User talk:J. 'mach' wust

If you put something here, I'll answer it here.

Welcome

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If you have any questions, you can ask at the help desk or on my talk page. Two useful tips are that you can sign your name using four tildes (~~~~) and you can preview your changes before you save using the show preview button. You can regularly find new tips on the Community Portal. I look forward to reading your great articles and I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian. :) Angela. 11:47, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I'm getting along fine! Actually, I'm a litter more engaged on the German wikipedia. J. 'mach' wust 09:23, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

"German" pages

Hi! It would be great if you gave the "German" pages a look. German language, German spelling reform of 1996, ß, etc. I have started poking around a bit, but (1) some more drastic changes would be nice, and (2) things are more fun if more people are editing the same page.Thore 13:01, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry I've overlooked this message since I barely ever look at my user page but only at this user:talk page when a message pops up that there's been left a message.

I don't see a need for drastic changes. J. 'mach' wust 19:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Walser/Walliser

Excuse me, you completely re-wrote the article on the Walser (or Walscher) people and dialect, but what you apparently don't know is that the term Walser (or Walscher) is reserved for the people who left the upper Valais (or Wallis) canton in the Middle Ages (except for Simplon which is part of the same canton but is on the other side of the Alpine watershed), as opposed to those who stayed, who are called Walliser. Ask any Walliser and they will tell you as much. (I just checked the other day with someone who lived all her life in Leukerbad and Brig.) The two groups are considered distinct. So, now you've hijacked the article on the Walser and changed it into an article on the Walliser (including the Walser, but without making any distinction between the two groups). I strongly recommend that you undo all your changes and start a new article on the Walliser (with all the valuable information you've added) and restore the article on the Walser to what it was before you so radically altered it. Thank you very much. Pasquale 17:49, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK, I read your message and saw your changes. I understand what you're saying about the Walser diaspora speaking a rather diverse group of dialects rather than a language. And I've studied enough dialectology (including German dialectology) to know what you're talking about. While in a strict dialectological sense, you are most probably quite correct, the fact remains that a lot of sources, including the Ethnologue (a link is available on the Walser page), consistently classify Walser as a separate "language" from Alemannic, possibly simply to underscore the distinctive Walser ethnic identity. This identity is very strong and it specifically identifies the diaspora, all the way from Haute-Savoie to Tyrol, but not the Walliser who stayed in Wallis. This is a very common phenomenon all around the world (e.g. the Cajuns of Louisiana vs. the Acadians who stayed behind in New Brunswick), so it's no surprise that it should be so. Historical and political considerations often trump a strictly dialectological classification and it makes sense that it should be so. Otherwise, if you were to apply a strictly dialectological approach, you would have to say that there is no Dutch language, but that Dutch is simply part of the Low German dialect continuum. While that is technically correct, it would not be very "politically correct" and it would get you into a lot of trouble. Regards, Pasquale 17:00, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Grüetzi. Believe me, it's not just me affirming that the Walser have a strong sense of ethnic identity. It is themselves! And they make a big deal out of it. Just do a Google search for Walser and you will find several websites about the Walser diaspora. Try this one, for example: http://www.wir-walser.ch/de/walser/. I understand what you say about the dialects slowly dissolving into their neighboring German dialects. Of course, when they do so, they are no longer Walser dialects. In Graubünden, for example, you can find the complete range from rather well-preserved Walser dialects to others that are Walser in name only (i.e. in the ethnic origin of the population), but are otherwise assimilated to the adjacent Nicht-Walserisch Bündnerisch dialects. So, my impression is that it is more of an ethnic than a linguistic thing. As for the Ethnologue, did you notice it also sets up an Alemannic dialect spoken in Venezuela ("Colonia Tovar") as a separate language? Now, isn't that all the more ridiculous? But when it comes to the Walser, I assure you I have seen it classified (rightly or wrongly) as a separate language in many other linguistic sources, although I am sorry I can't give you references right now. Anyway, I am not disagreeing with you, I am just reporting what seems to be some kind of consensus out there, which, as I repeat, may well be more ethnically than linguistically based. So, let's leave it at that. Pasquale 20:54, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Swedish disputes

At RfC I listed:

• Talk:Rikssvenska, Talk:Swedish language, Talk:Swedish phonology, Talk:Voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative, and most probably soon in more related articles, souring relations between contributors with conflicting attitudes and personalities (likely related, among other things, to the status of Finland-Swedish and the Mandatory Swedish education in Finland)

I guess this is a field where you can weight in as a moderating force.

Regards!
--Johan Magnus 09:59, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Phonetics project

I'm trying to get some activity in the Phonetics project going. I've organized the project page and added some links and templates. Anyone who feels they're interested in phonetics, come and have a look. The more the merrier. Peter Isotalo 15:09, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Moves of language variety names to "(variety name) (parent language name)"

I'm moving articles on linguistic varieties to a name according to the de-facto standard of naming varieties as common among English varieties (see List of dialects of the English language), for instance Silesian dialect to Silesian German, Swabian language to Swabian German or Low Alemannic to Low Alemannic German. Here are the main reasons (since I cannot find again the reasons I explain on the move page):

• Avoiding the quarrel of language vs. dialect.
• Uniformity of naming conventions.
• Avoiding the quarrel of single variety vs. (sub)group of varieties.

-- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 11:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with this campaign.

• First, remember that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
• Second, it does NOT solve the language versus dialect quarrel, but promotes it by suggesting that dialects are "varieties" of a standard language and grouping them with it.
• Third, as the list of dialects of the English language shows, there is no de-facto standard for English. Please also have a look at Category:Languages of Italy.
• Fourth, failing commonly used English names for the dialects, the name in the original language should have some meaning here. The policy you are enacting here to add "German" to all of the page does does not conform to the names commonly used for the dialects in German, where the ending "-deutsch" is absolutely the exception (Schweizerdeutsch and Plattdeutsch are the only exceptions to the rule coming to mind). Martg76 18:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I apologize for the straightforward proceding. I confess I also wanted at last a discussion. Anyway, Wikipedia:Be bold!

1. I believe it is possible in linguistics to make a fair distinction between languages and dialects based on the Ausbausprache-Abstandsprache distinctions. I don't believe the linguistic majority opinion will match people's feelings, but I consider wikipedia should take the linguists side. I don't question there'll always be some linguists that don't share the linguistic majority opinion, yet these are few (I've for instance never seen a linguist defend the POV that Swiss German is a language of its own).
2. I'm conscient of that. However, I hope that the XXX (parent language) naming scheme will be mor acceptable for either point of view than the schemes XXX dialect or XXX language.
3. There are, however, very few exceptions: If you follow the links on the list of dialects of the English language, you'll see that most links with naming schemes other than XXX English don't lead to varieties of English, but to places or social groups.
4. This might be a bias of where I live, since the vast majority of Swiss German dialects are named XXXdeutsch (Züridütsch, Bärndütsch, Baseldütsch, Luzärndütsch, Solothurner Dütsch, Senslerdütsch, ...). Additionally, I think the parent language name is helpful in an international context. Even a person who knows about Silesia, for instance, may be unable to guess what language a Silesian dialect belongs to.

-- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 19:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I am not a linguist (just interested in languages and dialects), so I suppose you are much more competent on these issues. My impression was that linguists didn't distinguish between languages and dialects, meaning that a standard language was more or less just a particularly prestigious dialect. In any case, wouldn't it more in line with Wikipedia policy to use the most common names (in English, if possible) for the dialects? Martg76 21:52, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure about it. There's the case of Alemannisch, for instance. I dislike Alemannic languages, since there is not a single Alemannic Ausbausprache. Still, others may dislike Alemannic dialects. I fear the short name Alemannic will be expanded sooner or later to Alemannic language by someone who imposes the current naming convention for languages.

In the case of Fränkisch, it's even more complicated, since there acutally are some Ausbausprachen: Dutch, Afrikaans, Luxembourgish. However, many Fränkisch dialects are associated with the German standard language rather than with one of these Franconian languages. So Franconian languages might be chosen, but making sure it includes seperate languages as well as German dialects.

Even more complicated is the case of Moselfränkisch. This includes not only German dialects, but also the Ausbausprache Luxembourgish language. So the plural languages seems unfitting, as there's only one language in the group, but for the same reason, dialects is unfitting as well, and Moselle Franconian German might offend the Luxembourgish. Simply Moselle Franconian in this case? -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 12:50, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think these examples illustrate that the assignment of dialects to standard languages is arbitrary and mainly a matter of politics. In view of that, wouldn't it be better to just name the pages "Allemanic", "Moselle Franconian" etc.? Just watch the pages and make sure noone moves them. Martg76 22:37, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

That might be better, though I think these words might also be used in reference to other things than the linguistic varieties, so it would be difficult not to have them moved. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 02:31, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

A, I see that there already has been some more discussion. I have responded to your proposal over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (languages). Cheers, — mark ✎ 07:55, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

Hello J. 'mach' wust,
I added my "support" vote to the move to Low Germanic languages. It was late in the evening when I voted and I had already made up my mind from the entry at WP:RM, so I didn't take much notice. Anyway, no harm done. Izehar 12:08, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Tengwar transcriber page

Hello J. 'mach' wust,
You removed the link to an interactive Tengwar transcriber I wrote from the Tengwar page with the motivation that it provides faulty transcriptions. I do not know what errors you are referring to, it would be more helpful if you would actually provide some detailed feedback, instead of simply dropping the link with only a cryptic message like that. I included my own email address on the transcriber page for that very reason. I'm not a Tengwar expert, as evidenced by my misunderstanding the difference between Tengwar and Quenya, but my transcriber is based on information from this page, which does seem to be written by someone more knowledgeable than me.

Antiqua-Fraktur-Streit

I have done a draft translation of the German article de:Antiqua-Fraktur-Streit and created Antiqua-Fraktur-dispute (not too happy about the name). Since you were the one requesting it in the first place, do you mind giving me some feedack on this, of which I truly am no expert and in need of help.

Thanks

ACH 20:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Äuä

Would you be willing to record a sound sample of "Äuä" for the Äuä article? Preferably in the OGG Format --Godtvisken 21:52, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I hope nobody will note my non-Bernese accent. Note however that I've chosen my preferred spelling: Media:Äuwä.ogg. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 09:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. It seems you have greatly revised the article itself as well. --Godtvisken 17:18, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Still not really sure whether this should have its own article. Well, there's that famous show by Massimo Rocchi... and methinks it's very improbable that there would be any Bernese German wiktionary entries... ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 18:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Low Germanic languages

Hi. I noticed that 83.109.159.8 apparently favors the title Low German languages instead of Low Germanic languages, as he pointed out at the very bottom of the talk page. Then, he preceded to create a new page at Low German languages [1] and make Low Germanic languages redirect to that page. [2]. I reverted his edits, but I'm not sure if that was the correct thing to do. What do you think? --Khoikhoi 23:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you've done allright to revert since the move to Low Germanic languages was based on a move request (though it didn't call much interest). ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 13:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

German-speaking Wikipedians' board

Hallo! I'd like to make you aware of the recently-created Wikipedia:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board. Please feel free to help with the project if you're interested! Olessi 04:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Or just update our to-do list of Swiss topics -- the board is a bit too Germany-centric right now, and more Swiss posters would be a great help. Kusma (討論) 13:28, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Bernese German

Gruess dich, Auf deiner Benutzerseite schreibst du dass du Bernese German sprichst, which has the rare feature among Germanic languages that consonant and vowel length are independent from each other. (Denglisch bitte verzeihen). Wo kann ich weiteres zu diesem Thema finden? Beispiele waeren hilfreich, um den Kontrast schoen verstaendlich zu machen. Vielen dank! Adam Mathias 05:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Adam Mathias

There's a sample at Bernese German phonology#Consonant length. Be warned, however, that this is rather a poor article, because it has had only one contributor so far (me). I've added the same samples to Swiss German#Suprasegmentals. If you're looking for linguistic research of segmental quantity in Bernese German, I'm afraid none has been published, but there are two works on closely related High Alemannic German dialects which have identical segmental quantity oppositions:

• Astrid Kraehenmann [sic] (2003): Quantity and Prosodic Asymmetries in Alemannic. Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-017680-7

• Urs Willi (1996): Die segmentale Dauer als phonetischer Parameter von ‚Fortis‘ und ‚Lenis‘ bei Plosiven im Zürichdeutschen. Eine akustische und perzeptorische Untersuchung. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. ISBN 3-515-06913-5

I hope that helps. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 18:05, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello Mach,

I once spent a year in school in Solothurn and was "immersed" in that dialect. Are you aware of any features that distinguish Solothurner from Bernese? Also is there any good reference on Bernese other than Marti, which seems very hard to find at a reasonable price. Thanks! Tom Gewecke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.192.255.23 (talk) 00:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I have a history of not being very good at recognizing Solothurn dialect... I know of two features that are different: The Solothurn dialect shows some influence of the de:Binnendeutsche Konsonantenschwächung, that is, fortis at word onset are lenized (lenitized?). And /aː/ is rounded to /ɔː/ (or /oː/?). But then, these two features occur also in Northern Bernese German, that is to say, in the Oberaargau (a region of the Canton of Bern, not the Aargau). That region is adjacent to the Canton of Solothurn, but I guess that people living there would recognize some features that might distinguish betwenn Oberaargau and Solothurn dialects.

But that said, I believe that there is quite some deal of dialectal differenciation within the Canton of Solothurn, corresponding to its geographic differnciation, if you will.

I don't know of other Bernese German grammars. Well, there is a kind of Gotthelf grammar, but that is really based on Gotthelf's literature, not on actual Bernese German, and it is in a very 19th-centuryish tradition not at its height, and must be definitly much harder to get than Marti. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 06:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks much, Mach! It turns out someone has actually done an article on Solothurner in the de wikipedia, which I found by accident searching around.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solothurner_Dialekt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.192.255.23 (talk) 22:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I hadn’t seen that article before. However, it seems not to be very informative beyond what I’ve just said. It doesn’t even point out that the features of de:Solothurner Dialekt#Region Solothurn are found as well in the neighbouring Bernese Oberaargau. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 07:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Manx language

Es ist wahrscheinlich besser, wenn wir diesen Troll nicht mehr füttern. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Paul Martin's page

Hi,

LOL!!!! I am getting tired, I think.  :) All fixed now, but thanks so much for catching that -- it could have been a big headache later! Best wishes, Xoloz 18:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Minor Barnstar
		The changing of "Low Germanic" to "Low Saxon-Low Franconian", requires hundreds tiny edits to articles that need to be equiped with the new terminology.For your great work so far I award you, J. 'mach' wust the Barnstar of minor edits. Rex 13:24, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, thanks a lot. Well, it was me in the first place who promoted the names Low Germanic and High Germanic, so I'm feeling responsible to clean up that naming. I hope the current solution with High German languages and Low Saxon/Low Franconian (and Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages) may last longer... ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 18:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Dawnstar

I would gladly award you a Dawnstar as well, if I knew how, since you are about to enlighten me on:

Dageraed oft Nieuwe opkomst der geneeskonst in verborgen grondt-regelen der natuere (1659)

This is the title of Van Helmont's treatise on medicine written for a general public in the 17th century. We both made a link to it's linguistic roots (Henry de Boulainviller): me absolutely clueless, you with enviable expertise. I now send you this reference to allow you to be absolutely correct. I am from flemish origin and my interest in the history of the language is genuine if -untill your appearance- unguided. Middle Saxon it is ?

With friendly greetings, (Lunarian 10:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC))

Having a closer look at Henry de Boulainviller, it seems more likely to be Middle Dutch, I suppose, but I can't reassure you about that. It was a more or less mechanical change by me, without much thought. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 17:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Dawnstar awarded ! Well deserved ! Thank you. (Lunarian 10:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC))

Low Germanic

The edit you made on the History of the Netherlands doesn't link to an article. Also, Low Germanic could be considered as a language in the Middle Ages and even nowadays. Being Dutch, i understand all the sentences portrayed in it. I have to admit that in my view, Afrikaans could be considered as a dialect of Dutch or Low Germanic.--Daanschr 18:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that was my mistake. Since the article name was changed, I changed the links as well, but in this case, I made a mistake. I hesitated whether I should replace it by Low Saxon in this article, since it seems to the varieties spoken in areas that were formerly Frisian-speaking are considered Low Saxon, not Low Franconian (Dutch), but I'm not very sure about that. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 22:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that Franconian is a wrong term to describe the Dutch language since a large part of contemporary Germany is Franconian as well: Northen Bavaria, Hesse, parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and parts of North-Rhineland-Westphalia.--Daanschr 22:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, i just discovered that the term low germanic has been changed into Low Saxon-Low Germanic Languages, so we are talking about the same topic.--Daanschr 22:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Graian and Pennine Alps

Hi, since you're interested in the Alps, we're having a discussion at Talk:Pennine Alps about the limits of the Graian and Pennine Alps. For instance, is Mont Blanc part of the Graian Alps? Do you know something about that? Markussep 11:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I can't help you. I don't have much knowledge of the mountain chaines names outside of the canton of Berne. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 16:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed your edit

Hi, was too busy licking my battle scars from the latest (very tedious, idiotic and unpleasant) edit war and somehow missed your message. Here is a source from the Oxford companion to English literature (OR?) which supports the "Low German" theory. I have not found a single academic source thats uses this weird "Low Saxon-Low Franconian" monster. Ulritz 12:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I'd be more interested in the article that article points to, German language, history of. Also, it's not a book of linguistics, but of literature. So I wouldn't give this source more credit than the ethnologue, which up to now has been the only source found here on wikipedia for that concept (though it's called Low German-Low Franconian there). ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 13:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

"Variation in German: A Critical Approach to German Sociolinguistics", Stephen Barbour, Patrick Stevenson

"Language and Nationalism in Europe", Stephen Barbour, Cathie Carmichael

Two more. Oxford authors have such fine works at their disposal. Basing Wikipedia articles on Ethnologue is playing with fire, I'm afraid. Ulritz 13:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Citing from Wikipedia:Reliable sources:

“When reporting that an opinion is held by a particular individual or group, the best citation will be to a direct quote, citing the source of the quote in full after the sentence, using a Harvard reference, a footnote, or an embedded link. See WP:CITE for more details.” ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 13:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Page Move

This has been fixed. Could you kindly remind Ulritz not to move pages like this ever again or point out the page move button? It is really tedious to fix. pschemp | talk 15:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Already done so. Thanks a lot! ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 15:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Languages

Hi There! Can you translate my name in what language you know please, and then post it Here. I would be very grateful if you do (if you know another language apart from English and the ones on my userpage please feel free to post it on) P.S. all th translations are in alpahbetical order so when you add one please put it in alpahbetical order according to the language. Don't add any more silly languages please. PLEASE answer it on my talk page Thanks!!! Abdullah Geelah 18:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:POP

See Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups and my monobook.js. BTW, see also Help:User style and my monobook.css.

Low/High German/Germanic/Saxon etc :)

Thank you for all these contributions! --MaEr 16:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the positive feedback. I was rather expecting furious reverts... Anyway, I've contributed a good part to that mess, so I wanted to clean up – well, I wanted that from the beginning, but now these articles are on a better way, I hope. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 17:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for your answer on the Low German Talk page. I thought it was only about the sentence "A broader term for the entire West Germanic language family unaffected by the High German consonant shift, thus including Low Franconian varieties such as Dutch as well as Anglo-Frisian." which Ulritz edited by changing "entire" into "closely related" and by deleting "as well as Anglo Frisian". Now, I was not aware that Low German may be take a meaning that includes English and Frisian, so I rather thought Ulritz do be right here.

Pommersch

Hello! I have created Pommersch to differentiate from "Pomeranian language", where the info had been for some time. I wasn't sure what the best title should be- Pommersch, Pomeranian dialects, Pomeranian (German dialects) etc., so I just went with Pommersch. Please feel free to correct, rename, update etc., as you seem quite knowledgeable about German dialects. Olessi 22:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd have preferred Pomerian German, but you were first. ;) ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 07:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC) -- j. 'mach' wust

I don't accept Pommersch as a name in English either, and you gave in too easily; I think this should, in fact, be corrected. Had included additional comments here at first, but actually, they belong at User talk:Olessi so I moved them. Mathglot 07:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

German orthography

Bravo for your edit of 02:45, 13 March 2006. Your English is excellent, but here and there are some minor issues.

In the title, History of the German Orthography, English does not use the definite article for intangibles (History of Medicine, History of American Literature) and so I've removed it.

The second issue concerns this sentence:

In the following centuries, the only variety that showed a marked tendency to be used overregionally was the Middle Low German of the Hanseatic League, based on the variety of Lübeck and used in many areas of Northern Germany.

There is no such word as overregional in English. Were you thinking ueberregionalisch or some such concept here, perhaps? You could use "interregionally", which does exist and wouldn't be wrong, but it isn't used much. A typical formulation here in English might be, 'across different regions', at least for the first occurrence, so that's how I've left it. In a couple of other cases, I put "interregional" and in others I substituted "common" instead, which seemed to fit the meaning there, and is shorter than repeating the same word again.

But please check it out, and feel free to substitute 'interregionally' if you feel it better captures the idea you were trying to express, as long as you get the fact that an English-speaking reader may not have seen this word before.

By the way, I first came across this article from the Wiki requests for translations page, but this doesn't seem to be a translation of the Deutsche Rechtschreibung page at all, in fact, it has almost nothing to do with it. Which is fine, as the article is a good one about its own topic, but I question the inclusion of the interwiki 'Deutsch' link pointing to the Rechtschreibung article, which I think should be removed. Is there a German Orthography article of which this is a translation?

Finally, many non-students of linguistics might be very interested in finding this article in Wiki. Unfortunately, the word 'orthography' in English, unlike its cognates in German, Fr, Es, etc., is a specialist's term, and many users would surely search under the phrase 'German spelling'. This, however, will not turn up any references to this article, although it should. Maybe we could create a new disambiguation page, or redirect page (I haven't done this yet so I have to learn how) in which the search 'German spelling' would allow the user to choose the page he actually wanted--whether this one, or the English version of Rechtschreibreform, or whatever they were actually looking for. Mathglot 06:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I think I wrote that section from scratch. I wouldn't remove the interwiki link since it's common practice that interwiki links need not lead to direct translations, but to reasonably corresponding articles, and in this case, there seems to be a pretty fair correspondence. You're right that there really should be a redirect from German spelling. Will you do it? It's quite easy, see Wikipedia:Redirect.

I wasn't aware that the word *overregional doesn't exist in English. The idea is that when writing emerges, only regional varieties will be written. In a second stage, certain varieties will expand so that they are written in other regions where people speak other varieties. That's what I've used the word *overregional for, as direct translation of überregional. I think the expression across different regions is a good substitute. The expression common, however, doesn't seem to be adequate in all cases, since speaking of a common variety rather seems to evoque a single variety that is spoken everywhere, whereas a variety accross different regions doesn't need to be spoken everywhere and there may be several of them at the same time. Leo suggests the word supraregional. What do you think of that? -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 08:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

No explanation necessary--I quite understood what you meant, because I backtracked in my mind from *overregional to probable überregional and substituted across different regions with nary a pause.

Actually, supraregional was the first word that came to mind, but I think it suffers from the possibility of misinterpretation since it's even rarer than interregional. When it did come to mind, it felt like a neologism, and I wasn't sure if I was creating it, or if it really existed (it does). As for common variety, it's true that this is less precise than across different regions or interregional but in the context of talking about a language spoken in different regions in the previous sentence or paragraph, common would be interpreted correctly. However, there's no reason to insist on it either, other than to avoid endless repetition of interregional, but if you feel that the latter is more precise and avoids misinterpretation, then I have no objection.

it's common practice that interwiki links need not lead to direct translations, but to reasonably corresponding articles, and in this case, there seems to be a pretty fair correspondence.

I buy the former, but not the latter--that was actually my point, namely, that while the two articles are related by the common thread of German spelling, after that, they part company and have almost nothing in common. To be linked by an Interwiki, the German article would have to have a table of pronunciations, in German of course, telling the student of German orthography/phonology how 'b' is pronounced in initial position (like /b/) and how it's pronounced in final postvocalic position (like /p/) and so on, for every letter. The concept of Deutsche Rechtschreibung has almost nothing to do with this. Conversely, the English article has absolutely nothing to do with Rechtschreibreform, apart from a single reference.

There is, in fact, an English article that almost (but not quite) corresponds to Deutsche Rechtschreibung, and it's called German spelling reform of 1996, which correctly points to the German article about the 1996 act. However, even this article, though much closer to the German Rechtschreibung one than the Orthography article, is still not a counterpart for it, and to my knowledge there is no exact English counterpart to the de:Deutsche Rechtschreibung. The German orthography article certainly is not it.

What we need, perhaps, is an English article on German Spelling Reform (or a generalization of the existing one about the 1996 Act), and an equivalent German article about German orthography that can be linked to from the existing English one. I studied up on redirects and disambiguation, and decided that the most appropriate for now is a disambiguation top link which I added to the Orthography page. Mathglot 10:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, that still didn't solve the search problem, so you're probably right that we still need a disambiguation or redirect page of its own at German spelling. Mathglot 11:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Style guidelines for sound pages

Hello. Recently CyborgTosser and I discussed and came up with proposed style guidelines for all the individual consonant and vowel pages wherein the Occurrence section would have a table rather than a bulleted list. You can see the discussion here. So far nobody else has commented on the proposed guidelines and I believe it's safer to get a solid consensus before undergoing the work to change so many pages. If you could comment on what has been proposed, even if it's a simple yay or nay, this would help us out quite a bit. Thank you very much. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch

Ich habe die Anmerkung auch in dem betreffenden Artikel gemacht. Es gibt kein Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch, der Dialekt heißt Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch. Ferner gehört Wendländisch nicht zu diesem Dialekt. Falls Du Dich darüber informieren möchtest, dieses Problem ist auf der niederdeutschen Wikipedia ausführlich diskutiert wurden (allerdings auf Platt) [3]. --89.53.45.236 22:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Hoi

Just out of curiosity, is Swiss German still on your watchlist? I just compared your last entry with the current version, and, well, the result wasn't as sobering as I expected, but not entirely satisfactory either. Take care. (I'll give it a shot in a few days, but some of the added elements might be relevant while also deserving some educated rewording... oh, and I'm aware of WP:OWN, but still, you know, much appreciated :-) ...) ---Sluzzelin talk 15:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

prononciation de l'allemand

In den französischen Seiten hast du in den Artikel "prononciation de l'allemand" in ein Paar Linien phonetische Zeichen, die nicht lesbar sind, hineingeschrieben: das zweite Zeichen von den Linien brutal Dürre essen Atem Nabel Räuber Gans Hase und die erste Linie von Aktion. Wenn ich aber diese Zeichen in ein Text-Dokument kopiere, dann werden sie lesbar. Warscheinlich kommt das von Wikipedia selbst,und deshalb ist es vielleicht auf deinem Komputer nicht bemerkbar, gerade weil du sie selbst geschrieben hast. Willst du sie ändern oder soll ich das selbst versuchen? --Gad Zorbert 20:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Je vais essayer de le corriger. Je pense que c'est plutôt un problème de browser. Certains browser sont capables d'élégir un fonte de caractères appropriée eux-mêmes, mais il y a toujours des browsers qu'il faut instruir sur chaque fonte. Pour ce problème, on a des template/modèle. Il semble que dans la wikipédia française, on utilise le fr:Modèle:APIb en ce cas. En ce moment, je suis un peu handicappé parce-que mon éditeur de textes préféré ne fonctionne plus et je ne peus modifier des document en unicode que dans mon browser, mais je peus corriger les mots que tu m'as dit. -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 10:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Vielen Dank für die Verbesserungen. Alles ist jetzt sehr shön anzusehen in diesem Artikel. Es fehlt nur noch ein Hörbeispiel der verschiedenen Phoneme. Wenn du das kannst, wäre es sehr schön, die Tabelle damit zu ergänzen. Wenn du das selbst nicht kannst, schreibe mir zurück. Freundliche Grüße aus Frankreich.--Gad Zorbert 22:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Unicode Latin

Template:Unicode Latin has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — ✉Hello World! 06:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

IPA k͡p

Warum hast Du z.B. k͡p statt kp͡ in Template:Consonants geschrieben? Wenn ich mich nicht irre, das wäre richtiger und schöner. BartekChom 13:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The correct form is k͡p. Due to a bug in Arial Unicode, the incorrect form kp͡ will look right on many Windows systems, see the note at the bottom of IPA#Affricates_and_double_articulation: "If your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better due to a bug in that font: ts͡, tʃ͡, tɕ͡, dz͡, dʒ͡, dʑ͡, tɬ͡, kp͡, ɡb͡, ŋm͡." -- j. 'mach' wust ☛ ☏ 15:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Gut. Eigentlich habe ich das schon gelesen. BartekChom 11:38, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories for speakers of Alemannic

Ich frage mal beim Schöpfer von "Template:User als" nach wie man das wackere aber derzeit verlorene Häuflein der Alemannisch-Sprecher wieder in Kategorien "einfangen" kann. Momentan haben all die schönen Templates keine Kategorie mehr integriert, da herausgelöscht [4] in Folge von [5]. Das Kürzel "als" soll "entvölkert" und dann für Albanisch genutzt werden. Die Betroffenen sollen sich in ISO 639-3 Subkategorien (swg für schwaben, gsw für Eidgenossen, ...) einordnen, so wie ich es verstehe (kaum). Was machen wir nun? -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       03:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Grützi!

Bitte entschuldigt diesen dümmlichen Fehler um [ː] ([ˈχuχːiˌχæʃtli]). Ich weiss nicht mehr, was ich machen wollte… Ich werde was zu alt oder möglicherweise bekloppt!
Bald! vielleicht! ✓ Kanġi Oĥanko (talk) 14:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, no need for excuse at all! It is a strange notation. Not all use them. Some redouble the consonant sign instead; others use the plain voiceless sign but mark the lenis with a voiced sign instead, for instance [ˈʁʊχiˌʁæʒdli] or [ˈʁ̥ʊχiˌʁ̥æʒ̊tli] or something alike, or rather [ˈɣ̊ʊxiˌɣ̊æʃtli], as the allophonic uvularity is not usually notated.

But just as a sidenote: It's grüezi with the üe diphthong, but this is more of a Zürich greeting and in my place, people say grüessech instead. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 04:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

shorthand history book

Hi! I noticed you added Walter Kaden (2000), Neue Geschichte der Stenografie as a reference in the Shorthand article (already a few years ago). I have tried to find the book but no luck so far. Do you know whether the book is available in bookstores somewhere, or do you have any other advice for finding the book, preferably via mail order? --Ryhanen (talk) 10:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Possibly it's not available. I got it from Zürich or Basilea University library, and if I remember correctly, it looked kind of home-printed. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 07:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Internationalism (linguistics)

The article Internationalism (linguistics) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Tagged for no references since July 2009. "Internationalism" and "international word" do not appear to be terms used in linguistics, as confirmed by two Google Scholar searches [6] [7]. One source that mentions internationalism in linguistics is Piirainen (2005), who says the word is not specifically defined, but used "carelessly" in discussion of cross-language idioms.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Cnilep (talk) 16:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

WinFixes.css

Moved the class descriptions over. Let me know ASAP if you see any problems and I'll revert my changes.

Re: Lang-he-n

Hi J. 'mach' wust! I welcome any technological solution to the problem (even though I can't really see it myself). I can try what you suggested if it will actually help, but if you can actually test this, please make the changes you proposed. The bottom line is, the text must display as serif (preferrably SBL Hebrew or the David font, which is found in Windows) and be larger than regular text in order to see the diacritics. If you know of a way to do this without causing other problems, more power to you :) —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 12:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I am afraid I cannot do this because I am no administator. I would not hesitate to make the changes, but both pages that I have proposed to be changed on your talk page are protected, {{Lang-he-n}} and MediaWiki:Common.css/WinFixes.css.

I am also afraid there is no way to test this in advance. However, since the CSS stays the same, nothing should change on Windows. What is supposed to change is only that modern browsers would no longer be affected from this Windows fix. For instance, I could finally see the Hebrew characters in a nice serif font instead of the ugly Microsoft Sans Serif. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 12:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

BTW, if you are not sure what changes are required, I can ask Kwami again. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 12:41, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi again,

About Firefox on Mac OS X, the bug is knows and I think someone opened it in Bugzilla years ago, but apparently it's not important enough for them. I'll comment on it later (not home now). However, I can't reproduce the bug you are referring to on IE. For me the font looks great on IE. Can you send a screenshot of what the bug is like on IE?

In any case, if I have time later today, I'll try something else: simply change the Script/Hebrew template itself (or any template it transcludes—haven't checked the technical details yet) so that it simply uses a larger font; I think this should solve both problems. Not sure though, it could require some testing. I'll get back to you on the results.

Cheers, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 14:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

All three fonts you mentioned display Hebrew correctly, so it shouldn't be a problem. This is as long as we're talking about Mac OS only of course. Thank you for taking the time to fix this bug. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

sockpuppet editing

There is an open WP:SPI case looking at sockpuppet editing primarily on the Johann Hari/ Talk page. As you edited the Johann Hari/Talk page between 2004 and 2011, your input is welcomed.

Bernese Mountain Dog

Thank you. The edit summary was peculiar!!. (Not yours, the predecessors.) So emphatic that it was like an invasion! Having a dispassionate look from someone who understands the languages and the social nuances was very helpful. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:48, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Rabbits in the arts; Rabbits in the arts, German Wikipedia

J. 'mach' wust, I know this is outside your bailiwick, so I apologize for asking. Nevertheless, we could use your help on the English language version of the German Wikipedia article. Google will translate the article, but we need an interpretation, not a mere translation. If you could help, it would be appreciated. Of if you could recruit a 'volunteer' . . . Happy editing.

File:Sz modern.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Sz modern.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 21:53, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

IETF tags

There is currently no support for IETF tags. Is this something we have a complete list for? If we add support, will the tags be added consistently across articles? — kwami (talk) 19:10, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Please see Template talk:Infobox language#IETF language tag. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:13, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Do you have a ref for the tags, so we know they're legit? I.e., that de-AT is Austrian Standard German, the subject of the article, and not just Austrian German, the subject of other articles? — kwami (talk) 19:22, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources in IETF language tag. If you set a computer to de-AT, it will certainly not use some dialect, but standard German in the form that is used in Austria. Austrian German is the same as Austrian Standard German. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:40, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

No, they are not the same. "Austrian German" just means the German of Austria.

Yes, computer interface will be in the standard language. But that doesn't mean that the code is for the standard language. If you set it to Japanese, you will get standard Japanese, but that doesn't mean that the ISO code is restricted to the standard language. — kwami (talk) 20:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Censoring info

If you have an estimate, provide one. Otherwise stop deleting info. And no, not saying anything is not an "obvious" way to provide info to our readers. We provide info by actually providing it. — kwami (talk) 22:23, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Links: [8], Talk:Swiss Standard German#Sources for the claim that there are no estimates about number of native speakers?, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive295#User:Kwamikagami reported by User:ZH8000 (Result: blocked). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 14:08, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

IPA symbolization as OR

I am responding here to go along with Blueboar's request to let others respond at the Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard. You are right that, by itself, the examples listed at WP:OR cannot be concretely determined to be exhaustive. I went through the three examples to demonstrate that our IPA transcription symbolization does not fall into any of these three examples (original facts, original allegations, and original ideas). I then used our romanization policies to show that the practice of novel modifications of sourced transcription schemes has approval in the community, thereby showing that, although not spelled out, the de facto policy is that transcription does not require the sort of complete faithfulness to sources' transcription choices that you are asking for with our English IPA transcriptions. It thus follows that transcription choices are not material as WP:OR explains it and therefore does not qualify as original research.

Your response to my coverage of our romanization schemes was to fixate on how the modifications made the transcription systems more readable. But you are guilty here of equivocating original research with readability. Those are two separate things. As you have been arguing it, if a transcription system really falls under the purview of WP:OR, then it doesn't matter if it is more readable.

Thus, when you claim that ⟨aː⟩ representing the diaphoneme /æ/ or /ɑː/ is a new idea, you are either exhibiting a misunderstanding of what a diaphoneme is or arguing tautologically again. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:30, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I wonder whether we cannot understand each other because we have different views about what a symbol is. In the most basic model, a symbol is the close association of a form and a meaning or, in Saussure’s terms, a signifier and a signified (there other more complicated models of what a symbol is, but they might be considered to be expansion of this most basic model, see also Sign (semiotics) or Sign (linguistics)). It seems to me you are saying that for a symbol to pass WP:V, we only need a source for its signified (the meaning), but not for its signifier (the form). Is that a correct characterization of your POV?

Linguistic symbols are recursive, so the association of signifier and signified can happen on different levels. For what we are talking about, we might distinguish the following levels:

• On the single-symbol level, the signifier (form) may be a particular letter shape and the signified (meaning) a particular (dia)phoneme.
• On the transcription level, the signifier (form) may be a particular transcription scheme and the signified (meaning) the pronunciation of an utterance.
• On the article level, the signifier may be the form as regulated in the WP:MOS and the signified the content as regulated in WP:NPOV, V and OR.

If I understand your POV correctly, then you are saying that at the single-symbol level, WP:NPOV, V and OR only apply to the signified (meaning), but not to the signifier (form) – just as it does on the article level. In my POV, there are two reasons why this is a not the case:

1. It is a misunderstanding of what a symbol is. The symbol cannot be reduced to the signified (meaning). When you change the signifier (form), it is not the same symbol any more even if you keep the signified (meaning). Since a particular symbol is constituted by the close association of a particular signifier (form) and a particular signified (meaning), the source of the symbol must use the two in association. Otherwise, it would not be a source for that particular symbol, but only a source for its signified (meaning).
2. The different levels should not be confused. At the article level, WP:NPOV, V and OR may only apply on the signified (meaning) side. But this does not mean that it is the same at other levels. In WP:Core content policies, I have not seen any hint that the word “content” should be interpreted as a general restriction to the signified (meaning, content) at every possible level, thus exonerating the signifier (form) at, say, the single-symbol level from WP:V.

A symbol that is constituted by the close association of the signifier ⟨aː⟩ with the signified ‘diaphoneme /æ/ or /ɑː/’ is completely new, for all we know. I fail to see any tautology to this simple statement.

I am not equivocating original research with readability. As I have said, loss of readability is a “result” of original research (or of using an obscure minority POV): When we use a new pronunciation symbol, then readers cannot know it beforehand. They will first have to learn how the new symbol is used on Wikipedia. If they encounter the symbol outside of a Wikipedia context, they are at loss.

You have not yet shown that the any of the WP:Romanization schemes departs as radically from the sources as the Help:IPA for English scheme does, by introducing symbols that have never been used in this way before (for all we know). I assume they don’t. That is a sensible assumption because generally, people on Wikipedia care about WP:NOR.

OK then, so you no longer claim that “[o]ur transcription system is not material” [9]. Instead, you merely claim that it “does not fall into any of these three examples (original facts, original allegations, and original ideas)” [10]. I cannot follow. There are sources for the idea of using diaphomes, but in the relevant sources, diaphonemic symbols is only used sparingly. The CGEL, for instance, only uses ⟨ɪ⟩, but explicitly states that it will not use a diaphonemic analysis for /æ/–/ɑː/ (see citation in [11]). The only diaphonemes symbols that are typically used are ⟨ɪ⟩ and ⟨ʊ⟩. So far, there are no sources for the use of any other diaphonemic symbols. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:42, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I think you understand my perspective pretty well, with the caveat that the form/meaning distinction I have been making is specifically about V/OR, not NPOV. As I have said before, our concerns about NPOV have prompted us to adopt the diaphonemic approach as opposed to picking one variety.

From your articulation, it sounds like I have been using symbol to refer to what you are calling signifier. Changing the signifier, as you say, does not necessarily change the meaning. So if we maintain NOR standards on the meaning, but not the form, and thereby use novel symbols, we are treating the form as arbitrary. I don't see this as a problem.

Regarding ⟨aː⟩ there are three possible things that you may be disagreeing with:

1. Diaphonemes can be represented in the IPA with one symbol
2. There is a diaphoneme that is realized /æ/ in some varieties and /ɑː/ in others
3. This diaphoneme is represented with ⟨aː⟩.

Qualifying the third item as something needing a citation is mistakenly reading symbolization as an idea. The first item is true, as can be seen both at diaphoneme and in the CGEL, which does not only use ⟨ɪ⟩; it retains post-vocalic /r/ like GA but maintains the THOUGHT-LOT-PALM distinction like RP (Given the ubiquity of these phenomena, I would hardly call this "sparing"). The second point is also well-sourced, again in our diaphoneme article.

I understand what you are saying regarding the ways original research can lead to readability issues, but you can also have original research that is more readable. Being readable or not readable does not inherently stem from being original research. Again, arguing that the system is not readable is wholly different from whether it contains original research, even if you believe the latter leads to the former.

I still claim that our transcription system is not material. As you have pointed out, there is no definition of what "material" is at WP:OR. We are given three examples, none of which apply to our transcriptions. I have gleaned from our Romanization schemes that transcription is not material, though I could also point out to you (as others have done), that our policy on transcription of pronunciation is in the MoS, making it akin to our punctuation, spelling, and bolding in-house conventions. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 00:50, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

“Qualifying the third item as something needing a citation is mistakenly reading symbolization as an idea.” I do not follow – I even fail to see any argumentation. On what grounds should this justify that the signifier and its association to the signified need no WP:Verification? Why should it be a mistake? What arguments lead you to this statement? Please cite.

I have never objected to the first item. I have reservations about the second item. Nobody has yet provided any WP:Verification that an ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ diaphoneme or, if you will, a diaphoneme for the BATH lexical set has ever been used. The verification efforts have centered on the theoretical possibility of such a diaphoneme. Why should theoretical possibility count as verification? Please cite.

There are two important differences between the ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ diaphoneme and our treatment of /r/ or of THOUGHT–LOT–PALM: For one, our treatment of /r/ or of THOUGHT–LOT–PALM does not have to be described in terms of diaphonemes. Instead, our treatment of /r/ can also be described as representing the pronunciation of a rhotic variety, whereas our treatment of THOUGHT–LOT–PALM can also be described as representing the pronunciation that does not have either the father–bother merger or the cot–caught merger – and indeed, that is how the CGEL describes such things, never using the outdated term diaphoneme. By contrast, the ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ diaphoneme needs to be described in terms of a diaphoneme because there is apparently not a single variety where it corresponds to a distinct vowel of its own. Secondly, our treatment of THOUGHT–LOT–PALM (but not our treatment of /r/) is WP:Verified by the pan-dialectal transcription of the CGEL, while the ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ diaphoneme is not – the CGEL explicitly does not use a ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ diaphoneme.

You have still not shown that pronunciation symbols are “presentation”, not “material”. I am sorry I have to repeat this: I have already told you that you have failed to show that none of the three examples you cited apply to pronunciation symbols (see [12], [13]) and I have already told you that you have not shown any precedence in the WP:Romanization schemes for the introduction of whole new symbols (see [14], [15], [16], [17]). A mere repetition of your claims does not address the concerns I have expressed about them. If you cannot address my concerns, then we should agree to disagree about whether pronunciation symbols are material or presentation. Then, we agree that (a) the contested pronunciation symbols are original research (at least “[i]n the strict sense” [18]), (b) all pronunciation symbols are arbitary, and (c) the choice of pronunciation symbols is relevant (see [19]). We disagree whether (d) pronunciation symbols are “material” or “presentation”.

Also, it is not true “that our policy on transcription of pronunciation is in the MoS”. For one, the MOS is no policy. More importantly, the MOS does not justify or explain anything about the way we transcribe English. Instead, it links to Help:IPA for English. That is why I did not put the Template:Original research on the MOS page, but on Help:IPA for English. If you think repeating the Template:Original research on the MOS page would be helpful, I would be happy to oblige.

I doubt that there is “original research that is more readable”. And it is very obvious that original research is not the only cause for bad readability. What matters to this discussion is that our original reasearch pronunciation symbols are a bad choice because they can impact readability. If someone with a moderate knowledge of the IPA consults the article Sudan because they want to know the English pronunciation, they may easily conclude that /suˈdaːn/ is pronounced with the PALM vowel, not with the TRAP vowel. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 09:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm repeating my arguments because you seem to be having trouble understanding them. I'm getting a definite WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT vibe from you. When I make an argument that is composed of multiple parts, you discuss the parts in isolation and act as though the weaknesses you focus on are not addressed in the other parts. You also constantly make these strange meta-arguments where, if my argument is not convincing, you state that I have failed to convince you as if the issue is suddenly closed.

It is getting tiresome that you aren't even being consistent. Symbols aren't arbitrary, except when they are. Except when they aren't. You have a problem with original research, except when it doesn't impact readability, but you are concerned with original research because you believe it leads to readability issues, except when it doesn't, in which case it is fine.

On top of this, you have been arguing about diaphonemes when you don't even have a basic understanding of what they are. Let me spell it out for you: you are mistaking diaphoneme for symbolization of a diaphoneme. As our article diaphoneme says in the first sentence, a diaphoneme is "an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties..." This means that a diaphoneme is the identified correspondence between two sounds, not the symbolization of that correspondence. With this definition, it doesn't matter if CGEL doesn't use the term diaphoneme because they are, indeed, using a diaphonemic transcription. Another term for it is polylectal grammar as it encodes for multiple varieties.

Finally, you ask me to cite policy. When I cite the MoS, you make the absurd claim that the MoS I cite isn't really policy because it's not one of the five pillars. The point is that it's a style issue, which is why it's in the style guide. Trying to further pick apart our policy on pronunciation from WP:OR will be fruitless; WP:OR doesn't talk about pronunciation transcription because it's a style issue. If the MoS doesn't justify the style to your liking, it doesn't suddenly make it not a style issue. It shouldn't have to anyway. That justification occurs in Wikipedia's talk pages. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

If I have given you the impression that I am ignoring your arguments, I apaologize. Please be assured that this is not my intention. On the contrary: I am trying hard to understand your POV and ask you questions that are relevant and go straight to the roots of our disagreement. I want to understand why our POVs are so different.

“[Y]ou are mistaking diaphoneme for symbolization of a diaphoneme.” Now that is an interesting line of thought. I think the same of you: You fail to distinguish between abstract diaphonemes as a mere concept and actual diaphoneme symbols like the one we suggest in Help:IPA for English. That is what I was getting at with the signifier–signified distinction: Abstract diaphonemes are pure signified (meaning), whereas actual diaphoneme symbols consist of the close association of a signified (meaning) with a signifier (form). What you have cited from the article diaphoneme applies to abstract diaphonemes (it explicitly says they are “an abstract […] unit”). The original research challenge applies to the actual diaphoneme symbols that are being used in the article space. Why do you think this is about abstract concepts and not about symbols in actual use? Why do you think this is only a style issue? Why do you think pronunciation symbols are merely presentation? I have the strong feeling that all these questions lead to the core of your POV, but I fail to see how you get there. Please help me understand.

I see only now that your “reading symbolization as an idea” refers to the same distinction between abstract diaphonemes and actual symbols that I have just discussed in the previous paragraph. I am sorry I did not get it the first time. Please accept my apologies. It is just that your POV is very strange to me, where actual symbols (signified AND signifier) are totally off limits for some reason I do not understand. What is that reason?

Minor points: How are the weaknesses that I have pointed out in parts of your argument addressed in the other parts? It would be much easier if I knew what you are referring to. My meta-argument is not strange. The situation is simple: I have initiated an original research challenge against some of the pronunciation symbols that are being used in the article space. In order to answer the challenge, those who want to keep the symbols have to prove that there is no original research. That is a real policy I have cited repeatedly WP:BURDEN. To me, it looks almost as if you have chosen to ignore this policy.

Why are you accusing me of inconsistency? “Symbols aren't arbitrary, except when they are.” I have never said such a thing. Symbols are arbitrary. But arbitrariness is only one side of the coin. The other side is conventionality. If symbols were entirely arbitrary, there would be no way anybody could possibly understand anybody else’s symbols. Conventionality does not mean that there is no arbitariness. Arbitrariness does not mean that there is no conventionality. – – “You have a problem with original research, except when it doesn't impact readability”. I have never said such a thing. Original research has to be removed, whether it impacts readability or not (though I cannot think of any case where it would not impact readability). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:39, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Your inconsistency is quite clear from the beginning. For example, you said at Help talk:IPA for English:

"The symbols are certainly not arbitrary. Why should they be arbitrary?."

When Kwami called you out on this and said that symbols were, by definition, arbitrary, you doubled down:

"I don't care for your self-proclaimed definitions."

Yet just a few days later at the OR noticeboard, you switched:

"the signs are not just arbitrary, but also conventional."

That's an interesting twist. Perhaps you realized you were in error in this regard but that there was still merit in your position. But then here in this conversation you have made the argument that IPA symbols are inherently tied to the meaning they convey, meaning they're not arbitrary.

Inconsistency continues when you reject appeals to IAR, but then appeal to common sense (which is what IAR is all about) and even cite WP:SYNNOT (a further appeal to common sense) in your rationalization of where you think OR should and should not be applied to.

If you want to understand my perspective, replace every instance of "symbol" in my comments with "signifier." I and all others have been using symbol to mean what you have been defining as form. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:41, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

You obviously have not understood the signifier–signified distinction. A signifier without a signified is just a meaningless shape. A signified without a signifier is just a formless hunch of a thought. Our ⟨aː⟩ is not a meaningless shape. Instead, it has the well-defined meaning ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’. Our ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ is not a formless hunch of a thought. Instead, it has the well-defined form ⟨aː⟩. The association of the form ⟨aː⟩ to the meaning ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ is a new invention recently introduced on the English Wikipedia. The form ⟨aː⟩ by itself is not original research. The meaning ‘/æ/ OR /ɑː/’ by itself might not be original research. What is original research is the association of the two in our symbol “/aː/”.

Your response to this original research challenge has not been what responses to original research challenges are supposed to be: Providing sources for the challenged material. Instead, you have tried to argue that pronunciation symbols are somehow exempt from the core content policies. It has been a waste of time, because you have failed to find any compelling reasons. Your argumentation always boils down to some assumption he cannot justify any further, e.g. “[o]ur IPA symbolization is merely the presentation of facts”. Why is our IPA symbolization merely the presentation of facts? Sure, that is true on the “transcription level” – but not on the “single-symbol level” (see [20]). You have completely missed my point that the original research challenge has been about the single-symbol level all along.

It is revealing that you are not even trying any more to find compelling arguments. Instead, you dwell on finding superficial contradictions. OK, I was wrong to say that “symbols are certainly not arbitrary” [21]. It was in response to a typical disruptive and unsourced kwami claim that the form of the pronunciation symbols is “irrelevant, since symbols are arbitrary” [22]. What I should have said that arbitrariness is not all there is to symbols, but that there is also conventionality at the same time (see [23], [24], [25], [26]). At any rate, I have never said anything along the lines of: “Symbols aren't arbitrary, except when they are. Except when they aren't.” [27]. That is a straw man.

The twists in your argumentation go much deeper. For instance, you have argued very strongly against my assertion that the choice of symbols matters [28], but then, you say the opposite: “Our choice of symbolization still matters, particularly to readers who we want to understand the system” [29]. It appears that the choice of symbols matters to you when it serves your argument, except when it doesn’t.

Your attempts at arguing that I am somehow rejecting common sense when I have really rejected WP:IAR are just another straw man. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 09:37, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Warning

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Please be particularly aware that Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. — kwami (talk) 22:40, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

It takes one to know one. Block log of kwami: [30]. Block log of myself: [31]. Now who of us is well-known to be a famous edit-warrior? Not me. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:51, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Please see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. The logic applies to criticism of editorial behavior as much as to deletion of content. Another way to put it: If I were convicted of stealing cars in 2014, it wouldn't make it legal for you to steal my car in 2015, nor wrong for me to file a police report about you joyriding in my convertible. >;-) The kind of "you can't criticize anything I do because you're not perfect" reasoning you're trying to apply is completely invalid. I have to urge you to drop the WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude with regard to this IPA stuff and other linguistic matters. I mostly agree with your position on this issue, but you're sabotaging the chance to build consensus toward resolving it, by verbally thrashing so much.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:40, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

When I do not agree with somebody else’s POV, I try to participate in the discussion and state my reasons instead of clogging their talk pages with warnings that do not explain anything. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

User talk is a proper venue for raising for airing disagreements with another user's PoV, and often the best for it. I agree that dropping a template warning here wasn't the most helpful approach, but a "not me! look how bad that guy is!" response (to an animate template) isn't too useful either. It's better to consider why such a notice would have been left here. It's not like it was randomly delivered by a lottery. Kwami raised pretty specific concerns, and you said you want to participate in discussion about PoV, so Kwami appears to be initiating discussion about your PoV.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:16, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

My experience with kwami’s warnings is that he uses them as one-off shots and does not follow up on them. He has been repeatedly extremely hurtful and disruptive against me. He is all over the place, so it is very difficult to counter his POV. Is there any good way of dealing with such an editor?

Look at the current situtation: Kwami’s change is on the template, and also another change that he added “per talk” [32] – even though I had opposed to it on the talk page. When I reverted, he just re-reverted, stating “take it to talk” [33]. Why yes, that is exactly what I had done, but he does not answer my objections or comment on my suggestions. How am I supposed to “take it to talk” then? While most appear to disagree with kwami on the talk page – yourself, Kanguole and me –, the template currently reflects kwami’s POV. I fear that it will continue to do so, because kwami is likely to be more prolific than the three of us combined. Wikipedia has a strong bias towards extremely prolific editors like kwami. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:56, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you.--Lerdthenerd wiki defender 23:08, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Link: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive300#User:Kwamikagami and User:J. 'mach' wust reported by User:Lerdthenerd (Result: warned). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 02:12, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Uncivil remarks at Help talk:IPA for English

I'm saying this here, since you seem to feel that being called out is more personal than topical. This post contains an untoward insinuation of bad faith editing. It is the second time I have witnessed you make snide remarks about Kwamikagami and it is in poor form. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:55, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

What remark has been uncivil? Do you mean the remark “Kwami clearly is a representative of the ’anti-OR angle’”? I could prove that easily, but I don’t see the point. Do you mean the remark “I wonder whether this perennial topic represents a consensus, or whether it is just kwami’s POV”? Well indeed, I do wonder.

I have asked the question whether one particular edit [34] has been discussed. It might have been discussed, or it might not have been discussed. You can easily prove me wrong by showing me that it has been discussed. You contradict me so often – why don’t you take this chance to prove me wrong (and instead accuse me of uncivility, which is not entirely free of uncivility by itself)? I would have to admit that the particular edit is more than a mere POV. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:09, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Same goes for aspersions of conspiratorial WP:STONEWALLing, a mass accusation of bad faith. Since your persistent rehash of the same claims, that all eventually resolve to an assumption that WP:CORE applies to "Help:" and "Wikipedia:" namespace pages, has been repeatedly refuted by everyone, and instead of rebutting the refutations you simply reboot and just advance the same arguments again as if unaddressed (fallacy of "proof by assertion"), it's clear that "quality of argumentation" is not on your side, and that consensus has not changed. You are being disruptive, by pursuing a pattern of WP:TE, WP:IDHT, WP:1AM and WP:FORUMSHOP, re-re-re-raising the same arguments no matter how many times they fail to get any consensus acceptance, on at least three talk pages at the same time, and in multiple threads at once on some of them. Several editors (including previously uninvolved ones like Peter Coxhead) on more than one of these pages have pointed out that your OR / V mis-approach to this internal matter, and refusal to drop that stick, is derailing actual progress on improving Help:IPA for English, and is doing nothing but WP:BLUDGEONing the discussion with circular reasoning we're all tired of and which is not going anywhere. You yourself wanted to use Template:Round in circles, though the only circularity is on your own part. Given the above discretionary sanctions notice, WP:ANI or WP:AE would probably not hesitate to put an administrative stop to this.

I can warn you from first-hand experience that AE if not ANI, too, will absolutely interpret something like "Kwami clearly is a representative of the 'anti-OR angle'" as precisely the kind of aspersion-casting forbidden at WP:ARBATC#All parties reminded (twice over – it's an accusation that another editor is acting as a representative of some WP:FACTION, and it's an imputation of "anti-foo" WP:BATTLEGROUNDing beliefs or motivations as if you are a mind reader who can peer into Kwami's id). Being in agreement on something is what we're supposed to be working toward in forming WP:CONSENSUS; it is not evidence of "representation" of a conspiracy. Disagreeing with you on some matter is not evidence of the holding of some politicized or obsessive "anti-something" stance. That is ad hominem and argument to emotion; it's fallacious, pseudo-debate technique, that will eventually get you topic-banned or blocked. There is no "anti-OR angle"; it's a simple fact that CORE, including NOR, do not apply to Help or Wikipedia namespace documentation. You're just going to have to accept this even if you wish it were not the case. Your attempt to advance the view that there's a special exception because our pronunciation keys are used in mainspace has dismally failed. Please just let the dead horse decompose naturally.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:25, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I think it is sad that you are turning this into an issue about my person instead of discussing the factual issue. Please take a step back and ask yourself whether it is really helpful.

I cannot read kwami’s mind, but I can read kwami’s posts where anybody who cares can read loud and clearly that kwami shares the POV that NOR does not apply to pronunciation symbols, see [35].

You are misrepresenting my POV in two ways:

1. You make it look as if I were alone even though I have demonstrated I am not [36].
2. You make it look as if I were claiming that NOR applies to the Wikipedia or help namespaces even though I have pointed out that this is not true. NOR undeniably applies to the main article namespace. As I see it, pronunciation symbols that belong to the main article namespace are subject to NOR like everything else. Your attempts at demonstrating that pronunciation symbols are a special exception from WP:CORE have not lead anywhere – you made a promising start in Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Wrong venue; internal documentation is not subject to WP:NOR, but when I continued rebutting your argumentation, you stopped answering.

I will continue to advance the same arguments again as if unaddressed – but for the simple reason that my arguments have indeed not been addressed. You are claiming my arguments have been refuted. Where? Please point me to a diff. I try my best to carefully follow the discussions, but it is possible that I could overlook something nonetheless.

I am preparing an RFC about one particular pronunciation symbol that has as yet not been discussed on Help talk:IPA for English. I hope you will take this opportunity for returning to factual discussion instead of focusing on what I believe to be irrelevant sidetracks such as my behaviour or the help page’s name. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 01:59, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Here is the RfC: Help talk:IPA for English#RfC: Should we continue recommending the sign ⟨ɵ⟩? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:03, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Plural verbal endings in Low Franconian

Hi! FYI, on Low German I have removed the claim that Low Franconian languages have two plural verbal endings. Dutch only has one, and is the prime example of a Low Franconian language. Thought you might like to know as you added this back on 24 November 2005. – gpvos (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for the notice. I had no recollection I ever added that piece of information, but apparently I did [37].

I think you are mistaken. While standard Dutch indeed has a single plural form for verbs, Southern varieties such have two different forms. See e.g.:

• de:Einheitsplurallinie
• nl:Eenheids-pluralislijn
• nl:Brabants#Vervoeging werkwoorden zijn en hebben

I am thus going to revert your change. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:25, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

After reading those, I agree. I would however suggest to add some kind of note that this is only historical for Standard Dutch, since it is not well-known to a semi-knowledgeable reader like me. – gpvos (talk) 21:49, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

I see that you did so. Excellent! Thanks. – gpvos (talk) 21:53, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Please stop removing data

Hi. No need to remove the ?'s from the language articles. Consensus on what to display should be handled by the template. Languages that lack a population figure is still a useful category to track. — kwami (talk) 21:50, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

@kwami: You are mistaken. The consensus is: “There is consensus to display nothing” [38]. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:59, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, let’s do this with a maintenance category from the template, then. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:01, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I figured it out without by myself: There has been a maintenance category for keeping track of these articles all along. It is Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'unknown'. The code can be safely removed, which I have now done [39]. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 00:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Help:IPA for Alemannic German

Hello. You're welcome to correct any mistakes in that guide. Peter238 (talk) 09:44, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Pronunciation of genus and species names

Hi, I noticed your efforts to provide sources for pronunciation of Latinized Greek names of organisms, such as here. I would be inclined to remove all such pronunciation guides (and in any case, IPA is Greek to me) with the oft-repeated observation that science is an international language, and there is/are no standard pronunciation(s) for species names. European colleagues often use Classical Latin prounciation, with hard g and c, and "ae" pronounced like "I" and "i" like English "ee". There is a footnote about this at Rhaphiolepis. "William T. Stearn in his book Botanical Latin says "Botanical Latin is essentially a written language, but the scientific names of plants often occur in speech. How they are pronounced really matters little provided they sound pleasant and are understood..." There are American popular books like Sunset Western Garden Book that use a prescriptive approach, but I would argue that they are not reliable sources for science. This issue has long rankled at WT:PLANTS, and I hope that a discussion could occur to solve it in a science-friendly way. Your thoughts? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Sminthopsis84; pronunciations for scientific names are extremely doubtful. Real use varies widely. Being British, I frequently find those given by the Sunset Western Garden Book strange. I could add other pronunciations, but:

• I'm not convinced they are useful
• The two books I have that give pronunciations for a large number of plant scientific names and so could be used as sources use re-spelling systems. Now I could convert these to IPA, but this conversion would be unsourced, which troubles me. One idea that occurred to me would be to store a table somewhere showing the re-spelling → IPA mapping I used, but then referencing this table wouldn't be acceptable in Wikipedia.

Any ideas? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I am rather inclusionistically inclined. I agree that pronunciation may vary in some cases. However, there is a traditional pronunciation of classical(ish) names and other words, stemming back from a time when knowledge of Latin was more commonplace. So I think the virtue of providing a pronunciation guide lies in its being a reminder of what the pronunciation were if we would suppose the traditional English pronunciation of Latin (and Greek). At the same time, the pronunciation has to be taken cum grano salis since other pronunciations are often possible as well. However, for readers interested in the traditional pronunciation, the pronunciation guides are useful.

That being said, there are a few lists – some of them extremely long – that include classicalish pronunciation without any sources at all, interspersed with dubious pronunciations (/əˈmæzənᵻs/ for Amazonis? – I don’t think so). I think there would be no harm in removing all of these pronunciations. As with any other content, our pronunciation guides should be verifiable. These lists include the following:

• Classical albedo features on Mars
• List of albedo features on Mercury
• List of geological features on Iapetus
• List of geological features on Mimas
• List of geological features on Tethys
• List of Martian canals
• Pronunciation of asteroid names

Other similarly sourceless pronunciation include numerous dinosaur species, though I think there is no list. You can find many of them by browsing through my recent edits from the past week and looking for articles whose name ends with -saurus where I put “ipafix – source still missing” in the edit summary.

What is a more fitting place for continuing this discussion? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 15:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Still some more of these lists:

• Former constellations
• Moons of Jupiter
• Moons of Mars
• Moons of Neptune
• Moons of Pluto
• Moons of Saturn
• Moons of Uranus
• Pronunciation of Trojan asteroid names

--mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:05, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. It is suggested at WT:PLANTS#IPA clutter that a discussion could proceed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation, where it is clear that these issues are perennial topics. Perhaps what it comes down to is the question of what are good sources. I'm at a loss, since I've always followed a free style based somewhat on the French-influenced tradition in English. I'll duplicate this comment at WT:PLANTS. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:17, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Compound stress

Hi. How would you stress EM-Stadion Wals-Siezenheim? I know that in isolation, these are stressed /EˈM-ˌStadion/ and /ˈWals-ˌSiezenheim/, respectively, but what about that name? Does it count as a compound noun (so I'd expect something like /EˌM-Stadion ˈWals-ˌSiezenheim/, with "Stadion" being unstressed), or simply two separate nouns (/EˈM-ˌStadion ˈWals-ˌSiezenheim/)? I need the IPA for Red Bull Arena (Salzburg). Martin sv 85 (talk) 23:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Then there of course is the question: how to pronounce "EM"? Is it simply [ʔeːˈʔɛm], or do you pronounce it "Europameisterschaft"? Martin sv 85 (talk) 23:35, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
The Forvo girl said something like /EˈM-ˌStadion ˌWals-ˈSiezenheim/, with a stress-shifted municipality name. Martin sv 85 (talk) 12:11, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

To me, it is /ˈeːɛm ˌʃtaːdiɔn ˌʋalz ˈziːtsənhaɪm/. But I would rather not put anything instead of inventing your own transcription. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:20, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't find the latter a fair comment. There's no problem with transcribing speech of a native speaker (regardless of you being one or not) if you know how to. Martin sv 85 (talk) 13:47, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. However, final devoicing is a unique feature of Northern German. It does not exist in other varieties of (standard) German, as in Austria or Switzerland. Therefore, the pronunciation should probably be [ˌʋalz ˈziːtsənhaɪm] (give or take some schwa). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 14:38, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll change that. Martin sv 85 (talk) 14:59, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

South Tyrolean pronunciations

Hallo J. 'mach' wust, I'm writing to you because I've seen that you're one of the main editors of Help:IPA for German. There's a user from Italian South Tyrol who started adding in all the comuni of his province the IPAs in German linking to Help:IPA for German, but contradicting the page itself: for example, he inserted IPAs with symbols you don't find in Help:IPA for German, such as " ̯" and "ˑ". And such IPAs are totally unsourced, he has copied some of them from de.wikipedia (this encyclopedy can't be a source for itself) and added the others without any reference. I'm sure he's adding a local pronunciation which isn't standard German (see this edit: [40]) but, anyway, it's unsourced and contradicting Help:IPA for German. Do you think it's possible to revert these edits of his on the basis of what I wrote above? Thanks for reading, I'll wait for your reply! 88.70.42.136 (talk) 12:44, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

I think your premise is mistaken. Standard German only exists in local varieties. For South Tyrolean places, it is perfectly natural that the pronunciation is given in South Tyrolean standard German, and not in Northern Germany standard German. Help:IPA for German is quite defective and may not allow for the faithful representation of all varieties of standard German. If User:Mai-Sachme inserts transcriptions with signs not mentioned there, this is not a reason for removing these transcriptions, but rather for improving Help:IPA for German. A native speaker’s proficiency is enough for adding a pronunciation unless that specific pronunciation is challenged. Summary removals are not OK. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 13:59, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Vowel qualities

Good evening, I'd like to hear your thoughts regarding the Ladin IPA transcriptions in the articles Urtijëi, Sëlva and Gherdëina. The audio files were made, upon my suggestion, by native Ladin speakers a couple of years ago. Another native Ladin speaker confirmed their quality, telling me they were "very good". But since then I'm a bit unsure about the precise vowel quality of these "ö"-sounds. As you can see, I opted for a more central vowel, namely ɜ. What do you think about this choice? --Mai-Sachme (talk) 18:33, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I do not have a qualified opinion since I have not studied Ladin phonetics and phonology. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

/ɪ/

Hello! The word message is pronounced /ˈmɛsɪdʒ/, the /ɪ/ sound comes from /eɪ/? Fête Phung (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Ididnthearthat (again)

I am posting this here because I don't want the conversation to unravel again. You've been warned about refusing to drop your argument and your attempt to dredge up an old discussion here is in poor form. You have been told repeatedly that this is not a prescriptive system, that including postvocalic r in our transcriptions is not advocating postvocalic r in our pronunciations. If you disagree with that, that's your business. However, by describing it as prescriptive (as if there isn't a large swathe of the community that disagrees with that characterization) in a discussion that is not related to that issue, you are acting in an unnecessarily tendentious manner. If you do it again, I will bring it up at ANI. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:56, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Please point me to the diffs where I have been told that our system is not prescriptive (or where anybody ever made that claim) or drop your pointless accusations. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:50, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

That's the sort of work for a post at ANI. But reading over your comment, I realize that you weren't arguing that we are advocating that everyone should pronounce non-rhotic placenames with post-vocalic r, but rather that we are insisting people use the system so that Wikipedia is consistent. That's just sloppy word choice, which is a whole order of magnitude difference in seriousness. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:25, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

OK then, so you are dropping your pointless accusations. I hope you will read more carefully next time before accusing other users of disruptive behaviour. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 09:54, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Sure, but I mean it when I say sloppy wording on your part. "Prescriptive" not only has a particular denotation when it comes to linguistics, but also some heavy connotations. If you're not going to bother to check to see if people have misunderstood your meaning (which you failed to do above when it was clear from my comment that I had done so), it would be best for you to avoid using that term in linguistics-related discussions unless you're actually referring to linguistic prescriptivism. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:07, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

First you wrongly accuse me of disruptive behaviour. Now that you stand corrected you try to put the blame on me. That is ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with my use of the word prescriptive – as long as we prescribe that Worcester must be transcribed with an /r/, we are being prescriptive. It is you who should try and read more carefully before accusing other users of disruptive behaviour. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:46, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I know what you mean, and you are technically correct. But prescriptive is a loaded term. I'm just trying to help you avoid confusion in the future. Take it or leave it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:18, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

It is precisely what prescriptivism is all about. You would like to sugarcoat or whitewash it instead of pointing out what it really is. That is entirely your problem, not mine. The important thing is that in the future, you read other users’ posts before wrongly accusing them of disruptive behaviour. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 04:46, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

No. Linguistic prescriptivism is about how things ought to be pronounced. Our system is only prescriptive in the sense that we prescribe how things ought to be transcribed. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 06:39, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Can it be any more ridiculous? You’re even prescriptive about the meaning of prescriptivism. But you are mistaken. Citing from the lead of linguistic prescription – which you have obviously not read in spite of the link in my previous post: “these normative practices may address such linguistics aspects as spelling, grammar, semantics, pronunciation, and syntax”. Just because you pretend something is as you think it is does not make it so. In the future, please read other users’ posts more carefully before accusing them of disruptive behaviour, and on top of that, check whether your presumptions are found so you don’t humiliate yourself again. At the very least, read the relevant Wikipedia article. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 16:08, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're still wrong, both in letter and in spirit. Linguistic prescriptivism is about "elevating one variety or manner of language use over another." This does not carry into the representation linguists use to describe language. With that logic. The IPA would be prescriptive. In the literal sense of the word, yes there is a prescriptive element. But this is not linguistic prescriptivism.

If you really want to discuss this, you can drop the condescending know-it-all attitude. I've dealt with editors who make self-congratulatory victory cheers with themselves over nothing. Not only is it wrong-headedly short-sighted, but also a breach of civility. 22:36, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The breach of civility is users like you who hand out needless and unfounded accusations of disruptive behaviour. Stop doing that in the future. And fact-check your definitions.

I do not understand how you can possibly uphold that prescribing /wʊstər/ over /wʊstə/ is anything but elevating one variety or manner of language over another. Frankly, I don’t care as long as you do not inject your strange point of view into the article space.

Please stop filling my talk page with your evasive self-justifications. Write that you are sorry for your wrongful accusation or stop writing on my talk page. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 05:32, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't have a mistaken understanding of linguistic prescriptivism and, with your most recent comment, I see that I fully understand your argument about /wʊstər/ over /wʊstə/. It's been made before by yourself and other editors. I came here with the understanding that this tired old argument was the one you were making at IPA for English. At its heart, this argument embodies a misunderstanding of the system we use; it carries a presumption of phonetic accuracy (something you should know by now is a phantom) and has often come with the assumption that readers will be confused without any evidence.

The strange thing is that you decried me for a mistaken understanding of what you were saying at IPA for English, yet now you are making the exact argument I thought you were making in the first place. In fact, I've already rebutted the point of your immediate post when I began this discussion. I'll say it again, with less accusatory language so as to get you to focus on the content, rather than get caught up in defending yourself:

When we transcribe a post-vocalic ⟨r⟩, we are not advocating or prescribing rhotic pronunciations. Just like when we transcribe words with ⟨ɒ⟩, we are not proscribing pronunciations that merge the vowels of caught and cot. It's an abstract representation that is intended to encompass multiple varieties, thereby not elevating any variety above others. In other words, we are prescribing ⟨wʊstər⟩ over ⟨wʊstə⟩, not /wʊstər/ over /wʊstə/ or [wʊstər] over [wʊstə].

So, if it'll make you feel better, I apologize. But, now that you are indeed making the argument that I thought you were making initially, I hope you understand my desire to address this misinterpretation of yours. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:36, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

My point is the same: We are prescribing a rhotic transcription is what we are prescribing. You are arguing that prescriptiveness is somehow restricted to pronunciation. If that were true, I would indeed be mistaken. However, I have showed you that prescriptiveness is not restricted to pronunciation (see [41] and [42]). Yet you simply and conveniently ignore that fact that your argument is totally unfounded.

I have no idea what you are trying to achieve by completely wrong statements like the following: “we are prescribing ⟨wʊstər⟩ over ⟨wʊstə⟩, not /wʊstər/ over /wʊstə/ or [wʊstər] over [wʊstə].” In kwami’s words, this is pure bullshit. Have a look at Help:IPA for English, have a look at Template:IPAc-en: We are indeed prescribing /wʊstər/ over /wʊstə/, with single slashes.

Apology accepted for your wrongful accusation of disruptive behaviour. Now would you please stop the tiresome repetition of your utterly unfounded argument that prescriptiveness is somehow restricted to pronunciation? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:07, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

It's a rhotic transcription, but we're not prescribing a rhotic pronunciation. That's an important distinction. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:46, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Why of course it is, but I have never ever mentioned any prescribed pronunciation. I have always explicitly written that I am referring to the prescriptive transcription system. The link to pronunciation does not exist in my posts, but only in your imagination. I can even retrace your line of thought because I know now that in your imagination prescriptiveness only refers to pronunciation.

I repeat: Please read more carefully before wrongfully accusing other users of disruptive behaviour, and please fact-check your unfounded premises, at the very least by reading the relevant Wikipedia article. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:54, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Communication goes both ways. Parties have a duty to be clear and to pay attention to the best of their abilities. Part of why I'm having trouble understanding your argument here is because you're being so imprecise. So when you said we were prescribing "/wʊstər/ over /wʊstə/" I wasn't completely sure if you meant, by the slashes, the actual pronunciation or the transcription. This is why I made a discrete parsing of transcription (with angle brackets) and pronunciation (with slashes or square brackets). You called this bullshit, without explaining, but repeated the use of slashes after I had defined the distinctions for you. In other words, you did mention pronunciation, though it apparently was unintentional. You can see that, from my perspective, you have not held up your end of the communication bargain, here. I think a big part of this is you having trouble paying attention. I've already responded to the notion of a prescriptive transcription system being linguisitically prescriptive. If you don't want to talk in circles or you might want to actually address my response. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:22, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

I see that you are again falling into your pattern of engaging into a long and evasive discussion, and then trying to find superficial contradictions that are totally besides the original point.

In the posts where I used kwami’s infamous qualifier, I have written very clearly and explicitly that I am referring to trancription.[43] You conveniently ignore that part of my post in order to fabricate a superfical contradiction.

I know that you have already responded to the notion of a prescriptive transcription system being linguisitically prescriptive. But I have already re-responded by pointing out again that the premise of your argumentation is unfounded. You conveniently continue to ignore that.

You have dropped your wrongful accusation of disruptive behaviour. Your subsequent attempts of blaming me are utterly pointless. I know what I wrote, and I will definitely not accept the blame for your sloppy reading. Your unsourced outbursts and convenient ignorance cannot change that. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:08, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Actually, you have not responded to my point. You just said you didn't understand. Actually respond to my argument, not my post. Otherwise we're talking in circles. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:56, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

The basis for your argument is the mistaken premise that linguistic prescriptivism is somehow restricted to pronunciation. I have demonstrated that this premise is not true (see [44]). The reason why we are going in circles is that you keep pretending your argument could still be upheld, conveniently ignoring my demonstrating that the very basis of your argument is unfounded.

Also, it would be helpful if you spelled out what you meant instead of vaguely referring to some points you might or might not have made in some unidentified previous post. To me, it almost looks as if you are doing it on purpose, using evasiveness and confusion in order to create the appearence that there were still some basis to your argument.

Ceterum censeo: Please read more carefully before accusing other users of disruptive behaviour and fact-check your premises. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 16:06, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Actually, the basis for my argument is that our transcription conventions are not a form of linguistic prescriptivism. They are not formed to elevate one linguistic variety over another. The approach we've adopted is enforcing one transcription system over others. That isn't linguistic prescriptivism. As I said above, not all forms of prescription are linguistic prescription. If prescribing one transcription system over others were ipso facto linguistic prescriptivism, then we would need to say that the International Phonetic Alphabet is, itself, a form of it. We both know that this is not the case. It's still possible for a transcription system to elevate one variety over another, but only if it prescribes a particular pronunciation. Which we aren't doing with the system we're using at Wikipedia.

I, of course, know that the other linguistic aspects you listed can also be the subject of linguistic prescriptivism because I, too, studied linguistics and have not forgotten something so foundational. I only mentioned pronunciation because those other elements are not relevant to this discussion. So you can cease with the strawmanning of my argument.

I would also appreciate it if you could stop repeating this "accusing others of disruptive behaviour" business. You asked me to apologize, I did. You might still be upset about it, but mentioning it every time is distracting from the topic and TBH makes you look smug and petty. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:25, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Your argument that our transcription system is not linguistic prescription because the IPA is not linguistic prescription does not make any sense. Our transcription system is a standardized way of representing the English language – a kind of orthography. The IPA is not a standardized way of representing the English language, but a set of symbols that can be used for putting together transcription systems for any one of the world’s languages, no matter whether or not these transcription systems are standardized.

Our transcription system does not elevate one way of pronouncing English over another (though this is really not very evident). Instead, it elevates one way of writing English over another. Writing /wʊstə/ is wrong and should be corrected to /wʊstər/, writing /clɪr/ is wrong and should be corrected to /clɪər/. You boast that you understand all the different linguistic aspects linguistic prescription can refer to. How can you not see that prescribing one way of writing over another falls within the scope of linguistic prescription?

You have withdrawn your unjust accusation of disruptive behaviour. Yet you continue to blame me. I will remind you as often as I please that you should read more carefully and stop accusing other users of disruptive behaviour. It is not the first time that you have done it to me. This is my talk page – if you do not like my answers, just stop writing here. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:57, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

No, I'm arguing that our transcription is not linguistic prescription because it does not elevate one variety of English over another. I brought up IPA as an analogy. Our system is no more "a kind of orthography" than the IPA itself is. One can be linguistically prescriptive and still use the IPA (that is, in essence, what the OED does). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:04, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I don’t believe it: You continue to use your unfounded definitions of linguistic prescription even though I have pointed you repeatedly to the relevant Wikipedia article. And if you ignore the difference between a set of signs and a set of rules for using these signs, I cannot help you.

Fact-check your definitions. You can start by appreciating Wikipedia articles such as linguistic prescription, orthography, or semiotics. Don’t be a sloppy reader. And don’t wrongfully accuse others of disruptive behaviour in the future. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:56, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you should actually respond to my points, perhaps even take the condescension from a 10 to a 2. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:08, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Tell you what, let's just drop it for now. We're not hurting anything by disagreeing on this and talking in circles is just wasting our time. We clearly have a soured relationship and pursuing the issue is only furthering the wedge between us. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:14, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Finally you understand that your attempts at blaming me do not lead anywhere. I will certainly continue to call out prescription when I encounter it. You will probably continue to call out prescription when you encounter it, even though your understanding of prescription is at odds with the article on linguistic prescription. You might want to try and search reliable WP:SOURCES that back up your understanding and edit the article accordingly, if you find them. The important thing is that you are more careful before accusing other users of disruptive behaviour in the future. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 01:05, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Pronunciations

Hi, I remain concerned about unsourced pronunciations, as well as unsourced mappings of sourced re-spelling pronunciations, regardless of the IPA characters used. Thus at Camarasaurus, after your edit I see "/ˌkæmərəˈsɔːrəs/ KAM-ə-rə-SAWR-əs". Who says this is the pronunciation? It's not mine (which is closer to /kəˌmɑːrəˈsɔːrəs/). I'm not sure what the answer to this issue is, but I favour adding a "citation needed" tag to all unsourced pronunciations. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:13, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that the majority of the 25 thousands articles that use Template:IPAc-en do not have any source. Many pronunciations are straightforward, but especially the pronunciations from classical languages are often very dubious. I guess that most of the dinosaur pronunciations have been introduced by kwami (in this case, see [45]), typically without providing any sources. BTW, my edit did not change how this particular pronunciation is displayed; it looked exactly the same before my edit.

I would rather think that adding a citation needed tag is not the best idea. The reliable sources for pronunciations do not normally include all of these dinosaurs, minor moons, plants, etc. etc. The tag will either persist indefinitly or, worse, incite people to add unreliable sources such as youtube videos. Therefore, it may be better to quietly correct the pronunciation or to remove them altogether.

Another example: All of the nepenthes pronunciations have been introduced by Attenboroughii, though some of them have been diversified by kwami, see for instance Nepenthes singalana, Nepenthes × harryana and Nepenthes × hookeriana. In the original pronunciations by Attenboroughii, the ending -ana had always the pronunciation /ˈɑːnə/ (see [46], [47], [48]), but kwami changed the former two to /ˈeɪnə/ and /ˈænə/ respectively (see [49], [50]). Neither of the two editors provided any sources for the pronunciations, but at least, Attenboroughii’s pronunciations were more consistent. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 18:05, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I understand that you see your task as correcting the symbols used here. However, removing altogether would be my preference for biological scientific names with no source. Otherwise Wikipedia becomes the source, which is wrong.

Re the Nepenthes pronunciations, in my experience botanists in the UK use both /ˈɑːnə/ and /ˈeɪnə/; it violates WP:NPOV to promote one over the other.

One way forward, discussed in several fora but never fully acted on, would be to have a completed article on the pronunciation of biological Latin which could set out various alternatives (including those used by non-English speakers) and be linked to from appropriate articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia has certainly become the source. The vicious circle probably goes like this: Person K adds an unsourced pronunciation to Wikipedia. Person X adds a youtube video based on the Wikipedia pronunciation. Person Z adds the youtube video to Wikipedia as a presumptive source.

Do you mean a crossover between Botanical Latin and Traditional English pronunciation of Latin? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Possibly. I think that Botanical Latin should say more about the language, vocabulary, history, etc. If the pronunciation section were expanded to show variations, the article might be too long. Traditional English pronunciation of Latin is a different topic; e.g. how I learnt to pronounce Latin when studying it at school or how I hear scholars pronounce it (rarely now) is not how I learnt to pronounce scientific names while studying biology at school or university. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I could not hold back on this one: [51]. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:04, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Rightly so! Peter coxhead (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Black letter/ Fraktur (Wikisource)

Thank you, To be fair given the nature of the headings, I might also tweak mode 5 to also use a more modern s and k :). It may be better in time to amend the relevant template to accept additionals more directly via a variant-styles tag? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:55, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

American and British English pronunciation differences

RE:

While it is true that many varieties of English do not have vowel breaking before /r/, the pan-lectal “diaphonemic” Wikipedia transcription system uses vowel breaking

Fair enough.02:52, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Typography Queries

There are some Greek alternate, and Saxon forms On a Wikisource page that I am asking you about because you may know something about older typeface approaches.

The page is :- s:Page:Cowie's Printer's pocket-book and manual.djvu/78

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 01:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Fraktur (disambiguation)

The article Fraktur (disambiguation) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

unnecessary disambiguation page per WP:TWODABS

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. -- Tavix ^(talk) 21:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Haitian Standard French listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Haitian Standard French. Since you had some involvement with the Haitian Standard French redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Savvyjack23 (talk) 22:26, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deprecation of /ᵻ, ᵿ/

I'm sure you have already been notified, but I have started an RfC regarding dropping /ᵻ, ᵿ/. I know you have already stated that you would be behind it, but I would appreciate if you could formally cast a vote there. Thanks. Nardog (talk) 12:58, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Your monkey signs...

...are really just emoji. Yes, they are included in the Unicode (since 2015 according to Emojipedia), but most people are now familiar with the concept (as an Internet phonomenon) and a lot of modern computers have support for these symbols (mine being a Windows 10, has its own unique style). Also, those monkey symbols are also popularly used on social media as a cheeky way to express one's shunning of senses on something 😏 — ^{oi yeah nah mate} amazingJUSSO ... [ɡəˈdæɪ̯]! 11:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Indentation at Help talk:IPA/English

Please look at 914868677 once again. I didn't revert it to the second level, just removed an empty line and one colon. Also note that WP:LISTGAP is an accessibility guideline. Nardog (talk) 21:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I did not know about the list thing until I saw your edit summary. Much to the contrary of what WP:LISTGAP says, leaving an empty line always seemed more accessible to me, that is to say, more legible. Guess I will change my habit in the future.

The additional colon was to show that I really took your reply into account, even though you put it outside the regular indenting. It appears you have not understood this intention, so maybe other readers will not get it either. No matter. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:22, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

NOCONSENSUS

WP:NOCONSENSUS is about when a discussion (particularly one like AfD or RfC, where people !vote and work towards a particular outcome) results in no clear consensus, so I don't think it is applicable when the discussion is still ongoing, which is the way you've been citing it. This is why I think WP:BRD is a better reference. I know this is a minute point but I figured I'd let you know. Cheers. Nardog (talk) 23:46, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Alsatian dialect phonology

Hello J. mach, I just wanted to ask you, how accurate is the phonology section of the Alsatian dialect page? I've also been trying to find reasonable sources that explain the phonology of the dialect itself. I have found a few sources, even in various languages, but they still do not seem clear enough explanation of the phones or the phonemes. What are some reliable sources that give a good explanation of the Alsatian dialect? Any information would be helpful. Thanks, Fdom5997 (talk) 08:35, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Hebrew script

I noticed this edit of your to the documentation of Template:Script/Hebrew. One of the things you added is "Do not include it directly, but instead use: {{script|Hebr|‹Hebrew script string›}}." I searched for parallel instructions on a lot of other script/<language> templates, but found none. Why did you add this instruction? Debresser (talk) 20:42, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

The templates on subpages of Template:Script are meant to be transcluded into Template:Script. At least that is what the usage instruction there says. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:03, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't see that there. All I see is a list of supported codes. Debresser (talk) 22:40, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

What I see on Template:Script are about a hundred usage examples. They are all like {{Script|Hebr|אלפבית עברי}}. But frankly, I do not have any stakes in this. I am no expert for templates. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:57, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I understand. My take on this would be that on the documentation page of {{Script}} the information is about how to use that template for different scripts, which explains why all examples are indeed of the format that uses {{Script}}, namely: {{Script|Hebr|אלפבית עברי}}, as you say. Without implying that it would be wrong or less preferable to use the templates in the subpages directly. In order to verify if perhaps I misunderstood, I checked some 10 other subpages of {{Script}}, and found nothing on any of them that would indicate that they should not be used directly. To the contrary, many of them include instructions for direct use. Debresser (talk) 10:38, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

The output is identical:

• {{Script|Hebr|אלפבית עברי}}:
  • אלפבית עברי‎
  • <span class="script-hebrew" style="font-size: 115%;" dir="rtl">אלפבית עברי</span>
• {{Script/Hebrew|אלפבית עברי}}:
  • אלפבית עברי‎
  • <span class="script-hebrew" style="font-size: 115%;" dir="rtl">אלפבית עברי</span>

All things being equal (they are), I believe the main template should be preferred over a subpage template. It is all coming back to me now. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:27, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

RfC notice

This is a neutral notice sent to all non-bot/non-blocked registered users who edited Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics in the past year that there is a new request for comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics § RfC: Where should so-called voiceless approximants be covered?. Nardog (talk) 10:53, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of Atlantic (Semitic) languages for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Atlantic (Semitic) languages is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atlantic (Semitic) languages until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Warrenmck (talk) 00:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

RfC

Did you really mean to hold the RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics? Your first one says "on this page" yet links to a WT:PRON archive. If you meant to hold it there instead, it might not be too late to move it for record-keeping's sake. Nardog (talk) 12:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nardog: Haha, indeed that was my intention. But now I would rather keep it in that place. I think they are equally adequate. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 13:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)