Talk:Names of Wikimedia languages

Looks like every single one of the Names_of_Wikimedia_languages/<code> pages has a glaring mistake: Gramatical instead of Grammatical. The French page has been fixed. Urhixidur (talk) 12:26, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Urhixidur Thank you very much! We will fix it ASAP! Godzzzilica (talk) 13:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll think about it. --ElpJo84 (talk) 18:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@ElpJo84 : I'm puzzled by your statement. What is there to think about? Urhixidur (talk) 12:14, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

failback -> fallback. --Infovarius (talk) 13:07, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

@Infovarius Thanks! Taken care of! Godzzzilica (talk) 13:26, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

German list

I made an edit to the German and the Tibetian entry in the German list. Could someone of the project confirm that that is wanted to have fill the columns with (on the this page or the German List discussion page maybe). 2A02:908:DB25:EB00:2485:B0FB:1AF3:D4B3 14:56, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

@2A02:908:DB25:EB00:2485:B0FB:1AF3:D4B3 Thank you for getting involved! Regarding you question:

• For the column Language name in German language - that is what we need!
• For the column Grammatical categories - we need grammatical categories (in English language) for the particular language. If the language name is a noun phrase, you should write in this column "n". If the language name is noun and has gender category feminine, you should write there "n, f". We don't need translation of the word "grammar" :) So, we need grammatical category for the Sprache when it is part of noun phrase. If the name of the language is without Sprache you have to determine what type of word it is, and which gender category. I hope this is helpful. Godzzzilica (talk) 15:22, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Prescriptive name?

The instructions ask for the prescriptive name, the name that would be used in a dictionary or mid-sentence. You then go on suggesting that in German this would have to be italienische Sprache and not Italienisch. But Italienisch is a valid dictionary lemma and would be the more common term to use in a normal sentence. The form italienische Sprache is used in a context where it is necessary to make a difference with other meanings of "Italienisch" (disambiguation). If you read the article on German Wikipedia you will see what i mean. This is quite different from the situation in many Slavic languages, where omitting the noun meaning "language" is a grammatical error. On Dutch Wikipedia the chosen solution is w:nl:Italiaans (taal), something you can use in an article name, but not in a sentence.

Where disambiguation is important (for instance, when naming Wikipedia entries), it is useful to use a less common but more specific description and often a form not used mid-sentence. For translation purposes (for instance, in Wiktionary) it is useful to show the most common, mid-sentence form and show the different meanings en synonyms along.

purpose	Dutch (nl)	German (deu)
wikilink	w:nl:Italiaans (taal)	w:de:Italienische_Sprache
translation	wikt:nl:Italiaans	wikt:de:Italienisch

English too is a valid dictionary lemma in English. Of course English language can be used in a dictionary in the English language too, but it sounds rather formal. My proposal would be to correct your examples (if you stick to the chosen languages).--MarcoSwart (talk) 23:07, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for clarification! The language name is capitalized and it means just the language name. I suppose we should remove German example, but leave Italian? --Millosh (talk) 01:10, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

This issue is already solved by CLDR, which has the names in the correct capitalisation and with the equivalent of the word "language" where needed. --Nemo 07:35, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

As mentioned below, please find the word "inglese" in CLDR: properly or not capitalized. --Millosh (talk) 10:39, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Here it is: "inglese" comes from CLDR.[1] --Nemo 20:06, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that information and sorry for telling you that you are trolling (though, it would be much easier if you'd have pointed to that, instead to the general documentation). I grepped for the term "English" inside of the data and didn't get anything useful. OK. Now we need just to fill the gap between our languages and those existing in Unicode and to have message "in <language>". Will fill tables with CLDR translations, except those which are already filled. --Millosh (talk) 23:59, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Word "language"

We have another but similar issue in Russian. Some rare languages have not stable wording, e.g. Ewe can be translated as ru:эве (and this will be undeclinable - "в эве") or ru:язык эве (this phrase is declinable - "в языке эве"). Which one to use? Or can we somehow to use both? --Infovarius (talk) 05:34, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Infovarius We are currently discussing how to handle this issue. At the moment, you can use the preferred form, and add another to the comment.Thank you!24.135.59.167 09:27, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I've added short forms. You can estimate the result here. --Infovarius (talk) 09:43, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Grammatical category: name

In Dutch language names are not only nouns, but more specific, (proper) names. This is the reason why language names are capitalized, even mid-sentence. I suspect that this is the case in more languages, so would it be an idea to have a possible value 'name' in the fifth column too? --MarcoSwart (talk) 23:29, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I suppose Dutch lexicography uses implicit definition for proper names: if noun and capitalized, then proper name. If not, feel free to add ", proper name" inside of the "Grammatical categories" column. --Millosh (talk) 00:48, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

CLDR

What does [2] mean? Millosh, do you plan to submit this data to CLDR? If not, it won't be used by MediaWiki. Did you propose them to add new data you're missing if any? Why not use MediaWiki i18n messages for "in language X", which sounds like a typical system message? --Nemo 07:33, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Before adding the warning to the page, can you please determine if these actually are Mediawiki messages - don't just presume they are. --Бране Јовановић (talk) 10:07, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Nemo, please stop trolling! It's also useful to inform yourself about the matter before taking such kind of action. I don't plan to submit data to CLDR, neither to use it in MediaWiki. The fact that something "sounds like a typical system message" doesn't mean that it is. Actually, you even didn't read the message at the beginning of every table (although you criticized the system of translating those messages; although you didn't fix it yourself), where you could find what's the purpose of "sounds like a typical system message". --Millosh (talk) 10:35, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

If you are so sure that CLDR is the right place for doing this kind of job, please refer to me the place where I could find the word "inglese": Italian is pretty big language and there should be the name of English language already. If you are suggesting me to start dealing with Unicode bureaucracy, feel free to do it yourself. --Millosh (talk) 10:35, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Search this page for "inglese". :^) – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 22:17, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

In relation to your last question and why not using MediaWiki i18n messages, thanks for your contribution to the organizational issues of the project! If it was possible, this wouldn't be put here, on Meta. And if you are willing to contribute to this issue more substantially, please organize the kosher way of doing things and keep in mind that we want to do the same with lexicographical and grammatical abbreviations and terms, as well as with the names of birds. --Millosh (talk) 10:35, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I told you he was trolling me on gerrit:203291 and gerrit:206125. Mjbmr (discussion • contribs) 10:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: Are you able to make distinction between adding a language into CLDR and creating new set of terms in CLDR? While the first one should be relatively straight-forward task, the second one requires Unicode's official decision to expand the list. --Millosh (talk) 17:12, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course the two things are distinct, but the process is the same: you submit a ticket and the CLDR technical committee examines it within a week. Adding a language is often harder, actually, because you need someone who speaks the language to submit at least some basic data about the language itself. Adding language names is easy: we got 100 of them added in last round, if more are needed we just need to make a list.

As for [3], I have no idea what you mean: that's the official page on our collaboration with CLDR. --Nemo 20:01, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Danish list – prescriptive names in the fourth column

You have given me a difficult job, because I do not agree with your premises. In a Danish dictionary or encyclopedia the name of a language would never be written as the equivalent of ”Danish language”, ”italienische Sprache”, but just ”dansk” and not ”dansk sprog”, just ”italiensk” and not ”italiensk sprog”. I have just checked ”afrikaans” in a couple of dictionaries, including one online:

http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Sprog,_religion_og_filosofi/Sprog/Sprog%C3%A6tter_og_sprogfamilier/Nederlandsk_sprog_og_afrikaans/afrikaans

Here is a lemma on Danish (dansk).

http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Sprog,_religion_og_filosofi/Sprog/Sprog%C3%A6tter_og_sprogfamilier/Nederlandsk_sprog_og_afrikaans/afrikaans

Notice for instance that it says “Retssproget er dansk”, “Hver dag udkommer på dansk aviser i over 2 mio. Eksemplarer …” and “alle radioudsendelser er på dansk…”. Nowhere you will find it written as “dansk sprog”.

You write:

”The fourth column is the language name in your language. Use this column for translation. Important: Use the full prescriptive name of the language in your language, as it would be written in a dictionary (or in the middle of a sentence, unmarked). Thus, English language, not "English", nor "the English language"; in Italian lingua italiana not "Lingua italiana", nor "italiana"; in German italienische Sprache, not Italienisch. It’s red if there is no data, it’s yellow if the text is the product of our guess how it should be written and it should be lime (light green) if you manually wrote or checked it.”

Well, the full description of a language name in Danish is not followed by the equivalent of “language” i.e. “sprog. It is just “afrikaans”, “dansk”, “engelsk”, “italiensk”, “tysk” and so on. You are not getting me to write “dansk sprog”, “engelsk sprog”, “italiensk sprog” and so on, because I find it incorrect. My conclusion must be that if you want terms like “dansk sprog”, “engelsk sprog”, “italiensk sprog” and so on, you will have to find somebody else to do it. If you can agree to plain “afrikaans”, “dansk”, “engelsk”, “italiensk”, “tysk” and so on, I am ready and at your service (with the remark that a few languages haven't yet got names in Danish).

--Olelog (talk) 13:32, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

@Olelog The example was given for the languages where full prescriptive name includes "language". Where that is not the case, as in Danish, you don't put it. Thank you very much for this intervention, we will add more explanations to the accompanying message. Godzzzilica (talk) 14:05, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

@Olelog:, I have one question for you: is it fine to have an entry in Danish Wiktionary which would be something like:

дански језик, n, m, dansk på serbisk

Note that Serbian term "дански језик" means exactly "Danish language", not "Danish" (otherwise, it would be "дански"). Serbian is not that problematic, as it follows Indo-European ambiguity of term vs. nominalized adjective. However, Slovenian, Slovak or Lingala have strict names for languages. If you are fine with having that kind of ambiguous link (language name referring to an adjective), it's OK. If you are not, it's likely that we should find another way how to handle it. --Millosh (talk) 14:30, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I suspect Danish and Dutch are similar in that what you call a nominalized adjective is the common form to talk or write about a language. It is possible to use the phrase "Nederlandse taal (Dutch language)" when you want to stress the difference with other possible meanings of "Nederlands (Dutch)" or when you want to sound formal or solemn. It is not correct to consider "Nederlands" in this sense as 'a nominalized adjective', formally it is a noun: a proper name; the nominalized adjective exists too: het Nederlandse as in "Hij gebruikte zoveel Engelse woorden dat het Nederlandse van zijn Nederlands moeilijk te herkennen was (He used so many English words that the Dutch of his Dutch was hard to discern)."--MarcoSwart (talk) 05:24, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

дански primary meaning is adjective "Danish"; should be "дански, -а, -о" (masculine, feminine and neuter forms). Second meaning is Danish language (as nominalized adjective, thus masculine noun; "nominalized adjective" is a noun which is an adjective derivative). In that sense, Serbian is analogue to English: you can use short form and you'll be understood well, but in formal occasions long form is preferred ("Речник српског" is as odd as "Dictionary of English"). --Millosh (talk) 15:09, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Milosh, for this clarification. The use of the nominalized form in Dutch is similar, but it can be used in formal occasions too. For instance, there exists a "Woordenboek Hedendaags Nederlands" (Dictonary of Contemporary Dutch). "Dictionary of English" may sound odd to you, but what about the Oxford Dictionary of English? "English Dictionary" is correct too, and probably the reason why "Dictionary of English" sounds odd. Clarification of these subtle differences between languages add to the value of dictionaries. The nice thing about using the neuter noun form in Dutch is that it is always correct. There are a few cases which have no corresponding adjective, e.g. "Sanskriet", so "in de Sanskriet taal" is simply wrong. --MarcoSwart (talk) 15:50, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

The entry you suggest would not be fine on Dutch Wiktionary. It should be 4 lines: a header "Servisch"; a subheader "Frase"; the pagename repeated with genus "дански језик m"; the sense "1. (taal) Deens". Most of this is done using templates. Because of the header, there is no need to state in het Servisch; it might even be confusing. In fact, there is at the moment an article дански presenting it as a masculine noun. Is it correct, or can дански only be an adjective? It might be very useful to have for each language some general information on how to use the different forms of language names--MarcoSwart (talk) 05:24, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

We'll pass Wiktionary by Wiktionary at the end of the process to fix the exact form for adding entries (if particular Wiktionary community opt in for that). So, proper headings, shortening "n, m" into "m" (BTW, that's common in Serbian lexicographics), as well) and adding "(taal)" before the description will be added, as well. "in Serbian" is basically for Wiktionaries which don't have such (regular) structure (but adding one more note would make explanation more complex). --Millosh (talk) 15:09, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Dutch Wiktionary uses a lot of standardized templates. I would be happy to provide you with the template framework which results in a language name entry; otherwise you could provide us with a list of data to create the missing items ourselves. In Dutch Wiktionary the 3-letter ISO-codes play an important role in serveral templates, so it would be helpful to preserve the language codes in the table and expand them with a field containing the appropriate 3-letter codes where necessary. Again: if necessary we are probably able to do so ourselves.--MarcoSwart (talk) 15:50, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I building now a database which would, among other things, include correlations between Wikimedia codes and ISO 639 codes (most notably, we have als for Alemannish, which is ISO 639-3 code for Albanian Tosk). Basically, we should develop methods for inserting data into Wiktionaries (aside using pywikibot as a general method) and I think it would be very useful to pass the process with Dutch (and likely French) Wiktionary community and develop methods for doing that on other Wiktionaries. That would also help building common methods among the Wiktionaries. At the moment when it becomes useful, I will publish it. --Millosh (talk) 18:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

VulpesVulpes42

I just wanted to say that I sadly can't help with the translations. Thanks for understanding VulpesVulpes42 (talk) 12:06, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for letting us know :) Senka Latinović (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Just wondering

where did you get the active user list from? For example, you left two messages on id:wikt:Pembicaraan Pengguna:Willy2000 and id:wikt:Pembicaraan Pengguna:Sa stating they both are "very active on Wiktionary", but they don't even have accounts on id.wikt? ✒ Bennylin 21:07, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@Bennylin We have created the list based on the tables of active users from [4]. In the meantime, when we started contacting people, we have realized that there are issues with this methodology, as in example you are mentioning. At the moment we are trying to refine the list. Godzzzilica (talk) 08:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata

Just curious, shouldn't that be in the labels in Wikidata? Did you compare how much of the data was available there before the start of the most recent translation drive, and will you also upload the data to Wikidata in the end? --denny (talk) 01:01, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

In particularly refering to this previous analysis by Max Klein. --denny (talk) 05:04, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Denny, all automatically added "yellow" names are from Wikidata (We'll use this lists to update Wikidata entries. Will take a look into Max's analysis (and likely talk with him). Presently, we are working on other methods for gathering data for languages names. --Millosh (talk) 14:50, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

That's great! I'd be happy if it went back to Wikidata afterwards :) --denny (talk) 18:02, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Samogitian

How about Samogitian language? When Samogitian wikipedia was created, there was not its code in that time, so they created their wikipedia with code bat-smg, but after that was accepted new code sgs. Without regard to this, the code of wikipedia stays old: bat-smg, but in other places (e.g. in wictionaries - in most/all languages existing) is code sgs in use. As I know, there was some wish to change code bat-smg to code sgs. Where was the problem/what will they do to get the change to reality? Why this problem is not solved yet? --Kusurija (talk) 15:56, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is still using bat-smg. (And, not related to this project, but to my membership inside of the Language committee, we'll take care to replace it with sgs.) Presently, this list corresponding with Wikimedia codes. We are building the database with the valid ISO 639-3 codes, which includes that Samogotian has the code sgs. --Millosh (talk) 14:46, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Colors

Might I suggest you use the templates {{Table-yes}}, {{Table-no}}, and {{Table-maybe}} to provide the red, green, and yellow colors in the various tables? They use less-glaring colors than the current ones (which are very hard on the eyes) and provide additional "semantic" information for editors of the tables that the "style" attributes do not. An example of the templates in use can be seen at Chapters email management. - dcljr (talk) 04:12, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Special font for Mongolian Traditional Script.

Hello team

1. Can I import or install special font for Mongolian old Traditional Script into mn.wiktionary.org?

The font is "CMs Ulaanbaatar".

Please see example word https://mn.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%85%D1%83%D1%80%D1%83%D1%83 , word is "хуруу".

Our word can't showing up correctly as Mongolian Traditional Scrip on the sub header ===Үндэсний бичиг===.

1. And more : How to have permission like as admin user for mn.wiktionary.org? We want to lock some words and contents , it's related to license.

Regards,

Ankhzaya Tseden

ONE project

Another page

Doesn't the Language names article duplicate anything? --Djadjko (talk) 00:10, 5 March 2016 (UTC)