User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 4

WP:WC

Welcome to WP:WC!! We can use all the welcomers we can :). By the way, its about time to archive again! Redwolf24 10:42, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Gymnasium

Yes, but it's really the school form, so the wikilink is okay now;

BTW, how do you like Berlin ? (since I'm living here too) Lectonar 12:30, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

• always nice to know people who know where to look things up in the wiki.... (Isn't that awful english? :) ) Lectonar 12:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

• • Perhaps I should have used that template: {{User: Ga-0}} = this user knows about 2 or 3 words of gaelic, 2 of those being Aer Lingus, because my gaelic is virtually only non-existent in the written form, but I manage to speak rather fluent Muman gaelic (I don't know if thats the right term, but I do know there are large differences even in Ireland) Lectonar 12:53, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Standard tables?

Hey, good work with adding phonology info to Burmese language! Do you think you could format the tables the way its done in most articles, though? It seems to me as being the most common in most general phonologies and it does seem easier to read.

There's also the Wikipedia:WikiProject Phonology Template. Most of it is by my hand, but it's all based on tables that were around when I got here. It would certainly be the most appropriate place to discuss the merits of the different layouts.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:50, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Irish-American Mayors

Your argument to delete Irish-American Mayors is weak. 64.109.253.204 02:02, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

bass clef

Hi, yes I hand traced your jpg with inkscape. (and then inkscape crashed before I'd saved the svg...) I'm going to edit out the opening bar to match the other clefs on that page. Thanks Zeimusu | (Talk page) 04:18, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Tamil

Thanks a lot for your additions to Tamil language. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 09:06, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Yoruba

Thanks for getting Yorùbá language into better shape. J.K. 15:11, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Naming of article

Could you comment at Talk:History_of_South_Africa_in_the_apartheid_Era#name_of_the_article? Tomer ^TALK 22:24, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Bosh

Please re-visit the discussion. Uncle G 10:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

North Wind and the Sun

Re: The North Wind and the Sun, i don't quite get what you mean by "its use in phonetic descriptions of languages as an illustration of spoken language." It'd be good if you could give a little elaboration in the article. And by the way, you don't need to include the original text in the article. You could make a link to Wikisource, where the full text for Aesop's Fables (George F. Townsend version) is available. :) --Plastictv 12:05, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Unless, of couse, you need to use the original text to illustrate the "phonetic descriptions." :) --Plastictv 12:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi, i'm sorry but i'd think that the choice of the fable for the use of phonetic illustration is rather hmm... coincidental and (no offense meant) trivial. i'd like to rewrite the article, placing more focus on the moral of the fable (and maybe other relevant info if there's any), mentioning its use to illustrate phonetics only as a side point. What do you think? --Plastictv 15:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi, sorry to bother you again. i've just reorganized the The North Wind and the Sun. Hope you'd find it ok. Anyway i'd just like to check with you that the first lines of the broad and narrow transcriptions are correct as they are, 'cause the narrow transcription seems to read "The North Wind and a Sun". i'm not familiar with phonetics so forgive me if i'm being silly. :) --Plastictv 19:22, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

But it probably isn't a mistake; I can easily imagine the [ð] of the being deleted after the [n] of an(d)' in rapid speech. --Angr 19:36, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes i thought so, too. Thanks! --Plastictv 19:48, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for creating the Category:Minority languages page so it was no longer a red link. I was linking the articles and literally about to create the page when you so helpfully did so. Kudos! ~ Dpr 23:07, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

How to pronounce the "ch" in "ich" in German

Hello! May I request a mini pronounciation lesson from you? How does one pronounce the "ch" in the word "ich" in German? Would you be able to point me to good resources so I can teach myself how to pronounce all the IPA annotated symbols for spoken syllables? --HappyCamper 23:43, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, the sound file works for me. I was surprised to here a slight "y" sound in the ich-umlaut. Is that supposed to be correct? The recording is the sound [aça]. I'll have to experiment a bit before I think I've got it right. :-) --HappyCamper 00:08, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

phono add to WikiProject Phonetics

hi.

i am wondering:

are you adding all language articles with segmental inventories to Wikipedia:WikiProject Phonetics? or do the articles need to have a bit more phonological info than that?

peace – ishwar  (speak) 15:18, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

The bible

Firstly let me say that I am sorry to have to bother you.

Secondly, I wish to let you know that a recent VFD that you took part in has closed. The result was that 32 people voted to keep all individual bible verses as seperate articles, and 34 voted that they shouldn't (2 abstensions, and 3 votes for both). This is considered by standard policy not to be a consensus decision (although the closing admin stated that it was a consensus to keep them).

Thirdly, the subject has now been put to a survey, so that it may remain open until there is a clear consensus for what appears to be a difficult issue to resolve. You may wish to take part in this survey, and record a similar vote to the one you made at the VFD there. The survey is available at Wikipedia:Bible verses.

~~~~ 18:17, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I added another section for "verse-by-verse Biblical analysis should be transwikied to a WikiBible instead of left on Wikipedia with the possible exception of "notable" verses" as something that could take votes *in addition* to votes for other section, so if you support that idea go check it out. Thanks! — Phil Welch 22:47, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

SimonP (the creator of the 100 or so gospel verse articles) has tried to claim that the votes for the "only notable verses" section would include most of the 30,000 verses of the bible because he sees them as notable. To avoid such a POV twisting of the votes, I have added a new section - [1] - for voting on whether the number of notable verses is more like 30,000, or more like 30. Would you care to vote there as well? ~~~~ 00:22, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

conlang del

i have seen yr name on the deletion voting page. so in case you are interested, the following conlangs up for deletion:

• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Aingeljã
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Breathanach
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Brithenig
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/DiLingo
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Verdurian language
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Wenedyk
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Fyksland

peace – ishwar  (speak) 19:34, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

Matthew

Hi, you voted to Merge Authentic Matthew at a VFD. However, the salvagable content of the article was already merged prior to the previous VFD. Is it possible for you to reconsider your previous vote? ~~~~ 08:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Botteville

Hi. I probably did get a good taste of Wikipedia inadvertently. I'm still interested, believing basically in democracy. Thanks for welcoming me. It seemed to me we were all talking around in circles with no one answering what I had said. I'm going to bow out of this discussion for the moment. I've got a long list of publications to work through. From now on I will include all references. By the way, there is a confusion here. G&I and the 4 dialects (sounds like a film) are totally unrelated. I espouse the kurgan theory myself, but they are major linguists and ought to get their views well published. We can't just ignore them. As for the dialects, it is not the work of G&I. I got that from Watkins. I liked it, but you are right about it being a controversial subject. I still go with Watkins, however, as I also believe in trying to match archaeology with language, and the dialect scheme is more amenable to that. Watkins went with Gimbutas for a while (in the 4th edition of AHD) but then pulled back on linguistic grounds. He is careful to separate common this or that from any peoples supposed to have spoken it. There may or may not be such peoples. But as I read the articles some of this will be coming out in Wikipedia. I'm only an amateur linguist, you know. I was hoping Wikipedia would help me with it but as it turns out, mutual help seems to be warranted. I think I like that. It will take me a while to catch on to this complicated set of procedures. Ciao. Botteville

Putting on a happy face

Thanks for your work on Hmong phonology, it's great to see a page of mine mature into encyclopedic standards. Grika 19:20, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I haven't really looked into what is the norm; though most language pages I have seen have a separate phonology page. But really, it doesn't matter to me where it resides. Grika 19:43, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Bible Vote

Hate to trouble you again, but a category on Wikipedia:Bible verses was recently added, 'A vast minority', and it seems that your vote probably would have gone there had it been there when you voted. Almafeta 17:24, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

RP page

Once you've sorted out the IPA for English page, would you mind looking at the Received Pronunciation page? Particularly in the "Speaking with RP" section, it seems to me to have a lot of dubious assertions, too much of a focus on non-rhoticity, and it could do with a description of RP phonology comparable to that on General American. --JHJ 20:31, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I've added a Phonology section myself, largely based on the GenAm one. But I'd still like someone who's actually a qualified linguist to take a look at it. --JHJ 10:05, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments; I've made some more changes based on them. About flapping, I think it does occur in quite a lot of British speech (I didn't know about Cockney specifically), but for me (mild Sheffield accent) it seems to be lexically restricted: e.g. a flap in pretty (adverb) seems normal enough, although informal, while a flap in pretty (adjective) feels "American". Something like this seems to be being described for Scouse in this article [2].--JHJ 15:06, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

consensus

The Authentic Matthew VFD has closed. The results were

• Delete - 21 (58%)
• Keep - 11 (31%)
• Merge - 4 (11%)

This was declared to have been no consensus, and therefore a new VFD has been opened at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Authentic Matthew (consensus).

Would you be prepared to add a vote there?

You voted to merge at the original VFD, but the article has already been merged, and merge does not appear to be a result which would anyway obtain consensus. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 09:49, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

welcome

Angr, thanks for welcoming me. I was not expecting this. Also thanks for the tip regarding the use of tildas when signing. It was some time that i tried to figure out how everyone did that so precisely. I like using Wikipedia and improving it as much as i have the possibility. Hope to keep in touch, landroni 16:04, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Wicipedia

Haven't seen you on Welsh wikipedia yet. Come on over, it's "neis"! Deb 17:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Many of us have very limited skills. I think you'd find it a wonderful learning aid! Deb 18:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Black boys on mopeds

(copied from Wikipedia:Reference desk, the page is about to get archived)

Does the Sinéad O'Connor song "Black Boys on Mopeds" refer to a specific incident? Were there ever black boys on mopeds killed on Margaret Thatcher's orders? Also, who is the "Madame George" referred to in the song? The Van Morrison song Madame George doesn't seem to be it. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:38, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

According to this .doc article, which appears to be from Sinéad: Her Life and Music (1) by Jimmy Guterman, "Black Boys on Mopeds" references the death of Nicholas Bramble on 17 May 1989 (2). Mr. Bramble, on a motorcycle, was being pursued by police that mistakenly believed that he had stolen the bike. Mr. Bramble accelerated to dangerous speeds and crashed. His death was ruled accidental.

Sinéad charged England and Margaret Thatcher for Mr. Bramble's death because the death would not have happened if the police, a representative of state authority, did not accost him in the first place. I'm not familiar with this particular songwriter's political leanings, but it does appear she had anti-Thatcher sentiments. She chose this event to parody the "hypocrisy of Thatcher's U.K. leadership" (3).

The reference to Madame George does appear to be an homage to the Van Morrison song. (4). -D. Wu 19:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Polabians

Thanks for your advice. I have thought it over, and I'm going to leave the articles where they are, and do a partial merge instead. -- Naive cynic 00:09, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Shtokavian dialect/language problems

Hello, I am glad to see one active linguist here :) There are a lot of linguistic problems (not only related to ex-YU languages) and I am sure that I would ask for help in other cases, too (I think that it is necessary to have some kind of "linguistic consultants" on Meta for problems related to multilingualism). (Btw, I am studing linguistics for a long time and I think that we would be colagues in the next year :) ) Also, thanks for voting for deletion of Zlatiborian hoax :) --millosh (talk (sr:)) 16:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

As I saw, you are very good introduced into Slavic languages (not only to Celtic :) ) and this can be very helpful. The main problem of articles related to so called "Serbo-Croatian linguistic area" is bad description of language terms with a lot of influence of politics (from 19th century up today for sure). If we forget stories about creating of national identities of Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins; we still have completely other group of problems which are related to simplification of linguistic geography of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 16:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

During communist era in Yugoslavia (1945-1990), political mainstream strongly forced the idea of one "Serbo-Croatian language". Even all standard languages in the last 150 years are Shtokavian-based, "Serbo-Croatian language" included three completely different language systems: Chakavian, Kaykavian and Torlakian. This situation made a lot of mess in contemporary description of spoken languages -- Kaykavian, Chakavian, Shtokavian, Torlakian; as well as in description of standard languages -- Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian (and, possibly Monenegrin in the future). There are a lot of logical errors such as constatations that "standard Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian belongs to standard Serbo-Croatian". --millosh (talk (sr:)) 16:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I am asking you to help me to remove that mess. Please, look at my comments (at the end of the pages) at Talk:Serbo-Croatian language (the article is very POV; i.e. it is written with a lot of influence of Yugoslavian communist propaganda) and Talk:Shtokavian dialect (please, consider classifications; this is the center of this post) and comment them. Thanks in advance. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 16:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Political religion

On political religion's vfd, you said "neologism, original research." I'd encourage you to look again at the article after revisions I made. Rd232 07:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Irish Wikipedians' notice board

Hi, I noticed that you've made a few edits on Ireland related pages. Perhaps you would be interested in this: Wikipedia:Irish Wikipedians' notice board. Seabhcán 19:14, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Native speaker competence

Hi! You stated at Template talk:User en that 'If you start learning a language once you're over the age of about eight to ten, you're never going to have true native speaker competence, no matter how well you speak the language.' That has been used as a basis to keep the wording of Template:User en-4 as 'speaks English at a near-native level' (see the template talk page). But what about people who indeed have started studying a language before that age?

Myself, I started to study English at the age of six (I think), and I consider myself as having English skills directly comparable to those of a native speaker. When I came across the Babel templates on Wikipedia, that was one possible criterion for User en-N (I see it has been changed since then). I know many other people who could easily pass as native speakers of English, and I believe that 'near-native' is not a sufficient description for their English skills. I think the wording should be changed to 'native' (it used to be like that at some point), Template:User en-3 being perhaps better for 'near-native' speakers), but since you are being cited as an authority on the matter, could you maybe comment on this? - ulayiti (talk) 19:46, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Reference desk

Hi there! I wonder if you could check out the new reference desk here at WP:RD. In particular, there is a new "language" desk at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language (or use their shortcuts WP:RD/L or WP:RD/LANG). It used to be a "grammar desk" but was moved so that it would be a subpage under the reference desk. I'm hoping that it can become a good place for Wikipedians to ask general questions about languages, grammar, foreign languages, et cetera...Do you think you could put it on your watchlist and help out as you see fit? Thanks for your help! --HappyCamper 15:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)