Talk:A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

Dictionary features in relation to article text

The transliterations will help you with ya vs. alif maqsura, but they won't help you with word-initial hamza (since glottal stops are not transcribed at the beginnings of words), nor with having to re-compose verb forms on the fly based solely on the consonantal root and the stem number. AnonMoos 19:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Whats stem number though?. Collective number? Do you have the latest edition? - max rspct 19:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

It's the fourth edition of 1994, but none of the other editions I've seen are different in these respects. As for verb stems, look at link Arabic grammar#Stem formation for an explanation. Then look at root sin-lam-mim on page 495 of the dicationary (at least in my edition), and note the bold numeral IV. This numeral "IV" indicates a verb form with imperfect yuslimu and perfect 'aslama. A lot of other dictionaries would at least list the form 'aslama, but Wehr doesn't list any form at all, so you have to construct yuslimu and 'aslama purely from the consonantal root and your memorized knowledge of Stem IV derivation patterns. AnonMoos 02:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

He gives the actual form whenever there are any difficulties, and for the less common derived forms, so how exactly does this represent a difficulty? Palmiro | Talk 14:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

It represents a difficulty if you're of that cast of mind which finds it relatively easy to learn to associate yuslimu with aslama, but rather hard to synthesize yuslimu from scratch, given just the consonants S-L-M and the number "IV". I suspect that there are a large number of people in this boat -- I have a more analytic mind than many, and academic linguistic training, yet I would have to look in my grammar books to figure out what the forms would be if faced with a V, VII, or VIII stem verb listing in Wehr. Furthermore, if you look down the columns of the dictionary, you'll find that rather few derived-stem finite verb forms are in fact given. AnonMoos 15:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

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I don't think that the {{fact}} template was very necessary or useful, considering that this article basically consists of comments by actual habitual users of the dictionary, not publisher's blurbs. Look at the Amazon reviews, if you want. AnonMoos 19:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added some inline citations, and removed some not very relevant contents. However, the second-to-last paragraph is still original research. Hope someone will clean that up. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

What you call "original research" is practical concerns expressed by some ordinary habitual users of the dictionary... AnonMoos 09:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

They are practical concerns, no doubt about it. But Wikipedia is just not the place to express these concerns. I mean I would give them a "helpful" vote if they were posted on Amazon as a review :); but I'm afraid they can't get by here, which is not meant for posting personal book reviews. Regards.--K.C. Tang 01:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

However, they have a great deal of relevance to the dictionary's suitability for the purpose for which it was originally intended. It's absurd to say that we can't include anything which wasn't mentioned in a 1962 review of the first edition (which very few people nowadays are even using). AnonMoos 02:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's ok if we just state the facts (e.g. that hamza is not indicated), instead of giving weasel words like "Some features which could be considered drawbacks...". We're not here to judge what the drawbacks are. We do that on Amazon, not here. It's just that different sites serve different purposes. Of course what I said may sound absurd to many. Regards.--K.C. Tang 08:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I bet that the great majority of students in classes on Classical or literary Arabic whose teachers require correctly-written hamzas consider it a drwaback... AnonMoos 07:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Germanification of the article

AnonMoos, moving this content-related discussion here from my talk page:

I'm sure you're well-intended, but changing the focus of the article from the Arabic-English dictionary to the Arabic-German dictionary is a drastic change. Please discuss on the article talk page...

I'm not sure what you propose needs discussing. Perhaps you could elaborate on your reasons for this edit and why you see it as an improvement to delete over 5000 bytes of well-sourced information. How do you understand the article's scope? Should the derivative English translation of the original work exist as a standalone article? Please help me understand your point of view. إيان (talk) 01:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Before you came along, the article was mainly about an Arabic-ENGLISH dictionary, while now it's mainly about an Arabic-GERMAN dictionary. Notice a little difference there? It now doesn't fit under "A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic" at all, but is more suitable for the article title "Arabisches Woerterbuch fuer die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart". Maybe you could add some of that well-sourced text in a different way which doesn't disruptively change the topic of the article... AnonMoos (talk) 16:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The topic of this article is the dictionary by Hans Wehr, which was originally published in 1952 (in German) and only published in English in 1961 with Cowan. Are you suggesting a split into two standalone articles, one for the original and one for the English translation? إيان (talk) 19:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, it is highly improper to edit another person's contributions to a talk page without their permission, as you did here and here. See Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. إيان (talk) 19:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The subject matter of this article is an Arabic-ENGLISH dictionary which has a German background. You unilaterally changed the background of this article to be the main topic, and the former main topic to be a background, so that the title of the article no longer matches its content. I consider that to be disruptive.

For your signature, see your user talk page. And your choice of a section header was vague and useless. Changing a section header to be more informative is not usually considered to be editing other people's comments. You do not "own" a section header in the (limited) way that you do your signed comments (section headers are by their nature unsigned)... AnonMoos (talk)

The subject is the Hans Wehr dictionary. If you think it should be split into the German and English versions, you have to make a case for that. If you examine the cited source, you will see that the information literally comes from the introduction to the English version itself. إيان (talk) 16:01, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Read and see for yourself: https://ia803408.us.archive.org/3/items/dictionary-of-modern-written-arabic-hans/Dictionary_of_modern_written_Arabic_Hans.pdf , pages V-XIV. إيان (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

See, for example, how articles such as Civilization and Its Discontents, Don Quixote, or The Stranger treat the history of the work itself and don't fixate on the English translations. إيان (talk) 16:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

You can use whatever derogatory terminology you want, such as "fixating", but the simple fact is that before you came along, the article was mainly about an Arabic-ENGLISH dictionary, while now it's mainly about an Arabic-GERMAN dictionary. You might consider these two points: 1) Since your edits transformed the article into an unacceptable form in which the article's title is no longer suitable for the article's content, therefore it's your responsibility to fix your text additions so that the overall result is acceptable. It's not anybody else's responsibility to fix the problems which you created. 2) Situations such as the current one could have been avoided if you had discussed things here on the article talk page BEFORE you embarked on an extreme radical restructuring of the article! That might have avoided wasted effort on your part, and irritation and annoyance for everybody all around. I guess you never even bothered to consider this in your preference for unilateral action. The thing is, love of unilateral action can shade into "not playing well with others", which is a negative on Wikipedia... AnonMoos (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Adapting an Arabic-German dictionary to become an Arabic-English dictionary is a very different enterprise than translating a German literary work into English, so all your links to Don Quixote or whatever are very ornamental, but don't really support your argument... AnonMoos (talk) 23:06, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The everybody all around that is getting annoyed and irritated is just you. If you can't make the case that the article should be split in two so that this one can focus exclusively on the 1961 English translation, we will just go by what is in the reliable sources—which in this case happens to be the introduction to the English translation itself. Please stop editing warring against what is in the reliable source; it's disruptive. إيان (talk) 04:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

It's YOUR JOB to organize your edits so they produce an acceptable result. Disruptively changing the article's main topic is an unacceptable result, and is little better than vandalism at this point. If the article is split, then your German stuff will go into the new article, while this article will remain as it has been... AnonMoos (talk) 01:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

AnonMoos, this is notification that I have filed this dispute and requested a Wikipedia:Third opinion. (Please stop vandalizing the original, NPOV section header as it is used to link to this discussion.) إيان (talk) 04:03, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

You're the one committing vandalism: your date-only header is completely and utterly useless, as I explained in great detail and at great length on your user talk page -- but of course, you never listen to anything that might keep you from doing exacly whatever it is that you want to do! By the way, if you can't fairly quickly come up with several reasons why adapting an Arabic-German dictionary to serve as an Arabic-English dictionary is very different from translating a Goethe play into English, then that doesn't speak too well about your qualifications to undertake an extreme radical restructuring of this article. Right off, the dictionary adaptation must necessarily be a team effort -- a single man working on his own would probably take decades. Some 19th-century reference works, such as Lane's Arabic Lexicon, were done that way, but it would not be acceptable to publishers who wanted to issue a reasonably up-to-date resource suitable for English-speakers trying to read Arabic newspapers etc within a reasonable amount of time. I didn't look at any PDF file, but I looked at the introductory material in one of my paper copies of the dictionary, where J. Milton Cowan says that there was a plan to "translate, edit, and enlarge" Wehr's original German dictionary. Translating a Goethe play into English involves little or no "editing" of the type Cowan had in mind, and of course no "enlarging"... AnonMoos (talk) 13:52, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

3O Response: The stable version of this article is about the Arabic-English dictionary. That should remain until there's a consensus to change it. Mentioning the German version is perfectly reasonable as a background, but since this article is about the Arabic-English version that should remain the focus. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 17:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)