User talk:Peter Isotalo/Archive 2

Reverting what seems to be obvious vandalism.

Peter, you explained that you do not protest the correction of minor mistakes in discussion pages. I hope this extends to correcting what seems to be 'vandalism'. (There was a claim that your user page(!!!) would be disputable, with an undertext that further information was to be found at this discussion page; but no such explanation was found here. I do assume this is enough to classify it as vandalism.) JoergenB 17:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, it was vandalism alright... Pretty original, though. :-) Thanks for reverting. If you look at the previous contributions of the user and then check out the discussion I've had at Talk:Riksmål#Dialect groups I think you might see the motivation.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Peter, I am ALDRI MER 1814! and I manipulated your user page. I am happy you saw the connection with your edits of the Riksmål page. Originally I thought I should add something like the following to your user page:

"Peter Isotalo claims to have two legs and two arms, but has never provided any documentation to the effect of a widespread scientific acknowledgement of this."

I was so dog tired yesterday and I had to settle for adding a "total disputed" tag and a few "references needed". I meant this in a humorous way. I am very satisfied that you understood that this stunt of mine was related to your "reference needed" tags to the existence of the dialects in my mother tongue. I really didnt think of my stunt as vandalism, I tried to make you realize what you had been doing with the Riksmål article was equally uncouth. I would never dream of doing the same to - say - the reference article on your mother tongue. That _would_ have been vandalism.

Now that we hopefully understand one another, I have to admit I am curious to why a Swede of all things find it worthwhile to enter the Norwegian war of languages, and at that siding with our past governments, claiming Riksmål does not exist, a stance even our present government has abandonded. RSVP.

One more thing. You suggested the spoken Riksmål dialects better be dealt with under the section of "Norwegian dialects". I think a better place for it would be under "Danish dialects", since the Riksmål dialects constitutes the only group of dialects in Norway which are best classified as East-Nordic (or East Scandinavian). The placing of Riksmål as a Norwegian language is a purely political classification. The vast majority of Riksmål features points to classification as a Danish language. (If borders had been drawed differently in 1814 and the Danish-Norwegian border had been laid north of Christiania (Oslo), this would perhaps have been more obvious to people today.)

ALDRI MER 1814!

It was inappropriate of you to involve my personal user page in this conflict. It is not an article, but a presentation of who I am. It's a statement of my opinion that is not regulated by either NPOV or verifiability. To put it bluntly, I can say whatever the Hell I want here as long as I don't attempt to insult and abuse other people. What you did was a clear example of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point.

The only one that seems to be warring over Riksmål is you. The other users active in the article and its talkpage are as far as I can tell trying (in an extremely patient and civil manner) to make sure that you don't use it to propagate a very marginal opinion as common fact. I won't discuss this issue any further at my talkpage since the justification for the tags at Riksmål has already been provided by myself and several other users (including native Norwegians). In effect, I've already replied to the relevant criticism that you have about the issue of dialects vs written standards. Respond with reasonable arguments and by citing proper references over there.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

AIAV

I went ahead and semi protected your userpage. I could block the IPs but I'm pretty sure that they are dynamic so blocking them wouldn't do a bit of good. --Woohookitty^(meow) 08:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection sounds like an excellent solution to me. Thanks.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem. :) I just protected Riksmål as well. Hopefully that'll be brief. I tried sprotect but a sleeper account came back. --Woohookitty^(meow) 08:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll watch Swedish language for now. User:ALDRI MER 1814! has actually already been blocked indefinitely. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wordiness

Your reverts at Scanian (linguistics) seem very pointless and only hint (even if unintentionally) at that ever-present dialect/language POV-problem. It's also unnecessarly verbose. What "Scanian" means is established in the the article as a whole, not in each separate section.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:02, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The observation that preservation efforts were launched aiming to protect Scanian dialect and Scanian language has nothing to do with what is established about dialect/language POV-problems in the article as a whole or in society at large. It is a specific statement of fact about the aim of the efforts in Scania at the turn of the century. Pia 23:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Uhm, now that I look at it, it makes even less sense. Yes, it's not taking sides all of a sudden, but you're not being specific but rather just adding needless words and reverting me when I'm removing them. "Scanian" can't mean anything else but "dialect or language" because that's being explained throughout the article.

Peter ^Isotalo 05:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

You opinion...

... on Talk:Greek language#Big restructuring needed? and Talk:Greek language#Restructuring would be appreciated. It's a proposal I'm making but I see that you once expressed some adverse opinions about similar ideas. Thanks! Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

IPA for Swed. pron. of Gothenburg

Let's take this in English, though we both are born and raised in Sweden. (This is the English division of Wikipedia.)

I changed the IPA for the Swedish pronunciation of Gothenburg since it was originally completely wrong. The pronunciation of the soft initial G- may be discussed, and the pronunciation of the final -g may also be discussed. (Both versions are correct depending on the speaker. I simply transcribed the pronunciation in the .ogg file. I am not sure who made the file, but you should complain to him, not to me, concerning the pronunciation.) But please don't claim that the ö is a short open one (oe-ligature without length mark in IPA) when it'actually a long closed one (o-slash with length mark in IPA). This is nothing to discuss, and I assume that you'll change the /oe-ligature/ to /o-slash :/. (Sorry for not being able to use speciaol characters - due to some trouble with the computer, I have to run an outdated web browser.)

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 14:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC))

The IPA is supposed to be phonemic and reasonably dialect neutral, not a transcription of the recording which, I might add, is my own. But the following is still problematic with your own analysis of the transcription:

• There is only one /j/-phoneme in Swedish. Whether the last sound is a fricative or not is not relevant. They are still only allophones. It's also not particularly relevant for non-natives for whom the transcription is intended. The transcription is supposed to be functional, not a narrow phonetic analysis.
• I've tried to use the IPA character for secondary stress only in the second stressed syllable in words that have accent 2. For example "Stockholm". Göteborg does not have accent 2.
• The "ö" is as far as I can tell short. I check this by listening to my own recording, comparing the length of the vowels in each syllable in Audacity and by checking other recordings I made, like that of Malmö, Umeå or Luleå.
• There is no /ə/-phoneme in Swedish. It's only an allophone of /e/ or /ɛ/.

Btw, have you been changing the IPA of Swedish cities?

Peter ^Isotalo 17:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. I agree on the dialectalö neutrality - that was may main reason for the change.

You're right about the fricative j being allophone with the "usual" one, I just transcribed your recording's G- for consistency.

I can't listen to the sound file (computer problem), but when I was transcribing it, I am sure I heard a long /o-slash/ rather than short /oe-ligature/. In any case, in Swedish a short vowel must be followed by a long consonant, so your IPA must be changed to /oe-ligature t:/, i.e a long t (/jötte-/). Otherwise you're actually contradicting a fundamental rule about Standard Swedish phonology stating that a long (short) vowel is followed by a short (long) consonant. Short vowel + short consonant was lost centuries ago in Swedish, and is only preserved in some remote dialects and Finland Swedish.

Due to my computer prolem, I can't see the IPA symbols in the sentence "There is no /ə/-phoneme in Swedish. It's only an allophone of /e/ or /ɛ/." I guess you're referring to the schwa I know I used in my IPA transcription (since you had a schwa in your recording). As far as I know, the unstressed e in Swedish is a schwa, and not /e/. You may call them allophones, but phonetically Standrad Swedish definitely has a schwa pronunciation for unstressed e. No doubt. In posh areas such as Stockholm, the unstressed e may be pronunced as /epsilon/, though. (Making inte being pronunced /intä/.) But the pronunciation /e/ doesn't exist, that'd be sensational.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I have not changed the IPA of any other Swedish city, as far as I can remember. But I have been tempted to make my own more dialect neutral recordings, since the ones available now are somewhat too Stockholmish. I must find a way to record the awkward .ogg sound files first, though.

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 20:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC))

I don't think the syllable length rule applies to unstressed syllables, and the first two syllables are definetely unstressed. The consonant doesn't sound long to me.

If the transcription is supposed to be phonemic, it would be slightly odd to transcribe a schwa that can't be found in any minimal pairs. A pointer, though: the second syllable of inte is not unstressed since it's accent 2.

Peter ^Isotalo 07:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The bisyllabic accent ("accent 2") is irrelevant to the quality of the -e, at least in neutral Standard Swedish. But of course, in the IPA transcription, there will really be no confusion using an [-e] since there are no words having a true [-e] in the non-stressed syllable. (The minimal pair thing. But using [-e] for schwa only makes sense to a swede, not to a generic foreigner.) BTW, it's a myth that the second syllable in word with bisyllabic accent is not unstressed. There's a fundamental difference between stress and tone. The bisyllabic vs monosyllabic accent difference has only to do with tone, not with stress.

The word Göteborg actualy has the stress on the first syllable, and a bistress on the third: GÖ-te-BORG. (Since it, in principle, comes from Old Swedish Gautaborg. How is e.g. Götaland stressed? Main stress on "-land"?)

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 22:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC))

I'll concede to the point you're making that accent 2 doesn't mean two consecutive stressed syllables, but I still have the distinct impression that there is a difference in quality in the /e/ in words like havet and stele.

Göteborg is stressed the same way fundament and agronom are, on the last syllable and with accent 1. Götaland has the same stress pattern as jordabalk and samhällsklass and has accent 2. Using etymological arguments as a way of proving how certain words are stressed in contemporary Swedish is not relevant. I recommend that you listen to how it's pronounced in SR or SVT broadcasts in this case.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:21, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

If you're correct, the e in huset (='the house') and huse (frozen dativ of 'house', e.g. in man ur huse) would be different in quality. Since I speak the svea regiolect, I pronunce huset without the -t, so they should be minimal pairs in this respect. i.e. hu´se₁ vs hu`se₂, respectively. I am sorry, but I can't hear any difference between e₁ (in huset) and e₂ (in huse) except the tone since they're accent 1 and accent 2, respectively. may it be the tone difference which tricks you into thinking they are different? I think only stress would make them different. E.g., ide (='hibernation') and idé (='idea') would have different qualities, even if you pronunce the é in idé short in fast speech.

I agree that Göteborg has the same kind of tone anfd stress pattern as fundament, but different from jordabalk. But to me, it's only in the tone, that is, the accent. The stresses are the same: GÖ:teBORG, FUN:daMENT, JO:rdaBALK, where : denotes long pronunciation.

I'll follow your recommendation to listen to the media to hear what they say. I suspect though that we are dealing with dialectal differences here (after all, in my dialect and to some extent in my regiolect, I pronunce bensin (='petrol, gasoline') as BÄN:si:n, tentakel (='tentacle') as TÄN:TA:köl, where the 'ö' denotes a some kind of rounded schwa due to the final 'l' which is "thick") and that there's no "official" standard Swedish pronunciation in this case. If there were, I (you) would probably agree with you (me).

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 19:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC))

The difference between the two /e/s in "huset" and "huse" seem noticeable because it feels like the lip spreading is wider, but the primary difference would be in words that begin with be- and other words. But overall I haven't gotten the impression that Swedish vowels are drawled anywhere near as much as in English, French or Russian. The thick /l/, while being common in many regional dialects, is not generally considered standard. The same would go for the /e/ -> [ö] in "täntaköl" which sounds very regional to me. It's a pronunciation you would never hear from news anchors and quite rarely on national TV and radio.

That "fundament" is pronounced with stress on the final syllable is something confirmed by Engstrand in Fonetikens grunder (pg. 181). Either you're speaking a somewhat rare variant of sveamål that has more accent 2 than is common (I know that it's very around Bålsta and Enköping) or you might just be mistaken in your analysis.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think we can keep your IPA since it works fine to me as well. It's just that when I stress the word Göteborg, I tend to produce the IPA I claim, and when I don't stress the word, your IPA is the result. So, to me it feels like both pronunciations work, it's just a matter of global stress (over the whole word) which, when studied in detail, results in a change of more local aspects of the word (for example, a shift of main stressed component). I accept your IPA as a non-stressed version, so I will not change it.

Actually, I am from Jämtland, but I assume that our regiolect is considered sveamål. Aren't there four different regiolects?

• Sveamål (centered in Uppsala and employed in Svea-, Got- and Norrland)
• Finlandssvenska (i.e., Swedish spoken in Finland)
• Götamål (centered in Gothenburg and employed in Götaland except the false Götaland region Skåneland)
• Skånemål (centered in Lund and employed in Skåneland)

Of course, when thinking about it, it's in my dialect - not regiolect - we put the stress in the first syllable in many foreign words where one would expect another stress pattern given Standard Swedish. This is due to the fact that Jamtlandic is actually - historically - an eastern Tröndish dialect. As you may know, in Tröndish they tend to have an initial stress in all words no matter the origin: BA-nan, i.e, "banana".

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 19:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC))

I note with some amusement that I (a Stockholmer 'by birth and uninhibited habit') do use an open and 'in principal long' ö in Göteborg, while I have heard Gothenburgians use a short closed one; indeed, sounding quite a bit like 'jötte'. However, my pronounciation indeed violates the law of quantitative dissimilation, when I speak fast; yielding a short open ö followed by a short t.JoergenB 17:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: Moving Standard Mandarin

Thanks so much for bringing the discussion. I've copied your invitation on my user talk page to some other user talk pages, and I guess you wouldn't mind. :-D — Instantnood 14:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply: Swedish language

Hi Peter.

It was a while ago. From what I remember, I used the book Nordisk paleografi for the last section in Swedish_language#Old_Swedish, that goes:

A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes as a' – though it varied between individuals and regions. The combination "aa" similarly became aa, and "oe" became oe. These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä, å and ö.

I remember that this wasn't mentioned in the article, and when I happened to encounter it in the book Nordisk paleografi, I thought it was important and added it.

Fred-Chess 15:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Medieval cuisine

		Award!
		I, MacGyverMagic, hereby award you with an Epic Barnstar for your work on Medieval cuisine - a truly marvellous article which will no doubt be featured on Did You Know pretty soon. - Mgm|(talk) 12:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm most flattered. Thank you very much, Mac. :-D

Peter ^Isotalo 12:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I've passed the article, after making a few minor grammar tweaks, etc. This is a really splendid article — I think it has every reason to go on to FA as well. Thanks for your patience and your good work in responding to my review. I am tremendously impressed by it. Choess 19:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

DYK

On 18 September, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Medieval cuisine, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Medieval cuisine is certainly a tour de force. excellent work on an important subject. by the way a strongly concur with your mission statement that wikipedia has far to much empahsis on pop culture and too little on significant fields of knowledge such as the one you developed. regards Anlace 02:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments. I suppose the only way of keeping the cruft from overwhelming us all is to make an effort with topics like these. But still, there's the almost childish excitement of finding a topic of width and deapth that is more or less virgin territory.

Rest assure, though, I'm not done with this one by far. There is much more to come. :-D

Peter ^Isotalo 10:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful work on Medieval cuisine. An important addition to an area (cuisine) that I think has not had as much top quality effort as it deserves. Jdclevenger 14:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Concerning Swedish language

You wrote in my talk page:

"I appreciate your additions and corrections to Swedish language, but I would like to ask you to start citing your sources."

I am not sure what you're referring to here. I simply corrected the wrong claim that Old East Norse is characterized by lost diphthongs. This is deeply wrong. Just take a look at Finland Swedish, Gutnish, some dialects of Dalecarlian, old traces found in Hälsingland etc and you realize that it is not correct to claim that one of the main differences between Old East Norse and Old West Norse is that the former one had lost the diphthongs. This is the Old Swedish period, not Old East Norse period. If Old East NOrse generally had lost the diphthongs, then how come that Finland Swedish has them? As far as I know, Finland was colonized perhaps as late as during the Old Swedish period (which suggests that it'd even be wrong to claim that Old Swedish had lost the diphthongs, except in the writing based on Danish orthography and upper class speech).

In order for me to simplify finding proper sources for the obvious facts stated above, please be specific about which of my claims I need to support. I have already shown one sufficient source to my Wikipedia friend Haukur, but I don't remember where we discused it. The source deals about the history of Åland and one chapter is about the dialect and they discuss the diphthongs. There it's claimed that Old Swedish (as spoken in Svealand at least) probably had preserved the diphthongs. That's my specific source. But I think it all depends on what we mean by "Old Swedish" and "Old East Norse". I mean, Modern Swedish still has diphthongs, though dialectaly. Given this trivial fact, it feels very strange to claim in the article that Old East Norse, unlike Old West Norse, had lost the diphthongs.

Do you realize the problem here? Either we must define e.g. Finland Swedish (and other dialects with diphthongs) as being not Swedish, or we must claim that Old Swedish (and thus it's parent in Old East Norse) had the diphthongs. Most naturally, in order not to cut away a large part of the swedish speaking area stating they don't speak Swedish there, we must claim that Old East Norse was not characterized by lost diphthongs and that there was a northwards moving isogloss in Old Swedish which separated monophthongization from preserved diphthongs.

It feels a bit like being asked to find a source where it is claimed that a recently discovered planet around the star Sirius is not made of cheese. I mean, it's a bit hard to find such a source claiming it is made of rock or gas, but everyone understands that the planet is for sure not made of cheese. The same thing here. It's a bit difficult to find a source about something as obvious as Old East Norse dialectally having diphthongs, when you think about it. May it be that it is so obvious that there are very few sources on it?

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 19:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC))

I'm not arguing facts, I'm telling you to abide by Wikipedia:Verifiability. It's an official policy, so there's nothing to discuss here. And I don't believe for one second that you can't find sources. The rest of the article, which is full of equally obvioust "the moon is not made of cheese"-statements, is verifiable. If I can do it, so can you. Get cracking, please.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course, there are sources. But since I am in Stockholm at the moment, I don't have them in my hand. Gösta Bergman mentioned below is of course one credible source. I will also contact an old teacher of mine, Staffan Fridell (prof. in Nordic languages, Uppsala university), with whom I have discussed the matter a few years ago. The problem with sources is that authors discussing Old Swedish are very pragmatic and only focus on written sources rather than on research about the actual speech of people: Many sources stating that Old Swedish had no diphthongs can be found (since most sources focus on written material) while only a minority stating there were diphthongs can be found (since only a minority of the sources focus on the actual speech). The reason is simple: Written sources are obvious proofs in themselves and the only problem is to learn how to read them (the original documents reqcuire some training to read due to the archaic handwriting), while the research on the speech of Old Swedish is still a productive area and is more complex since it involves a greater span of varieties (i.e., dialects).

I know you're a fanatic fan of the Wikipedia:Verifiability, but I am more pragmatic here: A yet non-verified fact should be implemented in the article, and the implementer should make some effort to find some source he has been using at some stage of his life. It can take some time to find a source you used ten years ago. Until the source can be found, one should rely on pure logic, which is the case in the discussion here. ("How can Old Swedish - and even it's parent Old East Norse in general! - have lacked diphthongs when some modern Swedish dialects have them." In a case like this, one must be pragmatic and put Wikipedia:Verifiability aside for a moment. Personally, as a mathematician, I prefer to rely on logics rather than sources. If my logical thinking contradicts a source, I would rely on my logical thinking.)

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 21:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC))

My email to Staffan Fridell:

Email to: Staffan.Fridell@nordiska.uu.se

Title: Fornsvenska diftonger?

Hej Staffan,

Jag gick kursen Runkunskap med dig som lärare för några år sedan, och det var en av de mer inspirerande kurserna jag läste i Uppsala trots att mitt huvudområde är matematik och fysik.

Anledningen till att jag skickar det här ebrevet är att jag undrar över de fornsvenska diftongerna. Det är klart att runsvenskan hade dem, det ser vi på runstenarna från 1000-talet och eventuella monoftongskrivningar på runstenar från Uppland får antas vara antingen misstag eller influens söderifrån på ortografin snarare än på verkligt talspråk. Men de flesta källor tycks påstå att fornsvenskan saknade diftonger. Hur är detta möjligt då vi vet att diftongerna idag fortfarande existerar i s.k. "randområden" (t.ex. Finland, mellersta Norrland, västra Svealand etc.). Dessutom påstås det ofta i källorna att fornöstskandinaviskan skiljer sig från fornvästaksndinaviskan kanske främst genom att de gamla primära diftongerna har monoftongerats. Detta kan ju inte vara sant då gutniskan är ett tydligt exempel på att den i språklig mening östligaste dialekten faktiskt fortfarande har diftongerna kvar. Det är alltså ett "sydskandinaviskt", inte östskandinaviskt, fenomen at monoftongera.

Det är dock ett faktum att de flesta svenska dialekter idag har monoftonger. Men är det verkligen troligt att 'au'-diftongen sammanföll med 'öy'-diftongen till ett långt trångt 'ö'? Borde inte 'au'-diftongen åtminstone ha varit något öppnare under en lång tid för att sedan sammanfalla med den gamla 'öy'-diftongen? I t.ex. härjedalska uttalas den gamla 'au'-diftongen som "ô" och 'öy'-diftongen som 'ö', dvs ett sammanfall har ännu inte skett trots monoftongering. Detta borde rimligen ha varit fallet i fornsvenska under lång tid.

Mvh,

Jens Persson

I'll publish Staffan's answer as soon as I get it.

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 22:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC))

Would Gösta Bergman, Kortfattad svensk språkhistoria (ISBN 91-518-1747-0) be a source satisfying both of you? He dates the change to "Runsvenska (ca 800--1225)" (sorry, all non-Swedish readers, but in order to minimise information loss I'll retain the Swedish quotations Swedish); more precisely, he writes

För Danmarks del kan denna förenkling påvisas redan från början av 900-talet. I Sverige inträdde den något senare. Ännu på 1000-talet förekom diftonger på runstenarna i Södermanland och Uppland, t.ex. raisa, stain, þair (de), austr (öster). I slutet av århundradet och början av 1100-talet slår enkelskrivningen igenom på runstenarna.... Ännu i dag står dock diftongerna kvar i randområden, såsom i gutniska, i några dialekter i Värmland och Dalarna på gränsen till Norge, i jämtska och norrbottniska."

This should of course not be quoted verbatim, but I think it leaves enough 'verifyable facts' to permit short conclusions of when the change happened. As usual, it is much harder to pinpoint the elusive 'character' of the change. Unhappily :-), speakers tend not to follow the simple branching linguistic model; long after some differences have appeared between the vernacular in different parts of a larger geographical unit with intercommunication, sound changes in one part may influence another. I think that it is a matter of philosophy whether or not this simplification of diphthongs is an 'east Nordic feature'. JoergenB 11:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll add it as a source for my claim and hopefully mr Isatola will respect it.

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 21:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC))

OK, you alreadu added it, JoergenB. Thanks!

Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 22:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC))

Pardon? "Fanatic fan"? Jens, next time you make any considerable changes without adding a reference I'm going to revert you first and listen to your attempts at weaseling out of WP:V later. Get yourself a user sub-page and make the edits there if you get a sudden inspiration to add a bunch of facts without referencing them. You've been around long enough to know that providing sources isn't negotiable and that you're still trying to argue about this doesn't add to your credibility as a contributor.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, here is Staffan Fridell's reply to my email to him:

Datum: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 08:42:52 +0200

Från: Staffan Fridell <Staffan.Fridell@Nordiska.uu.se>

Till: jensp@physto.se

Ärende: Re: Fornsvenska diftonger?

Hej!

Du har rätt i att det är en pedagogiskt förenklad bild som ges när man säger att fornsvenskan inte hade diftonger. De perifera dialekter som har bevarat diftonger hade så klart dessa också under medeltiden. Dessutom har diftongområdet varit större under t.ex. 1600-talet i Norrland. Eftersom finlandssvenska dialekter har gamla diftonger, så måste de ha tagits med när Finland koloniserades under 1200-1300-talet, huvudsakligen från östra Svealand. Det verkar dock som om man har undvikit att använda diftonger i fornsvenskt skriftspråk, också i områden, där talspråket måste ha haft diftonger.

Jag ger dig några litteraturreferenser som behandlar de här problemen ganska utförligt:

Moberg, Lennart, Den östnordiska diftongförenklingen. I: Nysvenska studier 33(1953), s. 87-129.

Holm, Gösta, Monoftongeringens kronologi och de finlandssvenska folkmålen. I: Studier i nordisk filologi 67(1987).

Hälsningar

Staffan Fridell

As you see, Staffan confirms my claims in detail, and he's actually also providing us with scientific papers on the matter discussing the Old Swedish diphthongs. So, now we basically have the following sources:

(1) Gösta Bergman's book (already listed as reference due to kind JoergenB);

(2) Private communciation with Staffan Fridell. (See email above.)

(3) Lennart Moberg's paper suggested by Staffan.

(4) Gösta Holm's paper suggested by Staffan.

Now we have actual references telling us that the Moon isn't made of cheese! ;-)

Jens Persson (18:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC))

Mr Isotalo, I think that the main difference between our perspectives on the Wikipedia project is that you focus on information which has a reference not worrying about e.g. pedagogical simplifications, factual errors etc., while I focus on providing high quality information which for sure is reliable and not e.g. simplified to suit the layman. Sooner or later, a proper reference supporting my claim will be found anyway. (Trust me, I always make an effort to refind my old sources I once used. But it would be foolish not to provide high quality information to the readers of Wikipedia just because one has forgotten where one read about the claims.) Obviously, you're an idealist and I am merely being pragmatic.

Jens Persson (213.67.64.22 19:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC))

Like pointed out in the very first reply, I am not arguing facts, but rather asking you to make your statements verifiable. Keep in mind that I've not even reverted your edits, but patiently waited for your to act on my requests. Instead JoergenB did it for you. Whatever it is you want to argue about Fridell's e-mail isn't relevant to this discussion. Like I've suggested before: if you have a sudden burst of creativty but can't recall the sources immidiately, let it all out in a sub-page like this and include it in main article space afterwards.

And I'll remove any future posts that are topped off by nasty li'l insults and irrelevant insinuations such as these.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, why haven't you suggested using a sub-page like this before? This may solve my problems. I have always added stuff to the articles directly in order not to forget to do it. (And putting information elsewhere would make things vanish.)

Jens Persson (130.242.128.119 20:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC))

Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages/New Articles

Hi, Peter. Since you seem to be working on articles pertaining to medieval cuisine, could you please announce your new entries on Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages/New Articles? Other wikipedian medievalists might be interested in checking your articles. Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Thanks for the tip. I think it's time I sign up as a member of the project as well.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello Peter. I've been watching the article on Medieval cuisine for a couple of weeks now and just wanted to thank you for all your work on it. This is shaping up to be a great article. Kudos to you sir. L0b0t 16:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Six-Day War

I should apologize for failing the Six-Day War for lack of references. I didn't noticed them until you told me. It is otherwise a very good article but before I do might I suggest you take some (but not all) of the citations in the lead and move them to the body of the article. It would also be greatly improved if the lead was expanded to comply with WP:LEAD. --Tarret 14:24, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Älvdalsmål and Värmland

At the talk page of the English version of the article on Älvdalsmål, there is the the discussion:

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Exactly where in Värmland is Älvdalsmål spoken? This information puzzles me since the distance between the Älvdalen parish and the border to Värmland is considerable. Did a group of Älvdalen people some time in history migrate to Värmland to form an Älvdalsmål speaking community? Until someone will confirm that Älvdalsmål is spoken in Värmland, I'll remove the claim. (I didn't think I could avoid the word moron describing the one who has claim the statement, but I could.)

Jens Persson jepe2503 AT hotmail DOT com (13 Jan 2006)

Please cite your sources. Your statements need to be verifiable or we can't possible know if you're being neutral or not.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The thing is that there are two completely unrelated dialects called Älvdalsmål, one in Dalecarlia, and one in Värmland. This is clear from the entry Älvdalsmål in the Nationalencyklopedin where there are two subentries Dalarna and Värmland, respectively, where the two different dialects are discussed. I assume you used this source, and that you simply didn't use your little grey ones. Please, before unintentionally (?) "flaming" like you did in the talk page, be sure you're not simply missing some important detail. I get the feeling that you're very much into sources, but that you have a severe difficulty to interpret the sources sometimes. I am not the guy to tell you how you should act on Wikipedia, but please, don't flame people.

Jens Persson (213.67.64.22 20:20, 1 October 2006 (UTC))

I use article talkpages because I want the discussion to be public, not to have a private dialogue with you. Especially not when you resort to tart incivilities from time to time (who's a moron, again?) and then actually whine to me about being flamed when I ask you for citations. Don't post here again unless you have business that concerns me personally. Reply to article-related posts where you find them, not on my talkpage.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the articles' talk pages is that it may take a very long time to get an naswer. You obviously are rather quick to answer on this talk page, so naturally I use it instead due to urgency.

Jens Persson (130.242.128.119 19:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC))

DYK

On 2 October, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article subtlety, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Chinese/Mandarin

Thanks for your message. I have been away been hence no reply until now. I strongly support the move to 'Chinese' rather than 'Mandarin'. Best Kleinzach 12:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of name change of Skåneland

Please see Talk:Skåneland to discuss a possible name change. -  AjaxSmack  00:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Verification criteria

I usually don't list any article on my watch list so thank you for letting me know that you responded to my comment. I believe it is more appropriate to debate in talk page. See you on talk page. Vapour

Bengali

Bengali language is up as a FAC. Thanks.--ppm 10:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Sound recordings

See my talk page, please! / Jens Persson (130.242.128.85 19:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC))

Wikitack.png

Hej. Jag såg att det var du som laddat upp Wikitack.png till Svenska wikipedia. jag hade tänkt ladda upp bilden till Commons men den saknar källa. Kommer du ihåg var du hittade den (alternativt om du skapade den). Många tack. /Lokal_Profil 13:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Den finns redan på Commons under namnet Image:WikiThanks.png.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Många tack /Lokal_Profil 00:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Embedded comment in Bengali language

You have embedded a comment in "Sample" section of Bengali language that transcription and translation of the poem should be give. The poem itself has got a article, along with transcription and translation, and, of course, link to that article is given. Considering this and the ever increasing size of the article Bengali language, is it absolutely necessary to add the transcription and translation of the poem in this article? Please comment. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Opus Dei RFC

Peter-- I noticed that you were closely involved in the FAC on the Opus Dei article way back in September of 2005. There had been a lot of trouble getting that article worked out due to the existence of a large number of single purpose accounts that show up to promote OD here on wikipedia. (In the FAC, for example, no less than 3 different brand new accounts showed to vote in that discussion, for example).

Anyway, puppetry notwithstanding, I've recently done a major rewrite on the Opus Dei article and am requesting comments on its talk page. I think the new page is better, but the aforementioned single-purpose accounts have been reverting it pretty consistently. Could you look over the page and comment on whether the rewrite is an improvement and maybe help out in the ensuing discussion? --Alecmconroy 14:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I sincerely believe the article deserves a good, neutral treatment, and I hope you manage to straighten it out. Unfortunately I don't feel I have enough time right now or knowledge about OD to be of any proper help. I'm hard at work with detailed research and referencing of medieval cuisine (which I'm trying to push to FA-status before New Year's), its surrounding articles on medieval foods (sop, potage, Guillaume Tirel, etc), and Swedish language is on queue for a face lift.

I might pop in for a little copyediting, but I can't promise anything. Good luck the review and don't let the POV-warriors get on your nerves.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Link correction in subsection title

Thank you for bringing it to my attention that the link for the word subtlety, in a subsection title in the wikisignature gallery I curate, needed improvement. Subtlety is intended as an ironic title for a section with some of the largest sigs in the gallery.

I refined it further (embedding a comment for clarification) with the edit summary: To emphasise intended irony: WORD in section title links Subtlety article; ELLIPSIS in section title links definition of irony. Athænara ✉ 00:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Audio samples

Um... the file is a pronunciation clip. It is the way Kerala is pronounced in the voice of a native speaker (i.e me) and is not spoken in any particular language. I had uploaded the file along with quite sometime back along with many others and unfortunately did not know the benefits of uploading to commons at that time. Re-uploading nearly 500 files to commons will be a really onerous task (not to mention extremely time consuming and quite pointless). I'll do the needful when I upload media in the future. Thanks for the note --Srikeit 06:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're a native speaker, you must be a native speaker of at least one language. There is no such thing as words, even proper nouns, that belong to no language at all.

Uploading to Commons may be time-consuming, but it's hardly pointless. That way it will be made available for easy access by any and all other Wikipedias. It will also make them easier to find and categorize.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Your edit to Sofia Coppola

There is a question as to the reason you removed the picture of Sofia Coppola from her article. Please respond accordingly. Thanks! Stack 20:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't remove a picture. I just removed a red link. I have no idea what happened to the picture.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi

Sorry but I have had to deal with this one too often in the past. Especially US people tend to confuse cannabis with marijuana but they are not the same thing as every European (plus those living inn the hash belt) know all too well, so I am frankly baffled as to how you confused cannabis and marijuana. The slang terms used are American centric and we are an international encyclopedia and I assume were added by an inexperienced American user putting in slang terms that only relate to the US. I used the word contentious because this type of edit had happened on a number of ocasions before and removing all slang terms is the only non contentious solution I know of. Cannabis is not marijuana, SqueakBox 23:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't even live in Europe anymore. I do. In a hash belt no less. And I'm not half as anti-American as you are even if I'm not actually pro-American. And marijuana sure isn't its own article. Kinda interesting, since hashish is. It makes your reverts look fairly misguided or at least disproportional.

So stop barking up the wrong tree.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The "Occitan language" talk page

Hi, did you intentionally delete most of Talk:Occitan language in your last edit to it? —Ruakh_TALK 22:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Scandinavism

Hi Peter

I altered with the redirect since this odd move had created a double redirect, but I agree that the article would be better off at "Scandinavism". One way of fixing it would be simply to tag the destination page with {{db-move|Scandinavism and Nordism}} and move the page once the history has been cleared. Such a move looks pretty harmless, so using the entire bureaucracy might be unnecessary. Regards. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 20:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Medieval Cuisine

I noticed that you're working to bring Medieval cuisine up to FA status; best of luck, and fascinating subject. I just wanted to make you aware of the fact that the French version has several fascinating sources linked. For instance, there is a French cookbook from the late 14th century. Chapter summeries are in English) If you like, perhaps you could tell me to look for certain things and in that way, I could translate and add a bit to the article. I don't know much about medieval cuisine, but I can help with the French. --Zantastik talk 10:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I know of the book in question. Le Ménagier is frequently mentioned and described in great detail in most of the literature I've come across. Along with Guillaume Tirel's Viandier, it's one of the most important sources for detailed information about late medieval cuisine and cookery. There are also several English translations available (with commentaries).

I'm not in any particular need for more information about western and southern European medieval cuisine, but rather of the food in the north and east, about which there is little or no information to be found in the standard English-language literature. So far I've only managed to locate one book on medieval Polish cuisine (a translation from Polish). If you can find anything on cuisine from the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia or any European region not included in medieval cuisine, I encourage you to add the information. I'm already well underway with the sections on Spain, Italy, Sicily, Germany and the Low Countries. If you want to help out right now, I can recommend starting the article on Le Ménagier de Paris. It would make a fine sub-article and I'm sure some of the content could fit in the main article as well.

But these are merely my own particular needs for the work I'm doing on the article right now. If you feel like you can contribute good information (with references), don't wait for my permission; just be bold.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Oi

Theres nothing up with my article. stop it now. --Matineqertase BaconMoneger 17:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

"Orthography"

It's fine if you want to include direct links from disambiguation pages, but the lead for Orthography clearly states, "The orthography of a language is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization." I'd like to know how using the term "Japanese orthography" to refer to the Japanese writing system is incorrect. You may want to edit the orthography article if something there is wrong. Dekimasu 11:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm used to the word in the sense given here, and as far as I know, our orthography articles are concern themselves with spelling rather than the writing system used for that spelling. For example, Dutch alphabet and Dutch orthography are separate articles.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Muammar al-Gaddafi

Hi Peter. Please see this. ← ANAS ^Talk? 10:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)