Talk:Muthkwey

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• ... that məθkʷəy̓ was not harvested or walked over, because oral tradition held that it had grown from the droppings of a two-headed serpent?

• Source: "Another story tells that our ancestors had never seen this plant before, and that they considered it to be sacred because it came from sʔi:łqəy̓ (Musqueam Indian Band, 2011). Our people were not permitted to walk over or harvest it." Sparrow, Corrina (2006). "Reclaiming Spaces Between: Coast Salish Two Spirit Identities and Experiences". Bachelor of Social Work, University of Victoria: 50–51. Retrieved 20 September 2024. "muthkwey come again year come next.year muthkwey. When it was another year, next year then that plant muthkwey spread out when it grew. It bloomed like any other plant. But it was not like any other plant. The old people did not step on it. It was thought sacred. It was from the droppings of the monster, the seelthkey." Suttles, Wayne P. (2004). Musqueam Reference Grammar. Page 545 UBC Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-1002-9. Retrieved 20 September 2024

• Reviewed: Noken system
• Comment: Will work on the QPQ shortly, thank you to the reviewer in advance! Done the QPQ!

Created by Ornithoptera (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 43 past nominations.

Ornithoptera (talk) 23:02, 30 September 2024 (UTC).

• @Ornithoptera: Just a question: is the weird spelling of the subject on purpose? IIRC, non-standard/stylized spellings are discouraged on DYK. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:22, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Narutolovehinata5, the "weird spelling" in question is the Americanist phonetic notation that is used for Indigenous North American languages. Like many terms in the languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast, məθkʷəy̓ is not "romanized" in the traditional sense because they still use Latin characters and contemporary inclusions of the notation are often unedited, such as "ʔálʔal Café" rather than "All-all Cafe" I will provide some examples of such:

• The hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ word “məθkʷəy̓” was initially transcribed in English as “grass,” resulting in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) People being known as “People of the River Grass.”
• The tall grass is to represent Musqueam, the flowering plant məθkʷəy̓, which grows in the Fraser River estuary. Stories have been passed on from generation to generation that explains how we became known as the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm — People of the məθkʷəy̓ plant.
• The Musqueam people are the people of the məθkʷəy̓, the river grass, and we have stewarded the mouth of the Fraser River since time immemorial.
• The name xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) relates back to the flowering plant, məθkʷəy̓, which once abundantly grew throughout Musqueam territory.
• The məθkʷəy̓ was described as a saχʷəl, which means “grass” or "plant." It was initially transcribed to English as a grass, and for some time the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm people have been known as “people of the river grass.”

For further reading, here is a quote from the University of British Columbia on the matter: "In the 1970’s, the Musqueam community began their journey towards language revitalization, and formally adopted the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA). NAPA allows the sounds of hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ to be more accurately conveyed in writing. The symbols that may be unfamiliar to you, including ə, q̓, θ, xʷ, and more have corresponding phonetics that you can learn in order to pronounce written hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓."

There is no "standard" transliteration, most English language sources refer to the plant as məθkʷəy̓ with no alteration. The article title was based on the one that Wayne Suttles employed in his 2004 Musqueam Reference Grammar, but there are multiple ways to transliterate this term without a standardized form, nor is there much of a need to, as the base of the notation are Latin characters. I thought it would be ideal to use the term with no alteration as many other sources have before. Ornithoptera (talk) 21:04, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I see. I was asking because, from what I remember, DYK usually doesn't use non-Latin characters in hooks. I'm pretty sure there was a guideline about it (I think using the language template?) Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:24, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

To my understanding Narutolovehinata5, the Americanist phonetic notation is (to a degree) the Latin alphabet, and I'm sure there have been instances where letters such as Þ or ð have made their way into DYK before. For the record, I am comfortable with adjusting it if at the end of the day it is in violation of DYK guidelines, but I thought it might be good to have my thoughts on the matter before jumping the gun. I do hope that there isn't a double standard for some non-standard characters from certain languages over others. Ornithoptera (talk) 00:12, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

• Full review needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:02, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

• Hi @Ornithoptera: this interesting article, created on the 23 September, is new enough, long enough, well-cited, and presentable. QPQ done. Hook short enough and cited. Nice work. My only gripe is that the "Tradition" section doesnt make totally clear the distinction between legend and real history (this is also true, to some extent, of the hook) as per MOS:WAF. I'll also suggest the following ALT, as this seems to be the headline of the story:

ALT1 ... that the identity of the sacred plant məθkʷəy̓ is unknown?

Best, Tenpop421 (talk) 23:04, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

• Hello Tenpop421, thank you for taking the time to review this article. I have always been wary about using the term "legend" within articles that discuss Indigenous oral traditions. Members of Indigenous communities have been typically cautious of outsiders using terminology that implicates their oral traditions and histories as simply mythological (for various reasons). Corrina Sparrow in her Reclaiming Spaces Between: Coast Salish Two Spirit Identities and Experiences explicitly states: "I will mention; however, that this story is not told as a myth or a legend; it captures an actual encounter with sʔi:łqəy̓ that happened thousands of years ago." I'm wondering if we can preface the original hook with "according to Musqueam oral tradition" instead? If that is not an adequate compromise, I'm amenable to the alternative hook you have provided. Ornithoptera (talk) 03:06, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Ornithoptera: That's a fair point. I have made some edits so that it is flagged in each line that we are referencing oral tradition (rather than, say, contemporary observation). I also removed two sentences from the article - one about a story told about xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and Mink, which Suttles cites to the Charleses, but wld probably require too much context for it to make sentence in the article; another about the Musqueam relating to the plant, which seems to me to be a duplicate of something already mentioned above. Also, in the first hook, I've replaced "because" with "because oral tradition held that", for the same reasons of flagging oral tradition (this, with all respect to Sparrow, is surely myth). Let me know if this is all good with you. Best, Tenpop421 (talk) 15:40, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Tenpop421 thank you for the adjustments, everything should check out here on my end. Ornithoptera (talk) 02:54, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay, good to go. Tenpop421 (talk) 11:55, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

@Ornithoptera, BlueMoonset, Tenpop421, Narutolovehinata5, Crisco 1492, Fram, AirshipJungleman29, and Jlwoodwa: per issues raised at WP:ERRORS (permalink here: [1]) this has been pulled for further consideration. There are issues around transliteration and accessibility.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:47, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

• Hi @Ornithoptera: You mentioned above that there is no "standard" transliteration of Americanist phonetic notation. Is there a transliteration we can apply uniformly to the page to make this more readable for the average user? Best, Tenpop421 (talk) 23:15, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

• Hi Tenpop421, it is unfortunate that this nomination has been quite a challenge but I understand the challenges involved. I have given it some thought, and my struggle is that there is no "standard transliteration" because English is not phonetically consistent like the Americanist Phonetic Notation system is, nor would there be a need to transliterate a phonetic system because the intention is that the phonetics give way to a 1-1 character to sound pair. Thus there is no uniform "this symbol equals this sound" because as you know, plenty of letters in English have alternative pronunciations (see the a's in "Australia" for a good example). I used "Muthkwey" primarily because Wayne Suttles used it in his Musqueam Reference Grammar, and because of the fact Wiki did not allow for the characters to be inputted into the article title. However, the typical usage in secondary sources is typically the "untransliterated" version, and there is no usage I can really WP:COMMONNAME to apply it to. The most ideal one is probably Suttles' transliteration because of his work with the Musqueam, but again this isn't universally adopted over məθkʷəy̓. Ornithoptera (talk) 19:22, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Title vs text

If the title is muthkwey, then the text should be using that as the primary form. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:21, 13 November 2024 (UTC)