User talk:Yom/Archive1

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re: Good work

Hi, thanks for your kind comments! To answer your question, my wife is (mostly) Amhara. She's fairly certain that she is part Oromo, but she does not speak the language etc. Her mom speaks some Oromifaa [sp?] but I think that's from living Nazret for so long. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 05:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good work

I've been trying to add similar information to am: as you may or may not have seen, feel free to come over there and edit if you have time... ! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 04:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addis

See User talk:71.246.206.142 for my previous response to you. I don't know if you had logged onto your account before then. Not only are you making the link go through a redirect rather than piping links, but most people don't know that "Addis Abeba" is the same as "Addis Ababa" so you're confusing readers as well. Please stop and propose the change at Talk:Addis Ababa. Thanks, Banyan Tree 22:15, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That other user isn't me. I just noticed your changes and changed it back. If you want me to make the link [[Addis Abeba|Addis Ababa]], that's fine, but given the difference of meaning of Addis Abeba and Addis Ababa, I think Addis Abeba should be used. In places where there is no meaning change (e.g. Kebra Nagast vs. the more correct Kibre Negest), I've let the more prevalent spelling stay.

Yom 22:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, sorry for the confusion. I'm not disagreeing with the merits of your argument; I'm simply affirming that if we're going to call Addis by the name that is used in every English-language source I can think of, it should be after a well-discussed decision, followed by the movement of Addis Ababa to Addis Abeba. There are any number of articles that are at the "wrong" location on Wikipeida. One of the more notorious is Kyiv, which is at Kiev because the Russian pronunciation of Ukraine's capital is more widely known. Thanks, Banyan Tree 23:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I moved Addis Abeba back to Addis Ababa because, accurate transliteration or not, that's how it's typically known in English. See also the name of the university there, www.aau.edu.et "Addis Ababa University", which you moved to "Addis Abeba University" even though that's not its name. This requires a discussion. --Golbez 07:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image copyright problem with Image:Ge'ezinscription.jpeg

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Template:Phoenician glyph

hi Yom. No doubt you meant well adding the Ge'ez column to that template. However, the South Arabian and Ge'ez alphabets are not descended from the Phoenician, and there is no unambiguous way of mapping the glyphs between them. They do have a common ancestor in the Middle Bronze Age alphabets, but not enough is known about that for a straightforward listing of corresponding glyphs. dab (ᛏ) 12:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(please sign your posts) -- yes, I agree of course that SA cognates of Phoenician letters should be discussed (e.g. Shin (letter))! But there is not such a cognate for each of the 22 Phoenician letters. The template "Phoenician glyphs" has the purpose of comparing the descendents of the set of 22 Proto-Canaanite/Phoenician glyphs. regards, dab (ᛏ) 18:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kingdom of Aksum

I've already said everything I have to say on the Talk page, so there's no point in adding anything new, unless I happen to turn up a copy of the Amharic language history... I haven't seen my old copy for years, but it had a lot of details about how the Agazyan came from Yemen, even specific dates ( I think it was ca. 1000 BC) and where they settled first. The title of the book was something like Ye'Ityoppya SiliT'ane... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lake Hayq

Hi Yom, just writing a note in hope that my further revisions to this article doesn't upset you (even though you didn't add the information I modified). From what I've seen, you've added some useful material to Ethiopia-related articles & they could certainly benefit from as many contributors as possible. My Wikiphilosophy is to try to put information in the relevant articles, in the hope that every article is focussed & easy to reference. Please leave me a message if you have any questions. -- llywrch 00:25, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings

Thanks for the encouragement, Yom. Great to see yet another person knowledgeable about Ethiopian languages (not many people could have caught my typo with አነ in the Tigrinya article!). Yes, I'll be working more on the Oromo article (and also Tigrinya and Sebat Bet Gurage). -- MikeGasser (talk) 04:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. አመሰግናለሁ። But you know, what I'm doing is easy compared to all of the more controversial stuff you get into. I doubt I'll get many arguments about Tigrinya plural. (Well, on Wikipedia you never know...) -- MikeG (talk) 02:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: Unsigned comments

Hi Yom, you can use any of the following templates: {{unsigned}}, {{unsigned2}} or {{unsigned3}}. They each work a little bit differently, but you can read each template's talk page to see how it works. Also remember to put "subst:" in front of the template's name, e.g. {{subst:unsigned|SomeUser|SomeDateAndTime}}. Hope this helps, and you can always check WP:TM if you're looking for a particular template (though it won't list all of them). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 06:17, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aksum

If you acknowledge the theory of Sabeans founding axum is theory which is defunct why do you insist on presenting it as a fact. You even acknowledge that the only proof was Sabean artifcats found in Ethiopia which would actually be an indication that aksum took over the Sabeans —This unsigned comment is by Dualldual (talk • contribs) 21:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I do not present it as fact. While I think it is incorrect, it was a widely prevalent view in the past, so it should be noted (though not promoted on the page). I don't like the wording of the opposing view ("some scholars contend), as it implies that it is incorrect, but if I were to say that "most scholars reject this view" or something to that effect, everyone else would just revert it because it's not NPOV. If you can find the evidence that most (I have shown just some apparently, and a lot of the links online today are just copies of older works which still hold the old, and, in my opinion, incorrect view) scholars today reject the notion of a Sabaean origin for Aksum, then I will certainly change the text (with pleasure).

With regards to the Sabaean artifacts, they point to a Sabaean presence in Aksum. Not a "presence" meaning "occupation" or any sort of control, but merely that there were some Sabaean "citizens" there. Moreover, the evidence indicates a short stay of these Sabaeans, and it also indicates that they were not dominant (i.e., they were under Aksum's domain or existed in some sort of symbiosis perhaps due to a treaty with Saba). Aksum did indeed take over the Sabaeans in the 2nd century AD, but I believe that the Sabaean "presence" that's being tlaked about dates earlier to BC times; we don't know if D’mt or the Aksumite state controlled Yemen then, although a closeness of cultures and civilizations is evident.

Yom 21:33, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been meaning to rewrite Axum & present a more scholarly POV with (most importantly) some references; my sense is that current scholarly concensus no longer believes that Axum was the creation of Arabian immigrants, although clearly there was influence from that region (as well as vice versa). You can get a sense of my intentions from the relevant portion of History of Ethiopia (which is another article I've been meaning to rewrite).

(PS to Yom -- which is the reason I came to your talk page -- do you have a citation for the 1994 Ethiopian Census -- specifically volume & page references? It would be wonderful if you could supply it, & that way we could clearly improve the articles you've used this material in.) -- llywrch 23:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

About rewiting History of Ethiopia: organizing huge spans of information into an article will always be a challenge, which is why so many people have avoided rewriting this article to any significant degree. But from my exchanges with Gyrfrog, I'd guess that we 3 are in agreement. (I haven't thought about discussing this matter with Codex Sinaiticus.)

About the 1994 census: darn. I was hoping that we could find someone with access to it, so that we could do a decent job of extracting the information in the same way the US census returns were used in the Ram-bot articles. And the cost of buying a set of the census is beyong the limits of my budget, too. -- llywrch 20:16, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jesuit interim

Regarding the "Jesuit interim" dates (in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), a large portion of this article was originally copied from the old (public domain) Encyclopedia Britannica. I'm pretty sure those dates were in there (I didn't even know about the Jesuit interim, myself, until I saw the E.B. text). But I left your edit "as is": the E.B. info is about 100 years old and I wonder if there's a better source for these dates. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:12, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Though the Portuguese (Jesuits) certainly came to Ethiopia around 1500, it certainly didn't affect religion and especially didn't break the link with Alexandria until Sissinios conerted in 1624; this interruption was effectively only 8 years long.

Yom 17:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: CSA link

Yep, it's a typo. I fixed that one in Afar Region, but since I was creating this statistical material in cookie-cutter fashion, the same typo is probably in every Region article. :-( llywrch 23:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My signature

Just a note, but your signature doesn't say "SFGiants" in cyrillic (alphabet). The "A" is actually a "D," the "N" an "I", among other things.

Yom 01:23, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I know, but it used to. ςפקι Д Иτς ☺ ☻ 02:59, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

deeceevoice

You might want to reconsider spending much time interacting with deeceevoice on "her" talk page. I made a point earlier today about her use of Ethiopian sickle-cell statistics and she removed it with a rude edit summary, possibly to prevent your seeing it. The sickle-cell statistics she game to you had a large header about how they were extrapolations and were probably useless for third world countries, which I think should preclude using them to "prove" there is widespread sickle-cell anemia in Ethiopia.

The page says:

This extrapolation calculation is automated and does not take into account any genetic, cultural, environmental, social, racial or other differences across the various countries and regions for which the extrapolated Sickle Cell Anemia statistics below refer to. As such, these extrapolations may be highly inaccurate (especially for developing or third-world countries) and only give a general indication (or even a meaningless indication) as to the actual prevalence or incidence of Sickle Cell Anemia in that region.[1]

Justforasecond 05:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hawulti

There is a Hawulti, Ethiopia? I have never heard of this place, but if it does exist then I apologize for deleting the link. Mesfin 20:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is. I'm not sure if there's a modern village/town there, but it is an archaelogical site some kilometers southeast of Aksum and southwest of Yeha. You can see it here.

Yom 21:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Working Languages in Eritrea

First I would like to say well done in finding that Article: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4106/is_200304/ai_n9219176/pg_2

Secondly, I would like to say that the reason that I insist on putting English as a working language is because in my experience ANY Eritrean form can be submitted with no problem in ANY of these three languages. Furthermore, the Gazette of Eritrean Laws and the Penal Code of Eritrea is written in these three languages.

Merhawie 15:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: Habesha

I saw your earlier note, but so far I was only able to go back through part of the edit history. Instead my usual procrastination, I've been very busy with work the past couple of weeks. I'm hoping things will settle down here in a few days. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 03:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Race Debate of the Ancient Egyptians

Your reason for adding the dispute tag: "(added NPOV again. While I agree more so with the Afrocentric position, there too many instances where it clearly supports (actively supports as opposed to just providing evidence) the Afrocentric case)" is not substantiated by any examples. Wikipedia isnt a case where all opposing viewpoints are to be given equal validity. We wont have an article where NAZIsm is given enough favorable content to offset the unfavorable content describing their atrocities. Hitler won't be given enough justification in an article for killing millions of Jews. So Afrocentricism in regards to Egypt is not given more consideration due to bias, its given more consideration because it stands on a stronger foundation. In the case of Greece for example, there would be noticably less support and thus I would not argue with an article that does not show it as favorably. Get it? Evidence provided in the Egypt article is the forensic reconstructions and the nuances of how they were done, the Cheikh Anta Diop information and the initial observations of 18th century archaeologists. That trumps resoundingly any nuanced counter-observations by modern archaeologists that rely on spinning the meaning of words like "black" and "caucasoid" and "intermediate" to recast the same black faces as "not really black". --Zaphnathpaaneah 07:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. —David Levy 23:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't add any vandalism. I simply reverted your removal of a minor April fool's joke on the Talk page of the Main page. Although the talk page is still part of Wikipedia, it is not encyclopedic per se, and Wikipedia doesn't have an official policy banning April Fool's jokes (though last year's joke went pretty far). I don't think a one sentence message saying that editors are eligible for monetary compensation for their work (which links directly to a site saying that it was a joke in big letters) is vandalism. Also, if you are going to discuss the topic, please actually use your own words and discuss it with me, rather than adding some standard "vandalism" template of which I am undeserving. I did not add nonsense; this isn't "second level warning" (the template used) worthy.

Yom 23:37, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You reinserted a phony (id est, nonsensical) Wikimedia Foundation message (on the first talk page that many readers see) for the second time. We don't need an official policy specifically barring such pranks; they qualify as vandalism 365 days per year. There is nothing more to "discuss." —David Levy 23:46, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oromo picture

Who is Dejazmach Balcha Aba Nefso? The only Dej. Balcha I can find mention of was the governor of Sidamo in the early 20th century -- but was described as a Gurage. (I can supply my source if you think this information is wrong.) -- llywrch 20:03, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He was one of Emperor Menelik's generals who was instrumental in the victory at Adwa. I can assure you he's Oromo and not Gurage (for one, Balcha is an Oromo name). He did actually rule over the Sidama region, though. I'm actually going to upload a higher quality version of the same picture today.

Yom 20:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since I posted the question, I've found a couple more books that explain the problem futher. It appears that the first work I consulted (Charles W. McClellan, "Coffee in centre-periphery relations: Gideo in the early twentieth century" in The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia [Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press/AAUP, 2002]) says he was Gurage. However, both Paul B. Henze in Layers of Time & Edward Ullendorff's notes to Haile Selassie's Autobiography state that he was an orphan found on the battlefield in Gurageland by Menelik II -- so undoubtedly some authorities assume he was Gurage, even if he had an Oromo name (also, determining nationality & religion based on names is never 100% reliable; for example, there is nothing to prevent me from naming a hypothetical son "Musashi" or "Mahatma" even though I have no Japanese or Asian Indian heritage). I believe that there are better examples of famous Oromos you could use as an example; in any case, having read a little more about Balcha, I feel he is a remarkable person about whom Wikipedia badly needs an article. -- llywrch 21:36, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying he's the most remarkable Oromo, but generally you have to go back 100+ years so that all copywright problems with pictures are solved. I pointed out his name only because the trend is for all ethnic groups to have Amhara names or religious names, so when it's a non-religious name in a language that is not Amharic (or Tigrinya, since names don't really vary between the two groups), it's usually a good indicator of the person's ethnic group. If you have a better picture of a famous Oromo that is not copywright, then by all means add it.

Yom 21:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misunderstand my point. I'm not questioning his notability -- I'm saying that there is evidence questioning whether he is Oromo. -- llywrch 22:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

re:History of Somalia

I cut and paste the article from lexisnexis to my livejournal account. I will look for another copy of the article, but I doubt I can find this article anywhere else, since it is from 1994. Travb 23:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.offshoremag.net/archives.html archive only goes back to 1999, article is from 1994. “Will the majors return to Somalia?”. Offshore: p. 8.

A part of the LA times article on LA times archive "The Oil Factor in Somalia" article is on several pages: choose which one you want to replace the link with.Travb 23:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I have a problem

I'm having some difficulties with my home user page, all my text appears in those purple edit boxes, I've had the page for five freaking months! Can you help me? Get back to me ASAP. Thanks a ton babe. Peace out. Teth22 16:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User 24.218.24.39

I'm a great admirer of your work on Wikipedia, but I think you're very mistaken with your comment/edit on the page of user 24.218.24.39. I'm no longer using that IP address, but all the edits using it were mine. If you'd like to check, see where the IP address comes from at an IP locater. 24.218.25.244 23:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of Template

Another user told me the template was wrong again, but he was not specific enough. He said the Mongoloid went as far as the Ural mountain range. I thought I made them go that far on the map. What is still wrong? -- Dark Tichondrias 08:56, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That part is fine, it's just that the Horn of Africa (a very controversial area wrt its classification) is "Caucasoid" according to Coon's map, whereas your map has it "Negroid." Since it says it is based on Coon, it should reflect that. Yom 09:22, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't screw with the "Pyrgi Tablets" article

Please don't destroy articles on topics you know nothing about. Semitic is reconstructed with *θ regardless of whether you have "doubts". No one considers you a foremost linguist. When you publish something in a journal, let us know. Secondly, I can't fathom how you consider Phoenician rbt related to Semitic *ba`l-. I replaced your nonsense with a comparison with Akkadian rābu meaning "great". Hence "great lady" => rb-t. If this is your idea of contribution, please don't. It's patently ignorant. --Glengordon01 19:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wrt to *θ, I had never seen it before in any of the proto-Semitic root reconstructions here: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=\data\semham\semet (which is duly cited), so it was not just a random change. This was before I had seen that the Wikipedia proto-Semitic article included *θ, so I did not know that this was considered by any to be a correct proto-Semitic reconstruction (had I seen it, I would have left it as is). As to ba`l, I thought it might have derived from ba`l-t (feminine form of ba`l), but I wasn't really sure and didn't have a source, so I shouldn't have made that conjecture (and I didn't know of the Akkadian cognate). Either way, there's no reason to be so hostile. I was honestly making an attempt at adding to the article. You can simply revert the edits and explain why they are wrong rather than accusing me of destroying an article and knowing nothing about Semitic languages.

I don't know why you removed my PS roots for year and build, though. You can search the database above for them. They have been reconstructed, and with citations.

Edit: I actually don't see the usual citations they have for "year," so I will look for some. It might take me a while, though. Yom 22:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's one thing when somebody contributes and makes an honest mistake, or someone who contributes something different that is supported by facts. You on the other hand show complete ignorance coupled with arrogance and I do admit that this is irritating. You have clearly never even gone to a library at all to look up a basic entry on Semitic languages in an encyclopaedia. Otherwise if you had done some simple homework, you could see the basis for both theta (*θ) and shin (*š)... just by comparing Arabic and Hebrew numerals from 1 to 10. How simple is that? Lazy. Honestly, you don't know Arabic (and I know you don't know basic comparative linguistics based on things you've said) and suddenly you're a Proto-Semitic expert? Come on. Please for the love of God, visit a university library and stop vegetating on internet garbage. It's affecting your logic. (By the way, the late S.A. Starostin has never been supported by most Semiticists or, for that matter, most linguists. The reconstructions he demonstrated in every language he toyed with are ignorant of the data and ignorant of universal tendencies regarding phonemic typology. His reconstructions are completely different from the mainstream. The only thing I respect about his work is his energy to create his database and do what he loves which takes determination and zeal. I love determination, but I don't love ignorance. Ignorant determination is also worthless and even destructive, much like your recent edits. Read first. Edit after.) --Glengordon01 18:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again with the hostility. How long have you been at Wikipedia? Surely you know that you should assume good faith. If you continue to be so hostile, I will not respond to your edits, but will just delete them. I never claimed to be a semiticist or a comparative linguist or even speak arabic, I still have plenty to learn, but I did try to help the article based on what I know. I have researched comparisons before, but I'm obviously a novice so don't accuse me of laziness in a subject that I am an amateur in. If you have problems with Starostin, that's fine, but don't insult me as a result of it.

Yom 18:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blin /Bilen /Bilin

Hi Yom. I've not out for an argument on this, but just want to make sure we get the best page title. I've been wondering which spelling to choose for several months! When I do a google test with quotes, I get 224 (33 actually displayed) for "bilen language", 442 (63 actually displayed) for "blin language" and 564 (42 actually displayed) for "bilin language". Without quotes I get 335k for bilen language, but not all of these are relevant, for example on the first page there is one which turns up because "bilen" is a word in Danish, and the same happens with other languages on later pages. As for the searches with quotation marks, I'm not sure the numbers are large enough to be conclusive. The preferences of a few individuals could be skewing the results.

I've no idea how representative or complete this bibliography is, but it would seem to indicate that Blin or Bilin is best. [2] What do you think? Gailtb 09:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I got contrary results a week ago when you first posted this...but now it seems you are correct. I will move the page back. I get 30k+ hits for bilen and Eritrea vs. ~1k for Blin and Eritrea, though (for the ethnic group)...

Yom 21:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See [3]. The spelling seems to be ብሊና. I hear schwa after the first b - I don't think it's a silent vowel, which gives some reason to it being written both with and without a vowel in English. I remember that blina.net used to be a Blin website, which fits with the final consonant. I just wrote my first ever word in Ge'ez :-)

I know Wiki policy is to use the commonest name, but in this case there didn't seem to be any conclusive evidence. (Strangely, Bilen seems to be commonest for the ethnic group.) From my reading about the language, it seems that the spelling Blin is steadily gaining ground over Bilin. Without any definite evidence in any other direction, I thought it was ok to go with the native speaker preference. Gailtb 22:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very odd. I guess we'll keep Bilen where it is and the language at Blin language, despite the different spellings. I wonder why there's no "a" at the end, though...

Congratulations on your first Ge'ez word. :) Yom 22:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Picture in Ethiopia

I would prefer a less shadowy pic, if you can find one. Actually, it's more than just shadows, the guy has dark circles under his eyes like he is very tired or sleep-deprived or something. I just wanted someone with brighter eyes to represent the faith... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]