Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems/Archive 5

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Justin Perkins

Just curious as to whether the members of this project believe that the above named individual, who first committed the Syriac language to writing, would qualify within the scope of this project or not. John Carter (talk) 19:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

rongorongo

Could someone recheck rongorongo? It's been vastly improved since it was rated a 'B' article, but doesn't look like it's up to FA status. Thanks, kwami (talk) 02:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Notice of FAR

Voynich manuscript has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cheers. Zidel333 (talk) 18:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

English alphabet

I think that English alphabet should be included in the scope of this project. I also think that it should have TOP importance, but I thought I would just ask before I decide for myself that a national alphabet is of TOP importance. As a side note, the article would surely benefit from expert input, its current state is appalling Jasy jatere (talk) 17:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Man'yogana In Infoboxes

wikiproject
hiragana japanese hiragana wikiproject katakana
transliteration	ke
hiragana origin	計
katakana origin	介
unicode	U+3051

As you can see, the two man'yogana are listed, but which one is the progenitor of which kana is not specified. They list the Man'yōgana that the kana derives from, but it NEEDS to be made clear which mayogana the hiragana derives from and where the katagana dervies from. For excample, け comes from 計 and ケ comes from 介, but the info box does not make that clear. I made the mistake.68.148.164.166 (talk) 20:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

They're in the same left to right order... --JWB (talk) 21:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

But that is not indicated.68.148.164.166 (talk) 22:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

ASCII FAR

ASCII has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

rating

I have no idea how the rating is supposed to work: is it consensus? "be bold"? Well, I chose the latter and rated hangul (unrated) as 'top' importance and reduced Serbian Cyrillic from 'top' to 'high' importance, per your guidelines. — kwami (talk) 23:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Importance ratings are supposed to be done on the basis of the article's subject's importance to the project, in this case the Writing systems project, as a whole, regardless of its current quality. Clearly that is a subjective determination in almost all cases. Generally, it's best to allow those editors with the most experience with or knowledge of a given project to make such ratings, unless they are clearly obvious, as those individuals will have the most knowledge of the various articles out there and be able to make the best decisions. Regarding the specific moves you made, I don't have a clue one way or another, so I personally won't say anything about them. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay. They're pretty obvious from the project criterion chart. Also, I upped rongorongo to 'A' and 'top', since no-one's responded to my previous request to reevaluate it. It's perhaps the most important remaining undeciphered script, at least in the sense that we might have enough material to work with, and is possibly one of as few as three inventions of writing in history, so I feel it deserves to be 'top' (though I wouldn't object to 'high'), and it has been completely rewritten and is now up for FA, so it deserves to be at least an 'A'. (If anyone wants to comment on the FA nomination, please do!) — kwami (talk) 00:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I just noticed that 'well known extinct scripts' are supposed to be 'high', after I moved several to 'top'. However, I disagree: major founding scripts should all be 'top'. Cuneiform, the first writing - if that's not of top importance, what is? It should be 'high' along with minor national variants such as Italian alphabet? Cuneiform, Egyptian, Chinese, & Mayan are fundamental to any study of writing, and so should all be 'top'. Rongorongo I'll bump down to 'high', since we don't know if it was really writing. — kwami (talk) 00:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference however between "historical" importance and "functional" importance. My personal advice would be to leave any of the articles which are specifically mentioned in the ratings summary chart alone, as that chart seems to be the basis of determining the importance of others. Cuneiform, etc., are of major historical importance for the specific regions of the world they influenced, but are less important to the project as a whole than the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets, which are all to varying degrees still in use. I had no input, with good reason, for determining what was included in that chart where, but I tend to think that any changes to be made in the "benchmark" importance ratings indicated there should be discussed in advance, as those changes would alter the status of any number of other articles as well. John Carter (talk) 00:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I'll change them back. However, I think the founding scripts qualify as 'top' for being "Major writing system families". — kwami (talk) 00:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

New Inter-Project Collaboration: task force / work group

WikiProject Ancient Germanic studies has just created a work group focusing on runes and runic inscriptions: Runic studies work group. If you are interested in participating, feel free to drop by the group's page and sign up. Thanks. —Aryaman (talk) 20:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Neolithic signs in China page

That page got a B rating from y'all so I have done a complete rewrite after extensive research, and I've included extensive referencing of scholarly-quality sources instead of low-quality media reports. Please have a look and consider revising the rating tag; I've not revised it myself because I don't want to rate my own work. Dragonbones (talk) 14:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The mystery of the writing that is not Sanskrit

A shiny gold coin for the person who helps me figure this out.

Hello, people who know about writing systems. I'm currently researching Honoré de Balzac's novel La Peau de chagrin, which features this bit of writing (at right), followed by the dialogue: "So you read Sanskrit fluently". (Naturally, the character might simply be mistaken; elsewhere he discusses "this Oriental sentence".)

Shruti14 assures me that it's not Sanskrit. So then.. what is it?

The book translates the writing (inscribed on a piece of shagreen) as follows:

Possessing me thou shalt possess all things.
But thy life is mine, for God has so willed it.
Wish, and thy wishes shall be fulfilled;
but measure thy desires, according
to the life that is in thee.
This is thy life,
with each wish I must shrink
even as thy own days.
Wilt thou have me? Take me.
God will hearken unto thee.
So be it!

If we can identify the language, I hope we can figure out if the translation is accurate. Any information you can offer is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance. – Scartol • Tok 00:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Update: I've found another version of the writing here. Perhaps it will be of assistance. – Scartol • Tok 01:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Update: Some sources say it's Arabic. Any insight is still appreciated. – Scartol • Tok 17:23, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The script is without question Arabic. The name Allah occurs twice (as does God in your translation) and I typed in several words at random and all of them hit pages in the Arabic language. It could conceivably be another language with a lot of Arabic loanwords, but that seems to me unlikely. -- Evertype·✆ 18:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks, Evertype! Now I just need to find out how accurate it is. (Admittedly, it's just curiosity at this point, heh.) – Scartol • Tok 13:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

It's definitely Arabic, written in extremely classical/archaic style. The translation seems more or less accurate. One quibble I would have is that the verb translated as "wish" normally means "seeking" or even "asking." But, according to my classical Arabic dictionary, the word can in certain instances mean "wish." Also, the word for the noun "desires" as in "measure thy desires" would be better rendered as "quests" or perhaps "pursuits." (Still, Lane's dictionary of Classical Arabic assures me that "desire" is an acceptable rendering, if not a common one.) The words "this is thy life" are, in Arabic, "This is it" with the word "life" being implied from the preceding statement. There's also a spelling mistake in the Arabic: the word written as آلكل should be الكل (al-kul, a classical word for "everything") without the horizontal diacritic. Hope this helps. Szfski (talk) 17:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

That is without question Arabic. The gloss / translation strikes me as off, I presume the original translation was in French? That might explain the odditity. If you have the French it may be easier to judge (unless you are judging purely against the Arabic). (collounsbury (talk) 12:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC))

Thanks, Collounsbury. The French is as follows:

SI TU ME POSSEDES, TU POSSEDERAS TOUT.

MAIS TA VIE M'APPARTIENDRA. DIEU L'A
VOULU AINSI. DESIRE, ET TES DESIRS
SERONT ACCOMPLIS. MAIS REGLE
TES SOUHAITS SUR TA VIE.
ELLE EST LA. A CHAQUE
VOULOIR JE DECROITRAI
COMME TES JOURS.
ME VEUX-TU?
PRENDS. DIEU
T'EXAUCERA.

SOIT!

With my feeble French-to-English skills, I'd say that the English version is fair enough, with some minor wording differences (the first line is closer to "If you possess me, you will possess everything"). Thanks again! – Scartol • Tok 16:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, this makes sense. Part of the reason the English reads oddly against the Arabic (not wrong perhaps, but not how I would render it....) is it clearly came off the French (e.g. the rendering of Amine (which is as Arab League noted is just Amen) as So be it, Soit is okay as a rendering of Amen in French, then it got translated as So Be In in English.... So, there you go, the poetic French gloss of the Arabic got further from the original in the poetic English translation of the French. (collounsbury (talk) 12:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC))

this Arabic, and i believe the translation in English is more or less accurate, except for the last part it is Amen, instead of "so be it"

Excellent. Thank you all very much. – Scartol • Tok 14:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Very odd. Thanks for bringing this up. I find the Arabic very very hard to read. Is there any indication of when it is from; I am also assuming, perhaps incorrectly, it is from India? I say the Arabic is hard to read because the script itself is oddly formalized. It looks like it may have been made with an early Arabic printing press! My translation differs kind of strongly, it is an attempt a very literal translation, from those above:

I have noted points of confusion with *s. The grammar is also amazingly simplistic, except where it is possibly incorrect. I would appreciate corrections/comments, but I am pretty sure both the English and French translations are wrong or have taken some liberties:

1 If you possess(ed) me, you possessed all.
2 (But) your life is mine.
3 (And) God wanted thus.
4 Request/ask [demand] and you will acquire/receive your requests [demands].
5 (But) q-s-n* your requests on your life.
6 (And) They are here.**
7 (So/and) with all your wishes/desires you shrink/equal/descend?*** your days.
8 Do you want me?****
9 God is your respondent.
10 Amen.

• No entry in the dictionary. قاس means to measure. So the French may have been an original mistranslation.
  • هاهنا means هنا.
    • I can make neither heads nor tails of how this word is constructed from a root... i/a-s-t-s-n-z-l would imply either the first letter as part of the verb form or an interrogative or maybe negation marker. The s could be from sawfa (as in will+verb), and the taa could be part of the conjugation. That would leave s-n-z-l. This does not appear to be a root. N-z-l is and could connote decline or shrink, but the word is not Arabic... lol. Either the French is ambitious or more likely, the author transcribed this word incorrectly. inzal means to occupy the same position or rank...
      • I'm also not 100% sure about the meaning of this. "Do you want me?" would be أتريدني.

Frankly, it is Arabic and not Sanskrit. I still find it pretty questionable that there was not a significant amount of tampering by unfamiliar persons (i.e. the author perhaps). Msheflin (talk) 18:18, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Two other brief points, in the first line, the translation is questionable (as is the Arabic) because of the lack of a ف preceding ملكت; implying that the author may not have had knowledge of correct conditional constructions. Additionally, I find it quite suspect that with the possible exception of وهي هاهنا, all the lines are basically sentences. This is a bit odd for an Arabic... hymn, or whatever it is. The Amen at the end implies a prayer, or a religious quotation or something. Msheflin (talk) 18:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

My guess is that Balzac expected very few people would have any idea what it said, apart from maybe recognizing it as a foreign language written in a different kind of script. Thus, precise translations were not a priority for him. Thanks for your additional commentary; it's always good to know as much as possible about this sort of thing. Cheers! Scartol • Tok 12:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Request move: Zhuyin → Bopomofo

Request move: Zhuyin → Bopomofo; discuss here: Talk:Zhuyin#Requested move --Voidvector (talk) 05:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Afaka script

I'm stuck rating Afaka script. It feels like it's of mid importance, but our guideline would suggest it's high. I keep going back & forth. kwami (talk) 23:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

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Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1365 articles are assigned to this project, of which 343, or 25.1%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subscribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Uniform names for articles on numbers in different languages

The following articles do not cover any pure numeral system where the symbols and notations are clearly defined, instead they cover how numbers are used in the respective languages. I have proposed all of them be moved. Please discuss HERE.

• Names of numbers in English → Numbers in English
• Chinese numerals → Numbers in Chinese
• Japanese numerals → Numbers in Japanese
• Korean numerals → Numbers in Korean
• Welsh numerals → Numbers in Welsh
• Proto-Indo-European numerals → Numbers in Proto-Indo-European

Thank you. --Voidvector (talk) 07:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Persian alphabet template

Can someone fix this one? Mallerd (talk) 12:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I reverted a recent change to {{lang}} which was causing the problem. There is discussion on the talk page there about whether to restore the reverted feature (categorizing pages by languages shown on them) and how to do so without breaking other templates like the Persian alphabet one. --CBD 13:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Terima kasih Mallerd (talk) 00:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

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New template: "Contains Canadian text"

I've created a new template modeled on existing ones for Chinese, Ethopic, etc., to advise users of the use of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics on an article page. It's at Template:Contains Canadian text, so of course it's invoked with {{Contains Canadian text}} — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 22:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)