User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 4

I, Ikiroid, award this Barnstar to Kwami for helping me with effectively editing language pages.

Hi Kwami, I just got your message (haven't logged in for a while). It's in the Evans article in the O'Grady and Tryon book. "The Minkin language of the Burketown region".

language map edits

I'll get on those edits to the new SVG of the indo-european language map ASAP! thanks for the comments! Murraybuckley 21:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I've gotten some questions about the numbers and enigmatic language names on File:Indoeuropean language map. At your request, I added them to the new SVG file, but have no idea what they represent. If you could give me a quick explanation of what the numbers mean and what the difference between languages like "Czech E" and "Czech" are so I can either add them to the image file itself or to the image's wiki page.

IPA to be improved to FA status

Hey Kwami. In case you plan on breaking your wikibreak any time soon, I'm trying to bring the article on the IPA up to featured article status. You can put up requests or comments about its improvement here. If you could, I'd appreciate your input, seeing as how you've made huge contribs to the language part of the pedia.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Trouble in Mi’kmaq-land

I'd be grateful if you'd look in on the dispute at Mi'kmaq_hieroglyphic_writing and its talk page. Evertype 16:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyright problems with Image:Dvorak keyboard2.png

An image that you uploaded, Image:Dvorak keyboard2.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems because it is a suspected copyright violation. Please look there if you know that the image is legally usable on Wikipedia (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), and then provide the necessary information there and on its page, if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

/blahedo (t) 14:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Icelandic þ and ð

I appreciate that you are on a wikibreak so I do not expect an answer. However, I would be grateful if you could reply to my question on the edits you made concerning the pronunciation of þ and ð in Icelandic. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Phonetics#Icelandic þ and ð. Stefán Ingi 00:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

PNG

Done. I have recently created some geo-stubs about Papua New Guinea. I think many are still missing. PNG is beautiful country. - Darwinek 20:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Russian phonology reedit

I'm just letting you know that I'm in the midst of fixing up the Russian phonology page. If you have any input on the process it would be much appreciated. I noticed that your phonetic table has both hard and soft /s/ and /z/ as apical while my source (Jones & Ward 1969) list the plain set as laminal alveolar while remaining silent on the palatalized set (which could mean that they are laminal alveolar as well). I'm sure you've got sourcing that backs up your edit, but I'll adjust the article to my source and when you've got time you can yay or nay it.

I hope you're enjoying your wikibreak. AEuSoes1 23:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:Pine Ridge Flag.gif listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Pine Ridge Flag.gif, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Wwagner 01:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Noun class semantics

Hi Kwami, nice to see you editing again. I thought you might be interested in a paper I wrote on Bantu noun class semantics, since it was essentially our earlier exchange on Swahili noun classes that brought me to this subject. Kind regards, — mark ✎ 10:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Mark. I look forward to reading it when I get home. Won't be editing even this lightly much longer, but should pick up again around May. kwami 17:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Austronesian alignment

Kwamikagami,

Tks for the page on Austronesian alignment.--Ling.Nut 23:12, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

PS Would you prefer <ref> footntes or "... according to Lynch, Ross & Crowley (2002)"?

Whichever you think works best! Nice to know it's appreciated. Now if I just have time to work on ASL grammar ... kwami 10:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Image:Shogi_Yagura_defense.png

Hello, someone upload this image on the french Wikipédia. There are a problem because we dont know where come from this image (why this image is public domain). I would like to know if you are owner of this works ? Thanks a lot --fr:Utilisateur:bayo 13:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to reply. It's a screen-shot I made from a freeware program you can download off the internet. kwami 12:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Nonstandard extIPA symbols

I appreciate your efforts in preparing the excellent IPA (IPA chart 2005.png) and extIPA (extIPA.png). In the IPA chart, unofficial extensions are clearly marked. However, in the extIPA chart, as well as the extIPA article, there are some symbols that don't seem to be in the "official" ICPLA charts (2002 chart from EUROCRAN, 1997 chart from IPA). Specifically, I have no idea where the symbol for faucalized voice (Ħ, U+0126) came from; I also wonder about the supposed harsh ("!") and ventricular ("!!") voice symbols, especially as they conflict with the standard IPA postalveolar click symbol. (Other "suspicious" symbols are mainly superscript versions of standard IPA.)

Please add references regarding the additional symbols. Are they from a more recent (>2002) edition of the chart? Or are they common but unofficial extensions (in which case they should be in grey colour, as for the standard IPA chart)? Also, the extIPA chart needs to be updated to the 2002 one (see EUROCRAN link above).

I realize that you are on a wikibreak, but please look into this issue, and take any actions as needed. As always I appreciate your excellent contributions to Wikipedia.

hi. I hope kwami doesnt mind me answering this.

The symbols are actually from two different symbol sets: (1) the extIPA adopted by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, (2) the VoQS (Voice Quality Symbols). The VoQS has its own chart & its symbols do not appear on the extIPA chart. The symbol for faucalized voice comes from the VoQS chart. You can see the VoQS chart here:

* Ball, Martin J.; Esling, John H.; & Dickson, B. Craig. (1995). The VoQS system for the transcription of voice quality. Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet, 25 (2), 71-80.

I havent found the VoQS chart on the internet, so you may need to consult a print source. – ishwar  (speak) 14:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Untagged image

An image you uploaded, Image:Lateral fricatives.png, was tagged with the {{coatofarms}} copyright tag. This tag was deleted because it does not actually specify the copyright status of the image. The image may need a more accurate copyright tag, or it may need to be deleted. If the image portrays a seal or emblem, it should be tagged as {{seal}}. If you have any questions, ask them at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. -- 18:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

KISS

I just noticed the move of SVO to AVO and the similar moves, and I'm starting to really worry about your attitude toward your role as an encyclopedian.

You have to start imposing some limits on your crusade against popular linguistic terms. Moving and redirecting SVO to AVO and similar moves was especially inconsiderate to the majority of our readrs. You don't seem to much respect for the fact that the overwhelming majority of our readers don't share your interests. You're in effect making articles less accessible to the average reader and imposing terminology which is quite obscure outside of the linguistic community. Granted that it's always difficult describing the finer details of any disciplines to laypersons, and an article may need a lot of time to mature to a proper balance of detail and pedagogic explanation, but most of the time you don't seem to even try and actually seem critical of attempting to explain things in a manner that non-linguists can understand reasonably intuitively.

You're doing a very good job with many of our the linguistic articles, but you really need to watch that academic POV. Adding detail does only good, but actually replacing common terms with more obscure ones is detrimental to the project. Wikipedia is not just an extended database of the linguistic institutions of the world.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the terrific IPA chart!

I appreciate it very much! It must have been a lot of work.

200.73.173.119 05:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Astronomical IPA

I don't agree with most of the changes you made to the IPA representations. If you wish to discuss the matter, please respond at Talk: Jupiter's natural satellites, where I have created a section for the purpose. RandomCritic 16:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Cruithne

The -th- is not silent; it is [h]. If you have not seen an accent, do not assume an accent. I see that other people are criticizing your attempts at IPA transcription. Please take the hint and do more careful study before making such edits. -- Evertype·✆ 13:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Would you please correct Irish orthography, then, which specifically says the th is silent? kwami 00:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, it's a dialect issue. kwami (talk) 23:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Sakizaya language

Hi Kwamikagami,

Saw you recent edits to Austronesian alignment. Have been wanting to help with that page for a long time, but...hey can you help me? I am supposed to be studying for PhD prelims... I have noticed some talk about a Sakizaya language at Sakizaya people.. did an LLBA search and came out 100% empty-handed on this concept... do you have time to fix that page? A Million thanks!! Ling.Nut 17:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

See you're busy.. sorry... :-) Ling.Nut 17:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate

A "{{prod}}" template has been added to the article Voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Addhoc 19:45, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Languages

The article you created, "Labial-velar nasal" says "a consonantal sound used in some spoken languages", but it doesnt say what spoken languages. Please respond on my talk page. 68.224.239.145 02:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

You don't have a talk page. Off hand, I know some dialects of Songhay have it, but I'd have to do some research to find others, and that's not possible right now. (Note "Wikibreak") kwami 10:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

image:IPA_suprasegmentals_2005.png

Hi, I noticed you uploaded image:IPA_suprasegmentals_2005.png. Can you tell me how you made the contour-tone examples, please? I'm interested because I want to add transparency to Image:Xsampa-_R.png, for example. Thank you. :) --Kjoonlee 09:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I also need to ask you how you made Image:Labiodental flap (Gentium).png when Gentium doesn't support the character, AFAICT. Could you share your secret..? :) --Kjoonlee 13:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've found out about the Supplement to the Combining Diacritical Marks code chart at Unicode, and I've found about Doulos SIL's magic with combining tone marks. Now I just need to know about the labiodental flap. Did you merge the glyphs manually? --Kjoonlee 23:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Hope you two dont mind me butting in... Look in the Private Use Area section of Doulos SIL for the flap, specifically U+F25F, (and also see a lot of other phonetic symbols used outside of IPA). – ishwar  (speak) 03:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but I'd like it to look like Gentium, like how Kwamikagami did. I'd also like to have tone rise/fall diacritics to look native as well, instead of merging from other fonts: looks a bit weird.. --Kjoonlee 13:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to reply. Just had my first hot shower and switched on my first light bulb in three months.

I created my own extension of Gentium using a font editor. I can post it (in a week or two) if you like, but beware it's not Unicode compatible. When Gentium is next revised, they'll have more flaps and lateral fricatives. kwami 10:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Recent deletion of Category:Esperantists up for review

In case you'd like to chime in, go here. --Orange Mike 18:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

RE: PDF Conversion to SVG

I Think (note only Think) that Inkscape has a plugin to allow PDF Import, and if it's in Inkscape, you can easily save to SVG. I know the unreleased 0.46 version has native PDF and AI import built in, and possibly the development versions too (I'll have to check).

Other than that, you might want to ask User:Time3000, as there was a request a while back at the Lab for PDF to SVG conversion, and Time seemed to know what to do about it. --Dave the Rave (DTR)talk 19:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

This page says that Inkscape can indeed import PDF, but only with the help of an external PDF to SVG converter such as pstoedit. You could also simply use the latter directly. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! kwami

English letter names

I noticed you recently added a hidden comment to all the letter articles, stating that the given spelling is from the OED. Will you add a <ref> to document the OED spelling, in addition to the comment? Anomie 21:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Names of letters

I have studied linguistics, and never once have I seen c referred to as cee. The OED doesn't even give its name as cee. It is only one of the names it uses for it. The comments you left in those entries are ridiculous, because in reality, you are the one who needs to provide a valid citation that cee is its only name. The same applies for every letter. This edit war never should have happened.--Gnfgb2 21:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Both cee and ce are good, though the latter is rare, but the name is not spelled c. That's like saying the name of the numeral 3 in English is "3", or that Δ is spelled "δ". Sure, either a numeral or a letter may be used in place of its name, but it isn't the actual name. As for the comment, that's there because people put in spellings like see for C and ay for A, which aren't documented and AFAIK aren't in use. kwami 23:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, but I need a source that says precisely that. As I said, the OED doesn't. The name for a letter isn't a puzzle. What makes a name a name is usage. If people started referring to c as sea, then that would be its new name. The number 3 is named three because people refer to it that way. You're making the lede sound like referring to a letter with a single character is "wrong." You're trying to change usage, rather than describe it. That's wrong, and I can't let you do it.--Gnfgb2 01:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it does say that. Per the OED, both cee and ce are the "name of the letter C", whereas C is "the third letter of the Roman alphabet". That is, C is the letter, and cee is its name. Webster's 3rd says cee is "the letter C" and that three is "the figure 3" (among other definitions, since of course the word three exists apart from the glyph <3>). They don't spell it out any more than that, but it's obvious they mean that <C> or <3> are graphemes of written English, not words in themselves. kwami 02:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

And no, I'm not trying to change usage. It's obvious from all the ABC articles that the letters may stand for themselves. What I'm doing is providing the names of those letters to those who are looking for them - on some of the discussion pages people have asked for precisely that. kwami 02:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The entry "C" in the OED was published in 1893. It has not been re-written since. Perhaps in the past people referred to letters like c as cee, but today it just isn't done. In formal writing, you still write out small numbers like three, but not letters. Check a modern dictionary like the W3 or the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition and you will not see it referred to as the "name" of the letter. Instead, you will see it referred to as the letter, or just another name for it. As for user requests, this isn't mob rule, and they can see clearly that there is more than one name for it.--Gnfgb2 02:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The date is irrelevant, since W3 says the same thing, and any dictionary from the past 5 years will say so as well. All you're saying is that people don't often spell out the names of letters; it's like saying that "fifty-three" isn't good English because people generally write <53>. But when we speak, you say "fifty-three". As for these spellings not being used today, the dictionaries disagree: W3 has cee spring, okay (here okeh is archaic), tee-shirt, emcee, deejay, jaycee, jaygee, jayvee, etc. etc. etc. The reason we either capitalize acronyms is to show that we intend the letters to stand for themselves rather than to spell a word. If you don't want to spell out the words I listed, you need to capitalize them: OK, T-shirt, C spring, etc. In other words, the letters standing for themselves don't behave orthographically like names. If you'd like to add a note, stating that people don't usually bother to spell out the names of the letters, that's fine, but it's not okay to confound the letter with its name. kwami 03:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• Note Gnfgb2 (talk · contribs) is a sock of hard-banned user Primetime (talk · contribs). Any edits he makes to the project can and should be reverted. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Writing systems

Hi Abjad and Abugida are terms coined by Peter Daniels who recognizes that West Semitic writings were not "alphabets" becase they did not isolate phonemes of human speech. The smallest unit a human can isolate without special training is the syllable. The Egyptian writing, on which the West Semitic was based, worked in just this way, giving information about consonants but not about vowels. Hence the reduced short signary of "consonants" must have done the same and encoded consonants plus unknown but implied vowels. Daniels recognizes all this and hence rejects "alphabet," but only muddies the water with these neologisms. I. J. Gelb first made this argument in 1952, so not sure what you mean that these systems were "not syllabaries in any meaningful sense.Bbpowell 19:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

But abjads do isolate phonemes, consonantal ones. A syllabary, on the other hand, has distinct graphemes for different syllables, and does not recognize the commonality of consonants or vowels across syllables. My impression from Daniels is that he was attempting to create terms for different types of segmental scripts, reserving "alphabet" for a Greek-type script that treats consonants and vowels equivalently, not that he was claiming that the Egyptians or Semites didn't recognize that speech was segmental. On the contrary, an abjad recognizes the commonality of consonants independently of the following vowel, the essence of any segmental script, and contrary to a syllabary; his point was as much to distinguish abjads and abugidas from syllabaries, with which they have so often been confounded, as to distinguish them from "true" alphabets. (Historically some of this confusion may have been a result of Hellenocentrism or Antisemitism, though I don't know that Gelb was guilty of either.)

As an example of the difference, when the Latin alphabet was introduced into Micronesia without fully conveying the segmental concept, "B" wasn't taken to be /b/ plus an unknown but implied vowel, as in an abjad, but was understood only as the syllable /bi/. The Micronesians were nonplussed as to why the missionaries would give them such a defective script. That is, without the special training you rightly say is required to break syllables into phonemes, they were not able to grasp either Semitic- or Greek-type writing. (I don't recall if they remedied this by expanding the ABCs into a full syllabary, or if they simply abandoned it as unworkable.) There's a huge conceptual difference between an actual syllabary, such as kana, and an abjad, which is as great, or I expect even greater, than that between an abjad and a "true" alphabet.

By your argument, the Latin alphabet is actually a syllabary when used for several tonal Congolese languages but not used to indicate tone. I think it would be better to consider this a defective segmental script that only recognizes certain classes of segments (consonant and vowel) and ignores another (tone). That is, Romanized Kikongo (before recent reform) was the tonal equivalent of an abjad, whereas Romanized Vietnamese, with tone relegated to secondary position as a diacritic, is the tonal equivalent of an abugida. None of these are close to being a true tonal syllabary, as Modern Yi is, where each combination of C+V+T receives an independent glyph; likewise, abudigas and abjads are not even close to being syllabaries. kwami 21:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No, you must understand this question from the point of view of the history of writing. Clear experiments have shown that, for example, Chinese undeducated in pinyin cannot distinguish "phonemes," only syllables. The "phoneme" does not exist in nature but is a projection of the functioning of the Greek alphabet. In the history of writing, the West Semitic family of scripts was built on the phonology of the Egyptian uniliterals. It was not an "original" invention, but a refinement, if you want to look at it that way. You cannot understand the nature of West Semitic writing independently of its origins in the Egyptian system, wherein all phonetic signs, and certainly the uniliterals, stand for syllables with the nature of the vowel suppressed and provided by the reader.

I agree completely, except that uniliterals and Semitic letters aren't necessarily syllabic -- they can be used for consonant sequences and final consonants. That is, being syllabic isn't essential to Semitic letters; they simply don't indicate that level of detail. Also, when people who don't understand phonemes invent a writing system, they create full syllabaries like Cherokee, Afaka, or Vai, not consonantal scripts like Semitic.

Therfore the West Semitic sign mem represents the sounds ma, me, mi, or mu, as you please.

Or just m. Mem is /m/ underwritten for vowels, just as /a/ is underwritten for tone in many Congolese languages.

the Greek alphabet functioned completely diffrerently. in the Greek alphabet the letter [m] cannot be pronounced by itself but must be annotated by a sign from a second group, the so-caled vowels. from this spelling rule came the illusion of the existence of the phoneme and the profound diffiulcties alphabet users, such as you and I, have when comeing to grips with these questions. the evidence is strong that this radical new invention was first used to record Greek hexametric verse, including the verse of Homer.

Actually, I don't see the Greek alphabet as being as different as it's often made out to be; Semitic letters whose names started with a vowel in Greek pronunciation were used to stand for those vowels, a simple regularization of the acrophonic principle. This was much better suited to the structure of the Greek language. There's a modern parallel: In Hmong, full letters are used to indicate tone -- for example, paaj is /pa/ with a nasal vowel and a falling tone, but we recognize this as simply an adaptation necessary to write the language intelligibly; we don't celebrate Hmong as the greatest breakthrough in writing since vowel letters were invented for Greek. Perhaps there was a radical cognitive shift required to write vowels (I don't recall when sound shifts created long vowels out of Semitic y and w; perhaps this was after the invention of the Greek alphabet and therefore could not have served as a model for it), but this involved the addition of vowels to a segmental script, not a radical change from writing actual syllables to writing segments. To support your point, you would need to see if people raised writing a consonantal script without pointing have the same difficulties as the Chinese. My guess is that they would have trouble recognizing vowel phonemes, but not consonantal phonemes, just as people who use an alphabet that is defective in writing tone have difficulty recognizing tonemes.

Gelb walked us through this argment fifty years ago and my own colleagues, who are philologists, do in fact speak of the "West Semitic syllabaries." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbpowell (talk • contribs) 18:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Then we should mention that use of the term (I believe we already do, unless someone deleted that section), but with the warning that this doesn't mean "syllabary" in the sense of having different graphemes for different syllables, as in Japanese or adaptations of Cuneiform. I think it's best to keep technical terms as unambiguous as possible, and the use of the term "syllabary" for both Japanese (kana) and Hebrew, and simultaneously the term "alphabet" for both Greek and Hebrew, is highly ambiguous. Since there are accepted terms that resolve this ambiguity, it would be helpful to our readers for us to utilize them. kwami 19:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

"BC" vs. "BCE"

Just so you know, please do not arbitrarily change instances of "BC" to "BCE" in articles. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Longer_periods for the convention.

Cheers! Captmondo 20:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not. I'm reverting arbitrary changes. kwami 20:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean you're reverting someone else's prior reversion? If so, apologies! Captmondo 20:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Usually I can just revert, but one editor's been trying to convert all of Wikipedia to his preference for AD, and sometimes there are other edits after his which I don't want to disturb. (Actually, I agree that AD is superior to CE in being more legible, it's just not always appropriate.) kwami 00:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Inkscape

Seems the only solutions I can think of are to either spend money or import your bitmap image into Inkscape and manually trace over it. --  Denelson83  07:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Then what you do is simply type over the letters in Inkscape using the correct font, then convert the text to paths. --  Denelson83  07:37, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Croissant pronunciation

You give /kwaˈsoʊn/ as an anglicized pronunciation of croissant. Really? Rhymes with bone, not with lawn? Is that really a pronunciation used somewhere? --Macrakis 01:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You'll have to ask the person who added it; I just corrected the IPA that was already there. kwami 01:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Tallmadge pronunciation

Regarding this edit, what is the pronunciation difference between the two vowels? I was looking on the IPA page, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it in trying to compare the two. Thanks! If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 01:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Talk pages request

Hi, could I ask you to stop interlacing your comments between the paragraphs of the comment you're responding to, as in Help talk:IPA English pronunciation key? It really gets unreadable. Thank you! —BlackTerror 12:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:IPA on article Peisistratos (Athens)

Your edit where you replaced a link to a resource on IPA with the IPA template confuses me. You state that you've provided a more accessible link to IPA pronunciation, but I don't see any link at all in your edit. The IPA template only seems to attach a class to it, which is only useful if you have some sort of browser customization installed, as well as a tooltip. Am I missing something? --Dachannien^Talk_Contrib 15:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, being in a footnote seems to mess it up. I'll fix. kwami 19:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much :) --Dachannien^Talk_Contrib 21:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Breach of the three-revert rule

You have breached the three-revert rule at Peter Ustinov. Please undo your edit. Timeineurope 21:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

How is that a breach? You sourced a pronunciation, I left it exactly as you had it, and added your reference. If you object to changing the link on an English name to the English IPA, or to putting a phonemic transcription in slashes, I won't object if you revert me again, though I'll be puzzled as to what the problem is. kwami 21:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Please don't let me regret not reporting you to the relevant incident board. You must undo your edit because I would be breaching the three-revert rule. Timeineurope 21:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No, this is a different edit. At first I had changed the pronunciation, you provided a source, and this time I left the pronunciation unchanged and changed a link. Since you reverted my change of pronunciation, I don't see how you'd be breaking 3RR. I am still curious, however, as to what it is you object to. kwami 21:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

You're misinterpreting the three-revert rule if you don't think it applies here. You reverted a phonetic transcription to a phonemic transcription four times, and that constitutes a breach. Timeineurope 21:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

That's not what you said you were reverting. kwami 22:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries don't have to include all (or any) reasons for the edit (and sometimes there's too little space). The bottom line is it doesn't matter what anyone said or didn't say. And you knew perfectly well what I think of phonemic transcription on Wikipedia. Timeineurope 22:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Whose fault is it if you refuse to communicate in good faith? Go ahead and change it to "phonetic" and leave the corrections then. kwami 23:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I do communicate in good faith. You, on the other hand, breached the three-revert rule and refuse to undo your edit. Timeineurope 00:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Hope nobody minds me randomly weighing in here, but as this is the English Wikipedia I actually think Kwami's changes make sense. IPA is the most neutral way for an encyclopaedia to represent phonemes, but few people understand IPA well enough to not have to rely on a key for English. Those who wish to use the original link can always click on the relevant link in the lead paragraph of the article at which they end up. Orderinchaos 00:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		IPA isn't the most fun at the best of times and I admire your patience in fixing the instances of IPA2 on en.wikipedia. Keep up the good work! :) Orderinchaos 00:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, OC. kwami 01:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Shuniah pronunciation

In NWO, we pronounce it "shoe nyuh" vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 12:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Aguasabon

I'm 99% sure the stress is on the second syllable, but I'm not entirely sure. The page I got it from didn't have a stress market. It could be more like Kakabeka though, with stress on the first and third syllable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vidioman (talk • contribs) 09:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

IPA edits

Hi. I notice you have been editing a lot of the IPA entries in American Civil War general biographies that I wrote. When I check your revised version, it always seems to be correct, so I am wondering whether there was a change in format introduced after I placed the entries in the articles. Although I am no expert on IPA, I thought I was doing it carefully at the time. Just interested. By the way, your modification to Henry Heth is correct. He pronounced his name the same as "Heath". Hal Jespersen 00:15, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Dinosaur pronunciation

Hi Kwami,

Thank you very much for your many IPA fixes on Wikipedia's dinosaur articles. I'm clueless when it comes to IPA, and so I really appreciate your adjustments to these articles. You recently changed the pronunciation on Scelidosaurus from sk- to s. Is this really correct? My understanding is that it's the same sound (skel) as in Thescelosaurus, on which you left the skel pronunciation. Any idea why there's a difference? Firsfron of Ronchester 11:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No difference. Thescelosaurus had /sɛl/ as an alternate pronunciation, and I didn't want to change things more than I needed to. The OED only has the Anglicized /sɛl/ pronunciations, but people who are trying to be true to the Latin/Greek will pronounce the /k/. I'll change it to make it consistant; after all, you can always go by the spelling if you want it to sound Latin. kwami 11:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Indonesia and Pancasila (politics) pronunciation

Hi there. I was interested to see your edits to these two articles. I was involved in a discussion about the pronunciation of "Pancasila" a while back (which I lost...), and you are right - it's not English. Regarding the transcription of "Indonesia", I have my doubts. Indonesians pronounce the dipthong /Əʊ/ after the "d" (as do the Americans), especially in patriotic songs, but in British English (and fast Indonesian) it is rendered /Ə/. And as far as I am aware, after checking with colleagues from the US, the UK, Australasia and Canada, the last part of the word is commonly pronounced /sjƏ /, /zIjƏ/ or some combination of the two. I like this stuff. Looking forward to knowing your thoughts. Regards. Davidelit 16:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Parallelepiped

I'm not sure I did the right thing—I'll have to check the older OED at home when I have the chance. If the OED gives the syllable-division (NOT stress-placement) differently, then the correct thing to do will be to keep your edit but simply remove "note this contains a typo in stress placement," since there would be no reason to regard it as a typo. In any case, from an article-information point of view, I hope you agree that what we need is information about how the word was pronounced back when mathematicians knew its etymology, with a supporting source. This is valuable information, not the history of typographical errors (if there was one). P.S. It is also awkward that (according to the current OED), the article now gives both current American pronunciations, but neither current British one. Wareh 17:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by British pronunciation. Is the stress in a different place in RP? Currently the first pronunciations make the vowel distinctions of both GA and RP, and as far as I can tell by reverse engineering their typo, the last pronunciation is what was intended by the OED. I have an e-copy of the SOED, but there must be something wrong with it, because I'm only getting the adj. version. kwami 22:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The current OED gives, "Brit. /ˌparəlɛlɨˈpʌɪpɛd/, /ˌparəlɛlɨˈpɪpɛd/, U.S. /ˈˌpɛrəˌlɛləˈpaɪpɨd/, /ˈˌpɛrəˌlɛləˈpɪpɨd/." I am not saying that personally I think we need four current pronunciations, and the two you've chosen cover the most notable variety in the range, but they are both American if the OED is right. Now, I'm less confident that you're correct in declaring the syllabification in the older OED is impossible in English! The point is that the word is a compound of parallel- and epi-ped. To a speaker who still feels that the "epi-" prefix is in the word (and it was precisely this feeling & knowledge that formed the traditional and older pronunciation), in careful pronunciation it would seem a bit odd to divide "-le-pi-ped" (though a parallelolepidopter would be a nice prism with a butterfly on both ends). In rapid speech, of course, I'm sure the syllable becomes le, and I'm no linguist so I won't quibble, as long as I'm sure you understand the point. (I am still not at home and have still not double checked what is printed in the older OED.) Bottom line, if the older OED prints it that way, I think it's intentional, even if you want to tell me the OED was therefore plain wrong as opposed to guilty of a typo. (But if that's the case, I suppose the strictest Wikipedia ethos would demand we still find a source for the information we've deemed best to present.) Wareh 23:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You may be right about careful enunciation, but I've never seen that transcription for any other word in the OED. W3 divides it -'le-pi-ped (they have both stress placements). As for RP vs GA, check the IPA link and you'll see we're setting up a broad transcription that covers both dialects: /aɪ/ is the vowel of "write", no matter how you pronounce it. (Actually, though I speak GA, I pronounce it [ʌɪ], which the OED claims is only RP.) So the only substantial difference between GA and RP which we need to transcribe is whether the final vowel is a full vowel /ɛ/ or a reduced /ɨ/. I wonder if people on both sides don't reduce it. kwami 23:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, between framing my edit summary and writing "cover the most notable variety" above, I did come to realize that the two pronunciations you put do a fine job of summing things up.

Well, I'm very fortunate to have Webster's New International unabridged (1947) down the hall. I just looked at it, and it clearly has a new syllable starting with epi. That's two prestigious sources in agreement (it now seems reasonable to assume this is in the older OED, though I still haven't checked it with my own eyes), and I think that's a final answer. W3 is very much less fastidious in orthoepy, and I'm more surprised that they retained mention of the older traditional pronunciation at all than that they mangled it. This word's etymology was misconstrued by many of its users at least by the mid-19th century, and some dictionaries even by then only had the etymologically false spelling as if the word contained the combining form parallelo-. W2 (but please, let's not use such cryptic abbreviations in articles) has just turned me from doubt to certainty that, if the point is to mention the etymologically fastidious, or traditional, or whatever you want to call it, pronunciation, we can simply give it syllabified as W2 and NED and leave it at that. Is that agreeable to you? Wareh 00:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine. I'll even throw in a glottal stop which, although not everyone will pronounce it, will make clear that this isn't a typo on our part. kwami 00:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I guess that's implied, but I wouldn't have the courage to go beyond the presentation of the dictionaries. By the way, I just got home and checked the old OED (New English Dictionary). It does agree with the "two word" syllabification. Wareh 01:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried to think of a parallel. I found in the current OED "synapomorph" (lemma "syn-"), where, indeed, as you argue, the second syllable begins with the n. But it is still quite possible that this reflects a change in practice between editions. But if neither of us has yet looked in the older OED, this is starting to be an awful lot of speculation. Wareh 23:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Schwi

I see you're using ᵻ in the article now. It's great that there's an IPA symbol for that otherwise ambivalent unstressed ɛ/ɨ, but I think this is the first time I've seen an English IPA pronunciation rendered ? in my set-up, which with Gentium and other fonts is usually good for IPA. Can you point me to a font that includes this character? Thanks. Wareh 16:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If you can't see this with Gentium, then I need to come up with something else. It's not worth inconveniencing all of our readers. I'll try just striking it out. BTW, it's not actually IPA, but an unofficial extension of the IPA that's been around for years and was just in 2005 adopted by the OED. kwami 16:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it doesn't display with my fonts. I see ?, but I can cut and paste it in order to communicate my problem to you, and from context I was able to describe it as "that otherwise ambivalent unstressed ɛ/ɨ." Your strikeout solution displays just fine. Wareh 17:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

IPA and Australian English

Hi Kwamikagami. I have raised the issue of IPA and Australian English in Australian place names at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#IPA and Australian English. Your thoughts may be of assistance. -- Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 00:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit conflict ! Australian edits discussed at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board: Hi some of your edits are being commented on at the Australian Wikipedians' notice board - you may like to join the conversation at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#IPA and Australian English. I guess I am curious as to how you have arrived at the pronounciation for Kyneton for example if not perhaps a local speaker? Regards--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Could you create a {{pronAusE}}, thanks. --203.94.135.134 04:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response and your contributions at the Australian Wikipedians' notice board. Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 08:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem. kwami 08:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

A couple may have been my fault - I added in pronounciation keys for some place names which kwami converted to international, which would have been correct had I not got them wrong to start with :) Orderinchaos 11:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

IPA and Lord Voldemort

When I ask you not once but twice to explain your edits in Discussion, it pretty much means we aren't understanding what you are doing. Your most recent edit - again presented without Discussion page posting - removes the IPA part of the citation, which is unacceptable in and of itself. Please take or make the time to discuss your edits, especailly when you are reverted by people asking for explanations. I am afraid the edit you keep inserting will not be allowed without discussion. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 08:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Pokrajac (surname)

Hi! Sorry, how do you know real articulation of this serbo-croatan word-surname? Regards. --Pockey 17:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't. I just fixed the transcription that was already there, "pokrayatz", which looked like a mixture of German and English orthography rather than the IPA. I also left off the accent, since the two versions contradicted each other and the consonants weren't reliable. kwami 17:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey! Unfortunately you make mistake because this word-surname have two articulations. I wrote those in article, and please can you bring them back. --Pockey 15:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you give us the stress in SC orthography? If it's á à â ā etc.? With that, we'd be able to transcribe the pronunciation correctly. kwami 19:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

It`s ['pɔkrajaʦ] --Pockey 16:56, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Near-close central unrounded vowel

I'm thinking that the recently created Near-close central unrounded vowel can be merged with either the Near-close near-front unrounded vowel or the close central unrounded vowel. I put my vote on the latter since I can think of two languages that have some sort of correspondance between [ɨ] and what I've been transcribing as [ɨ̞] (Russian and Welsh). This merge would be similar to that of the close-mid vowels and mid vowels so there'd be a separate section for it.

Also, since I'm here, I noticed you've transcribed the vowel as [ɪ] but I was under the impression that that symbol is obsolete. Am I incorrect? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe it was ever officially part of the IPA. However, the article uses official ɪ̈, and only notes at the end that ɪ is found.

I don't mind merging the article. I vote for adding it as a section to both of the other articles, though one might be brief and redirect to the other. kwami 19:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

you can't tell me "Winnipeg" isn't English

Yes I can. It's Cree. The sound of the second I is between /ɪ/ and /ə/, and slightly changes depending on how the word is placed in a sentence. No IPA for English symbols are sufficient, and I would suggest just leaving it as it is. We aren't going to get any closer than it already is. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 18:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Then we should tell people that's a Cree pronunciation. Most people give it an English pronunciation. kwami 18:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, to make it Cree, we have to change other things. There is no /ɛ/ in Cree, for example, so it can't rhyme with peg. kwami 18:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your help in getting the IPA version of Didsbury sorted out. --Malleus Fatuarum 16:55, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Brabham

Hi there. A while back you changed pronunciation of Brabham from IPA: ['bɹæbəm] to /ˈbræbəm/ on the page Brabham BT19. I'm no IPA expert and I just want the pronunciation to be correct, but I'm confused by the change. According to the IPA page, 'r' strictly means a trilled r, while 'ɹ' is a normal (or what I consider normal) r. I note that 'r' is often used to mean r, but wasn't the original version more strictly correct? Grateful if you could explain why not before I change the old version I have at Brabham as well. Cheers. 10:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, no worries. I'll change the version at Brabham to match. Cheers. 4u1e 11:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Link to audio file

Hi Kwami,

See my user page for my experiments with a link to a sound file for the IPA help pages. −Woodstone 19:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Woodstone! kwami 21:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

(Documentation note: We developed {{Audio-pipe}} for a clean, audio + text link template.)

The audiofile for appears to be broken. −Woodstone 14:39, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It sounds more like [wj] than [ɥ], but I hear it fine. kwami 16:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It must be loaded differently somehow. Clicking on the link takes me to a different page, whereas that doesn't happen with the other files. I have no idea what's different about it. kwami 16:43, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

In my PC it refuses to play, as the only one. In the template:audio that I now applied to the example, do you see info / help buttons? To me it looks clean. −Woodstone 18:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it has the buttons. kwami 18:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Sampa attack, oh noes!

In the first paragraph of Isle Royale, we are present with this magic nugget: « it is pronounced 'Il-'roi(-&)l »

I don't know what the hell that is supposed to be. Can you fix it? Thanks. :) vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 20:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't even Sampa, but an in-house EB transcription. kwami 20:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Maryland (IPA: /ˈmɛrɪlənd/)

/ɪ/ roses, business (/ˈbɪznɪs/) Who pronounces it like that? (Not the natives ;-) Tedickey 22:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I do. Is it /ə/ as in Rosa's, then? And do you pronounce roses and Rosa's differently? kwami 00:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I pronounce them differently. The "y" comes off sounding like the "a" in Rosa's, and the "e" in roses is a shorter sound. Tedickey 00:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Sligo

Just wondering if you've any comment on this? --The.Q^(t)(c) 13:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought that looked odd. kwami 13:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for changing the pronunciation guide back. I have no idea how to read it, and even less how to change it, so I appreciate it. --The.Q^(t)(c) 14:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit summary

Hello. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary, which wasn't included with your recent edit to Cupboard. Thank you. --Slashme 14:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

pron

[1]

I wasn't aware that there were lewd pictures in the Chiodos article. ;)

Cheers! - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 21:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Chiodos

I noticed you changed the ad-hoc pron on Chiodos to chee-oe-does. The last syllable is spelled like the word does but is supposed be pronounced like the word dose, and I think this will be confusing. Did you use a system to generate this pronunciation or were you just doing it ad hoc, and inadvertently created an ambiguous pronunciation? In the former case, I'd suggest that the system is problematic because it creates pronunciations that are spelled identically to common words (like does) but are pronounced differently. In the latter case, I guess it's just yet another reason why ad-hoc pronunciations are a bad idea. I wanted to bring this to your attention because I know you'll want to do something about it but I'm deferring to your judgment instead of fixing it myself. Nohat 23:59, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It's linked to the respelling key. Yes, without the key it's ambiguous, but someone complained that the IPA kept getting replaced by spelling pronunciations. I figured putting in both systems might prevent reverts, and if anyone's confused, they can always check out the IPA, which is right there. But by all means delete the respelling if you think that's best. I won't mind. kwami 04:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

answer to Earth like planet

I read this about 55 Cancri f in the Daily Mail and wondered if this is new info. As i'm not really into science maybe you could field this! I've seen on the edit history that you are the only person to of added to the article See this article for me to see if i'm right, thanks! And please get back to me. From Pafcool2 20:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a large moon orbiting the 4th planet could be habitable for life as we know it. Normally you'd expect a moon around a gas giant to be constantly bombarded with asteroids drawn in by the giant, which would be problematic for life, but in 55 Cancri there's an even larger giant further out that might help deflect them. And with the abundance of heavy elements in the system, there's a good chance a large terrestrial body would still be warm enough to keep plate tectonics going, which is needed to recycle water and air. One caveat, though: the moon would have to be huge, earth-sized, to retain a thick atmosphere. Titan has a thick atmosphere only because it's so cold; it would lose it if it were as warm as Earth. Our giants don't have any moons that large relative to the planet. And to be habitable, the moon would need to be outside the giant's radiation belts. Kwamikagami 20:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that answer, I didn't even know it's a moon from the article. You know you're science! Pafcool2 20:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Good work on Help:Pronunciation

Thanks for setting up Help:Pronunciation; it makes IPA much more viable as a guide to pronunciation in WP. The previous IPA page linked from entries was way too much for people who "just want the pronunciation, please." A short key with sample words is just what was needed. Good job. -R. S. Shaw 00:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I actually didn't do much of the work, but it's good to know it's appreciated. kwami 01:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

IPA

Slow down! Was there some Pronunciation meeting to remove the IPA note from names? --Knulclunk 05:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Eh. I see it link to the IPA help page. I guess that's okay..... Thanks! --Knulclunk 05:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

If you prefer, {{IPAEng}} has the same link as {{pronEng}}, but displays "IPA" rather than "pronounced". Same for {{IPA2}} vs. {{pronunciation}} for foreign words. Feel free to change whatever you want. I'm getting rid of the links to the main IPA article, because many people have complained it's overwhelming, and switching to these simpler keys. I just thought that since a fair number of our readers have no idea what the IPA is, a link displayed as "pronounced" would be more intuitive. kwami 05:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

IPA on Fédération Internationale des Échecs

I know essentially nothing about IPA, but isn't the correct IPA for the pronunciation of FIDE actually /fideɪ/?. As indicated in the article, it's fee-day, not fee-duh. 165.189.91.148 17:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. The article said it was fee-day and /fidə/. I merely added a link to the IPA. I've now added a warning to fact check. The French article has FIDE, which could be either, as it's common to drop accent marks in acronyms in French. The Russian article has fjidje, which is completely assimilated. Everyone else just seems to use FIDE without indicating a pronunciation. kwami 19:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that "fee-day" is actually the common English pronunciation as indicated at http://chess.about.com/cs/reference/g/bldeffid.htm (this page isn't a copy from Wikipedia), but I'll look for a better reference. 165.189.91.148 20:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

IPA and Kirshenbaum

Hi. I put Lars Eighner's comment on the pronunciation of his last name in "Kirshenbaum" ASCII IPA because that's how Eighner wrote it, which I think is worth keeping. —JerryFriedman 04:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. kwami 04:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll make it clearer that that's what he did. —JerryFriedman 15:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit summary 2

Hello. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary, which wasn't included with your recent edit to Carbon. Thank you. --Slashme 06:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I've gone over maybe 3000 articles recently. I simply can't do that if I include edit summaries for every minor change, such as redirecting a link. When I actually make changes of substance, I do include summaries, or at least I try to. kwami 06:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the 2 seconds it takes to type "fix redir" in the edit summary box will reduce your edit count slightly, but it takes more than 2 seconds for each editor who has the page on their watchlist to look at the diff to see what you did, so on balance using an edit summary will save time. --Slashme 09:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Templates as leads

I asked at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style about this, but got no response. I am now spamming people whe participate in MOS with this request: would you look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader template usage and tell me what you think? - Peregrine Fisher 07:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know much about football, so I won't be of much help. kwami 07:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Kalgash page

Thank you very much for fixing that. I originally uploaded the image primarily as a test, it was the first image I uploaded. I have now updated it to conform with the guidelines you suggested and to match the style of other orbit images. Here it is.

Thanks, Beast of traal T C _ 16:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal

I donno, I think the image works for the purposes of the article. The book didn't say that Onos and Dovim aren't a binary system. Maybe "Tano" has an orbit that is synchronous to that of the "Onos-Dovim" system? Feel free to change the image though, but please replace it and don't just remove it.

Thanks, Beast of traal T C _ 20:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal

As it is, the image is wrong. It's also OR, which is deprecated here in Wikipedia. I wouldn't mind if it were reasonable, but the suns aren't even named correctly, and don't fit the constant distances of the story. And sorry, but I'm also not going to add my own OR to the article. kwami 21:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

What is OR? Beast of traal T C _ 21:06, 12 November 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal

Oh, original research. Please don't apologize! There is nothing wrong with what you have done and I appreciate it. It was my first article, and I'm glad it can be improved. I still think any illustration is better than none but I'll go with your opinion. Really, there's no need to apologize. Looking back on it, there is no reason to have the Physical characteristics section in the description box... Thanks Beast of traal T C _ 21:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal

Chav

Since you are apparently a sort of generalized language maven, and I have no idea at all what I'm doing, maybe you could help out --
I've always wondered how the British slang term Chav is pronounced. I see that this info is on the Wiktionary. I attempted to copy it to Chav.
Can you please take a look at what I've done and see what ghastly errors I've committed? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 17:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine, assuming Wiktionary is correct. I just removed the Sampa version; the only point of Sampa is as a substitute for the IPA, and it's deprecated in Wikipedia. kwami 18:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Shogi

Hi, You are totally right on the assessment of Shogi. I changed it to "Mid". Can't really explain why I rated it low, probably because it usually isn't played with traditional chess pieces; hence not very related to chess. But again, after thinking it over, you are totally right! regards, Voorlandt 19:25, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Map

This is a great image. Nicely done. Tijuana Brass 02:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. kwami 02:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Lukas Moodysson

Please don't just guess at pronunciations. Your guesses might be wrong, like in this case. Timeineurope 00:25, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. kwami 00:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Alaska

Hi Kwami - thanks for your note on my talk page. There may be a misunderstanding here; my only edit to the Alaska page was a revert of apparent vandalism. If I was mistaken I do apologise. Maias 03:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks for the clarification. Cheers. Maias 10:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

IPA templates

Many thanks - Rothorpe 14:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Anna Laetitia Barbauld

I noticed you added a pronunciation to Barbauld. However, there is no agreement on how her name should be pronounced - with a French accent and a soft blending of the "l" and "d" or with a hard "l" and "d", if you see what I mean. Perhaps both could be included? There are probably even more pronunciations than that. Those are just the two I've heard. :) Awadewit | talk 07:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that was fast! Please do whatever you think is best. I'm just going on secondary references. (I'm not sure what you mean by a blending of the el and dee - do you mean a silent dee, as in French?) kwami (talk) 07:56, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Yes - Barbauld's husband was French and some academics have speculated that he kept the French pronunciation of his last name. Awadewit | talk 08:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Buckingham Palace

I don't know how to do your phonetic things, but the above place is pronounced "Bukinghum" - with the "h" being quite soft but definitely there and the final syllable is pronounced "hum" as in humming as opposed to ham as in pork. Giano (talk) 08:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Here in the US the gee is silent and it is ham as in pork, but I thought the aitch was silent in RP. That's what my sources say too. I'll put the question up on the talk page. kwami (talk) 08:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Voodoo

Heh, didn't know you were an admin, would have just asked you to do the move. Thanks. :-) - ∅ (∅), 12:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I merged New Orleans Voodoo to Louisiana Voodoo, could you take a look and see what you think? - ∅ (∅), 06:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. kwami (talk) 06:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

General American IPA irregularity

If you have a moment, would you mind turning your expertise toward International Phonetic Alphabet for English? It lists for General American, "/o/: bode". That seems wrong to me (should be /oʊ/); the IPA chart for English page with its alternative set of references supports /oʊ/ and this is what I've always observed in the literature. It doesn't help when phonologists themselves fail to arrive at a standard convention. I'm hoping it was merely transcribed incorrectly. Thank you for your assistance and/or clarification. Attenboroughii (talk) 22:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's clearly a diphthong, but then so are /u/ and /i/ (more like [ʊu] and [ɪi]). But whether it's [oʊ], [ʌʊ], or [ɜʊ] is another question. kwami (talk) 22:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt response, Kwami. The latter point notwithstanding, it seems appropriate to amend it to maintain consistency across the site. For your interest, I polled 6 fellow Londoners today in a non-partisan manner about the above sub-topic (by flashing the word at them); the universal response was /ˈbʌkɪŋəm/. Attenboroughii (talk) 23:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if we consider /o/ and /e/ to be diphthongs in RP, then so should we in GA. Otherwise we get IPA transcriptions like "woad (pronounced /wəʊd/ in RP, /woːd/ in GA)", rather than simply "woad (pronounced /woʊd/)". kwami (talk) 23:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Quite so. And thank you for looking through the Nepenthes list; your assumptions for stress were spot on for Sarawakiensis, usually mauled by Westerners! Incidentally, you've changed two instances /əʊ/ to /oʊ/ - since it's consistently /əʊ/ across the entire genus (apologies, I marked it up - I'm a botanist with a fairly neutral accent, but əʊ is what I learned at Cambridge) and merely a reflection of RP versus GA syntax (and not pronunciation), I'm going to revert these two. The alternative is to change every page where it occurs. I'm happy either way, but seek consistency for the sake of the user in the interim. Attenboroughii (talk) 08:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

(The difference between [əʊ] and [oʊ] is convention, not dialect. For the IPA key, we went for [oʊ].) Is we the Wikipedia panel of hegemonising American Phonologists? (grin) That being the case, I ask that you review all 120 entries to ensure that all the names conform to American convention - it would be a shame for all the entries to be inconsistent. I wish I had known that US pronunciation was the de facto on Wikipedia; it would have saved me a lot of effort, as I swing both ways.Attenboroughii (talk) 09:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your comment on [əʊ]/[oʊ] before I made the latest change. No, [oʊ] isn't GA. For some reason, perhaps because of the sources that Wikipedia editors have chosen, [əʊ] has come to be associated with RP, and [oʊ] with GA. But I speak GA, or something pretty close to it, and my pronunciation is clearly closer to [əʊ]. There was a minor discussion on this point when we (RP and GA) developed the help key, and we decided on [oʊ] as an orthographic compromise between [əʊ], [ɜʊ], [ʌʊ], [ɔʊ], [oʊ], [oː], and [o], most of which I've seen in descriptions of both GA and RP, as well as being somewhat more intuitive for IPA novices who might have difficulty accepting that /o/ is a diphthong. (Aussie also played a role in there somewhere.) As we worked it out, /r/ and /h/ are written overtly (just drop them if you don't pronounce them), but most of the vowels are closer to RP, since RP makes more vowel distinctions than GA. In particular, I thought we should have e.g. /eɪr/-/ɛr/ by analogy with /eɪ/-/ɛ/, and so on for all vowels before /r/ (easier to predict by sound rule, and graphically redundant, which makes it easier to read), but the RP'ers insisted that /ɛər/-/ɛr/ etc. was more intuitive, and we went with that. So no, no GA hegemony. (The whole chart could have used more discussion, perhaps - sometimes I wish I'd stuck out for /eɪr/ etc.! - but this had already languished in edit space for years, while readers were complaining they couldn't make heads or tails of the IPA.)

As for the Nepenthes edits, I was just trying to bring them in line with the IPA key. A lot didn't (and still don't) show stress in the species, [ɹ] is used for /r/, etc. The latter, of course, is a mere detail, but a lot of people aren't familiar with the IPA, and I don't want to scare them off any more than we have to! kwami (talk) 09:26, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

No problem, and I certainly appreciate the mire of a background to any current confusion/discrepancies; it's more reassuring than anything to know that you know what you're doing, and that you care about it so much. I certainly appreciate any input. As for the intonation, I'll run through the list and see which ones are missing stress indicators. Attenboroughii (talk) 09:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Nepenthes trəŋˈkɑːtə, truly? Surely this pronunciation is simply laziness to enunciate trʌŋˈkɑːtə correctly versus common or correct usage, particularly given its root, truncatus /trʌŋˈkɑːtəs/, and the English adjective truncate /trʌŋˈkeɪt/? The initial vowel is usually pronounced /ʌ/ in RP and GA (/ʊ/ among Filipino botanists and continental Europeans), surely both of those would be more accurate than /ə/. I've not amended it, but I'd like to know what the basis for the change is? Cheers, Attenboroughii (talk) 11:36, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

According to the OED, the adj. in English is /ˈtrʌŋkeɪt/, not /trʌŋˈkeɪt/, but I suppose you could have a shift in stress and maintain a full [ʌ] vowel. Do what you think is correct; I'm just used to people mixing up ʌ and ə in the transcriptions. kwami (talk) 11:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the closed syllable might preserve the full vowel, so you're probably right. kwami (talk) 11:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

No idea what you're talking about on my talk page. Do not particularly care either. You do not have the authority to unilaterally assert a pronunciation standard across Wikipedia by virtue of creating a highly disputed Help: page. Sorry you feel so strongly on the subject that you've been inserting mispronunciations all across Wikipedia. Unfortunately I don't have the time or patience to correct them, but you should hardly be surprised if people who can actually read and use IPA don't accept them.RandomCritic (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

A note as to why I (or the OED) are wrong would be useful. kwami (talk) 05:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The OED, by preference, records British Received Standard Pronunciation pronunciations; those are not correct for most other dialects of English, and IPA is sensitive enough to describe the difference between an English and an American, or an Australian, accent (that's part of its purpose).

Similarly, there are several different ways of pronouncing Latin; at least three of them common enough to be called "correct" . In Novus Ordo Seclorum, they differ mostly on the v (as English v or English w?) and on the e (short e, long e, or ai?).Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but they range from anglicized [v] to reconstructed Latin [w]; anglicized [ɛ] to reconstructed [ai]. The latter are easy to get from the spelling, the anglicized forms are not. Should we really ask our readers to learn a Latin-English conversion algorithm in order to pronounce English words? If you want to do that, at least indicate vowel length and direct the reader to such an algorithm. ('Latin' is not enough.) kwami (talk) 08:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

No, I am asking you to stop adding incomplete, and often erroneous, descriptions of pronunciation: All three systems of pronouncing Latin are valid within English. This does not belong on Wikipedia in the first place, but on wiktionary; and there it should, if included, be complete. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

If it's erroneous (and often? where? other than that I forgot to capitalize a name?), I'd appreciate you pointing out how, which you have not done. But no, I will not stop adding pronunciations to Latinate words merely because some people try to pronounce them more like Latin. You can add other forms if you like, but that's why we've included the Latin or Greek in the pronunciation section of the moon and asteroid articles: the more authentic pronunciations are easily predictable from the orthography (assuming you include a few basic diacritics), but the more anglicized pronunciations are not, not unless you know a rather complex conversion algorithm, and even then there are exceptions. As for not belonging on Wikipedia, since when? There is an entire Manual of Style page on the formatting of pronunciations. kwami (talk) 18:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

60% of the Manual of Style should be ignored. This doesn't sound like the other 40%, but please supply a link. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. I'm just talking about the MoS and MoS Pronunciation. kwami (talk) 06:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

How about this: For articles such as the names of asteroids and moons, we give individual anglicized pronunciations as well as the Latin or Greek (or in cases where the Greek is defective, such as Ixion, both), as I've been doing for the past couple years. That will give readers the choice, without overwhelming the article with the numerous alternate pronunciations that we're both opposed to. However, for more detailed articles, such as surface features of the moons and planets, we could link to a help page that explains the various conventions for pronouncing Classical names in English. (Or is there already such a page?) kwami (talk) 01:50, 24 November 2007 (UT

The Greek for Ixion is defective?!> What is this supposed to mean? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The Greek alphabet is defective, in that it doesn't indicate whether the i's in Ιξίων are long or short, the way it does for o's and e's. However, the Latin transliteration Ixīōn shows you the second i is long, and therefore where the stress would go in English. Assuming you mark long vowels, of course, since normally the Latin alphabet is defective as well — but then I guess we could use polytonic Greek orthography to do that in the original. kwami (talk) 07:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you; the macrons you refer to are no part of the Latin language; they are occasionally added to Latin texts, chiefly to help those who don't really know the language (thus normally in beginning school texts), secondarily in discussions of meter. The same thing can be done in Greek. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The Greek pronunciation of eta is at least a real pronunciation, which some English-speakers will give to Anthe. Others will make it rhyme with Firenze. But an i sound is both illiterate and unsourced; is it your own conjecture from "an-thee", which is surely intended only to signify an open syllable? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[ɛ] cannot end a word in English. As for sourcing it, it's a new name and not in any dictionary I can find, but you can get pretty close: The OED has rhodanthe /rəʊˈdænθiː/, for example. (A final ee sound varies among dictionary conventions as "i, ɪ, iː", but I'll be happy to add the length mark to the entry.) As for those who pronounce it as in Greek, sure: That's why we include the Greek. (Other users have left the literary English pronunciation but deleted the Greek as not pertinent, which I restored it with the argument that some people, such as yourself, will want to pronounce it /ˈɑːnθeɪ/, /ˈantʰɛː/, etc., and the easiest way to accommodate them is to include the original orthography. kwami (talk) 00:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Kiribati pronunciation.

There is no "ee" sound at the end of Kiribati. It is "Kee ree bas", the "bas" sounding like "sauce". Personally I say "Kear-uh-bass", but I think most non-Gilbertese people say "bas". An I-Kiribati can be heard saying the word at 4:15 in this video. Also in this Merriam-Webster entry with accompanying sound clip.--Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 06:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. He pronounced it [kiɾibɑsːː] (more or less), but that was while speaking in English. Is it pronounced the same way in Kiribati? That drawn out sss at the end, as well as at the ends of some of his English words, makes me wonder if he's compensating for his native accent (suppressing a final vowel?) while speaking in English. Or is final /i/ normally dropped in Kiribati words after /t/? Or maybe just in words borrowed from English? --kwami (talk) 06:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I do not speak Gilbertese and I have not yet visited Kiribati. Gilbertese has no letter "s" and has to compensate with other letters.

“ The I-Kiribati language does not have the full English alphabet. The Letters Ti together make a sound equivalent to the “s” in sun. ”

-Archives in Kiribati

“ The people are Micronesian and speak a single language, which has 13 sounds; “ti” is pronounced as “s” or “see”; thus Kiribati, pronounced “Kiri-bas,” is the local rendition of “Gilberts.” ”

-Britannica

“ Besides English being the official language, the Gilbertese also speaks a native Micronesian language where the sound of the letter 's' is replaced by 'ti'. That is why "Kiribati" (officially the Republic of Kiribati) is pronounced as "Kee-ree-bus". ”

-kiribaship.com.--Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 07:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of the allophony. The phonological references I've seen for Tungaru say that /t/ is pronounced [s] before /i/. They say nothing of /i/ then disappearing. In a lot of languages final vowels are faint or devoiced, so the question arises: Is the /i/ actually silent? Is this interference from English? Most sources don't say whether they're describing Tungaru or an English approximation. It's the kind of thing that few people actually know about, so once an error gets started, it might simply be perpetuated. Even the EB reads as if it's trying to clarify something that's rather ambiguous (not that they're all that reliable - about as good as Wikipedia for a lot of things, actually). I'd be much happier if we actually knew. kwami (talk) 08:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Swedish language

Could you please add a reference to the books you have that call the Swedish genders "common" and "neuter"? Thanks! –panda (talk) 18:08, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

There's one I'll add at the bottom, as you can probably verify every element of the grammar section with it. It's also cheap and readily available. kwami (talk) 21:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! –panda (talk) 23:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Paleohispanic scripts

Hi kwami: Aquitanian language is well-defined trough the people’s and god's names in Latin inscriptions. Vasconic is a broad term. [shall we stick with the BC/AD convention, or go with the more neutral BCE/CE ?] I don’t have a preference. Respect to the origins of Paleohispanic scripts, in my opinion it would be necessary to clarify which theory has been expressed referencing explicitly the source, because almost every researcher has it's own theory --Tautintanes (talk) 00:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Minories

Please could you check the correction? --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --Old Moonraker 21:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Sanskrit retroflexes

At Talk:Sanskrit someone has asked about what kind of retroflex sounds Sanskrit has/had. Do you think maybe you could give some insight on the matter? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

International Phonetic Alphabet

It looks as though you are doing a universal replace of all links to the article about the IPA with a link to the halp page. I don't think that's a very good idea, because it cuts out all the explanation of what IPA is and goes directly to a page that assumes the reader is familiar with IPA. --EncycloPetey 04:02, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Please revert any you think are inappropriate. I'm trying to redirect links in cases where all the reader needs is help with a few symbols. kwami 06:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I do agree that a help link should be added to these pages, but it should not be hidden as part of the in-line text. Whenever I click on a text link in an article, I expect to go to another article, not to a page in another namespace. I would rather see a help box like the one on the article for Latin_spelling_and_pronunciation. That approach clearly lets people know they are going to a help page. It also is more clearly help than a link on the initialism IPA. So, I think all those link changes ought to be reverted and a help box added in an appropriate location. --EncycloPetey 14:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I'll do it that way from now on when dealing with tables of IPA symbols, and may get around to reverting the older ones. Most of the replacements are for the pronunciation of a key word, though, where the help key is deemed appropriate. kwami 19:50, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Stamp

Here's a stamp from the Faroe Islands for you! Stamps from the Faroe Islands somehow promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving something friendly to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Make your own message to spread WikiLove to others! Happy editing! Vatomanocu (talk) 14:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That's sweet. kwami (talk) 14:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

ASL phonology

Hello.

I made some significant changes to the part of American Sign Language you contributed re phonology. See talk page for justification.

What was your source for your version?

Cheers. Sai Emrys ¿? ✍ 20:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Stokoe. I'm going to remove your 'usually's; when another point of contact is used, Stokoe analyzes it as an allophone of a different phoneme, as explained for L vs. G. kwami (talk) 20:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Saw the Talk page. I'll wait until you answer there. Wouldn't want to say Stokoe was wrong unless we have a source showing how. Otherwise it's OR. kwami (talk)

Meso-Philippines

Hi, I saw your edits. What prompted you to conclude that Meso-Philippine was a geographic group? Thanks. --Chris S. (talk) 21:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Wouk and Ross, for one. There are several sources I've seen which claim that the traditional Philippine and Indonesian 'branches' of AN are geographical conveniences, uses principally because otherwise you end of with dozens of tiny groups few people are familiar with, and that clades such as Western MP and Meso-Philippines should go the way of Melanesian. kwami (talk) 21:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, ok, cool. But yeah, I understand that not all Philippine languages would fit under one broad Philippine subgroup - but perhaps the first three did. If memory serves, it was Reid, but I'm not sure. Thanks! --Chris S. (talk) 00:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Orkhon script

Hi there. I noticed that you undid my change to get rid of the link to [[Don]], which is in fact a disambiguation page and not an article about the Don Alphabet. If you want a link to Don Alphabet putting [[Don]] in brackets does not accomplish that. I'm working as part of the disambiguation pages with links project that is attempting to remove all instances where a blue link goes to the wrong place. Would a good compromise be to remove the link altogether since there is no article about the Don alphabet? You can answer here, or on my talk page by clicking on the "76" in my signature. Thank you, happy editing, Keeper | 76 21:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Sorry about that. I first changed the link from redundant "[[Don alphabet|Don]] alphabet" to "[[Don alphabet]]", but then reverted it altogether when I saw it was a red link. I should have checked that the [[Don]] link was relevant. kwami (talk) 21:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem kwami. Thanks for your efforts here. Please note, I've revised your comment to also not link your talk page to the disamb page (in an effort to clean that one up). I'm adding a "nowiki" around your [[Don]]. just to avoid the irony. Happy editing, Keeper | 76 21:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

More from our friend

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Carnun for more possible socks. Now that there's an IP on the list, we may be closer to a solution. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 07:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I doubt these are the same person. They don't share any of the concerns of the first two other than converting Wikipedia to AD era formatting. kwami (talk) 09:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

nice map

I just stumbled across Image:Sudan political regions July 2006.png, and its legend, and immediately added it to two other articles. That is incredibly useful. Thanks for making it! - BanyanTree 08:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Glad you appreciate it. I really just touched up someone else's map. kwami (talk) 08:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Alsatian

Concerning letters d and t, b and p, and g and k, I've simply tried to transcribe in IPA the following explanations: [2], [3], and [4]. Godefroy (talk) 14:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I've edited Alsatian language and voice (phonetics) appropriately. kwami (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Normanton on Soar

Responded. - Francis Tyers · 15:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Citation needed tags

Hi Kwami,

Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia's dinosaur articles. When you add a fact tag, can you please note that in your edit summary? WP has a thousand dinosaur articles, and many "citation needed" tags are building up because no one is bothering to mention they're adding fact tags when they add fact tags, meaning I won't notice fact tags are being added, and the tags will just keep building up. If I know there are citations needed, I can often provide them. This is the sort of thing I'd like to avoid: I can't tell you're adding a CN tag from that edit summary. Thanks and please continue your good work. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I usually try to do that, but was using a bot. In this case, I went in manually to add the citation as you were writing me here. kwami (talk) 05:55, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Great, thank you. Even better. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 06:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Clicks

Thanks for adding Hadza click examples. My only concern is that, technically, the format guidelines for the tables are a one-example-per-language (with Basque as an agreed upon exception in voiceless alveolar fricative). The way that I've been carrying this out is that the one example I pick is the most "basic" form (that is, not palatalized, not pharyngealized, not aspirated, etc) when languages contrast in secondary characteristics. I think we can do this with the click consonants (even if the contrasts aren't really "secondary") and select example with "Tenuis" clicks, but maybe I'm overlooking something. Does this sound crazy? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

To me it seems a bit like having a single chart for stops and only illustrating [k], with [m] and [tʃ] left out as 'detail'. Clicks may not be relevant enough for English speakers to treat each one with a distinct article, so I don't mind lumping them together (especially since their analysis is still in its infancy, and we don't really know which are segmental rather than clusters), but they're more deserving of separate mention than Basque alveolar fricatives. Besides the fact that Basque z vs. s is of somewhat marginal importance (the distinction is being lost in many areas), it's also a distinction that's quite rare among languages which have alveolar fricatives, whereas nasalization is perhaps as distinctive among clicks as it is among stops around the world. But then again, we don't list aspirated [kʰ] separately (even though we do have [g], [kx], [ŋ], [q], [ɢ], and [ɴ]) so I half concede your point. Another difference between clicks and other consonants, however, is that we could easily become overwhelmed listing languages which have say [k] or [s]. That's not likely to ever happen with clicks! kwami (talk) 06:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so it seems like tenuis and nasal contrasts should have examples for both (as it is like contrasting [t] and [n]) but other contrasts like aspiration, breathy voice, and glottalization don't qualify for extra examples in the table. Right? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, we also give [k’] its own article. Is that equivalent to glottalization? And breathy voice, at least in the context of Xhosa, is perhaps epiphenomenal to voicing.

There isn't any theoretical basis to which consonants receive individual treatment in Wikipedia. We've followed the IPA, which is not scientifically designed but reflects the phonologies of the languages of the people who created it, and then added consonants with no IPA symbols that Wikipedians have felt to be important, such as ejectives and affricates. Within the small number of languages which utilize clicks, the differences you list are just as basic as ejectives and affricates in other languages. Since there's no theoretical basis to the decision, it boils down to what is useful. I think it would get to be more of an annoyance than anything to separately list laminal vs. apical vs. dental vs. alveolar [t]; the whole thing could quickly get out of hand. But clicks, which only occur in a dozen languages which are even marginally well described, and where these distinctions are robust among the relevant languages, would be much less of a management problem to describe at this level. kwami (talk) 07:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

All right, so since clicks are so rare and multiple examples will hardly create the potential for getting out of hand, there's reason to disregard the one-example-per-language "rule" for click consonants. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

IPA conventions and other important issues

Hi!
The reason why I changed the pronunciation of certain words was actually in other to respect local conventions (eg. Berkshire as it is generally pronounced by locals; the RP pronunciation of Brian Eno). As a phonology and dialects researcher, I had absolutely no intention of "disrespecting" IPA conventions, although I personally believe that local dialects ought to be respected in order not to make words sound deceiting (eg. a would-be visitor of Leicester calling the very place as something near lee-ces-ter). Also, as a man born in Britain, I have never heard of someone who pronounced the name Berkshire the way it was shown in the article.

In other words, the question concerning the Australian pronunciation of Bogan (ie. ['bəʉg(ə)n]) refers obviously to the fact most locals do pronounce the word that way, instead of /'boʊgən/.

Finally, I would like to remark that I understand what's been told about the IPA definitions, but, if it is possible, certain articles should comprise local pronunciations as well, otherwise, a large numer of words and, more specifically, local names are certainly going to look misleading when it comes to the way they should be pronounced, but of course, that's only a suggestion.

Thank you and best regards.

Personally, I love to see local pronunciations, but we need to state that's what they are, or people won't know what to do with them. As for the local value of long /o:/, that's predictable once you know the dialect, so it shouldn't mislead people. kwami (talk) 06:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Kwami!
Thank you for the clearing up. I might keep in contact in order to contribute to dialects and pronunciation issues, especially regarding my recently finished research on Australian and British dialects and their development & changes throughout the last 10 years.

As for the Leicester question, it was nought more than a mere example so as to illustrate the situation regarding geographical names. There's no need to bother about the explanation on the article, which I believe is clear enough.

Thanks again and I wish you a merry Christmas!

Guillain-Barré syndrome

No idea what is going on here but I protected this article for a week considering the edits of the last few days. I probably protected the wrong version of course. Garion96 (talk) 20:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Geelvinck

So you dont like other people to know where the name Geelvink comes from? Is not very scientific and boringly strict. Taksen (talk) 17:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? kwami (talk) 21:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Your talk page is far more interesting than mine. Orderinchaos 06:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

"Can't we all just get along?"

Now you're just pouting. As the saying goes, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A run-of-the-mill article without references is an annoyance. Claims that fly in the face of established use are more serious than that, even if they are fun.

Now *you're* just being a bully. I see you are very active on Wikipedia, and I'm glad you have something you enjoy doing. But other people have a right to participate as well. My perception is that you clobbered my edit just to throw your weight around, without any citations of your own, and without even understanding what I was plainly saying. I am going to ask Administrators to have a look at your unnecessary intervention. If they feel you're within bounds, I'll accept that. But if you're out of bounds, I don't care *how* much posting and policing you do on Wikipedia -- It belongs to *all* of us. DThrax (talk) 08:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand what Wikipedia is. It isn't a forum for personal views. If you have an unusual take on things, fine. I have plenty of my own. But for an encyclopedia, you need to justify them. You can't just change the definition of 'consonant' and 'vowel' because you don't like the state of phonetics. Personally, I think quarks and the Standard Model of particle physics are most likely nonsense, but I'm not going to convert those articles to my POV. kwami (talk) 09:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Need your help :)

Hi, I recall you're pretty solid with IPA ... For Nunawading, Victoria the pronunciation in Australian English is something like "nunner-WODDing" (see here for confirmation)... any idea how one would code that? Thanks... Orderinchaos 06:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure. On the Discussion page. kwami (talk) 07:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Regarding "warning"

Hello,

While I appreciate your attempts to improve the website, I suggest you read [5] before making un-needed reverts or edits, thank you for your concern but please take care to read up on the rules and guidelines of Wikipedia before you make an edit. --Rytoruin (talk) 02:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind telling me what you're talking about? kwami (talk) 02:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see, you were the one vandalizing articles! Or at the least you've been making inappropriate edits. kwami (talk) 02:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)