantonese, I do have many, many friends from Guangdong, the US and Canada who would be appalled that their 粤语 is now called 'Yue Chinese' on Wikipedia. Of course, this is not to mention that not even linguists call the language "Yue Chinese". They call it "Yue" or "Cantonese". The only place I have seen is three or four results on Google Scholar (none of which are actual linguistics papers), and on Ethnologue. In fact, a Google Scholar search highlights just how uncommon "Yue Chinese" is. This is not a dispute that is going to be solved because we've now made a page move - more criticism will pour into WP in the days and months ahead. "Cantonese (Yue)" was decided as the best compromise, and best serves the interests of our readers. Colipon+(Talk) 00:00, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Angr, what kind of linguistic study and classification is done with no native speakers opinion in mind? There is not a single native speaker on that talk page that wants "Yue Chinese" the title. You can do a vote again. Benjwong (talk) 04:28, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Akerbeltz is a native speaker. kwami (talk) 07:08, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

That's great, but I really don't see what native speakers of Yue have to do with it. The question is what to call the article in English, and English usage is determined by English native speakers, not by Yue native speakers. Normally, common English usage is what we follow, but in this case common English usage is ambiguous at best and inaccurate at worst (as I said in my statement closing the RM, calling Yue "Cantonese" is like calling the Netherlands "Holland" - it may be common usage, but it's pars pro toto and it's still wrong), so instead we follow what's used in the linguistic literature. The literature mostly uses "Yue" alone, because it's clear from the context that a Chinese language is meant. The Wikipedia article title needs to more specific than simply Yue, so our choices are Yue Chinese (a term that is not unique to Wikipedia by a long shot) or Yue language. I frankly do not understand the objections to the term "Yue Chinese", unless the point is that it isn't called 粤中文 or 粤汉语 or 粤中国话 or the like in Chinese; but that has no bearing on its name in English. Personally, I would prefer Yue language (and Wu language and Mandarin language, etc.), but that apparently annoys the people who prefer to think of these entities as dialects of a monolithic Chinese language rather than separate languages. +Angr 15:53, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

That's approximately what we have now with Hakka (language). If in the future people object to that name because of this, can you think of a title that would not have the language/people ambiguity of "Hakka Chinese"? I'm coming up blank. kwami (talk) 16:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't see that it's any more ambiguous than, say Munster Irish, which of course could be about Irish people from Munster, but isn't. Our articles on ethnicities are generally called "Foo people" anyway, as indeed in the case of Hakka people. A simple hatnote from Hakka Chinese explaining that "this article is about the language; for the people, see Hakka people" would be sufficient. +Angr 16:12, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. kwami (talk) 16:22, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

In English it is called Cantonese. Yue is not used anywhere. Benjwong (talk) 03:48, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

No, in English, Cantonese is called Cantonese and Yue is called Yue. +Angr 08:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)