Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems/Archive 8

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing systems. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Proposal of WikiProject Applied Linguistics

Hi everyone, I have made a proposal over at the WikiProject Council to start WikiProject Applied Linguistics. I would be grateful to hear your thoughts about how this project might fit into the larger scheme of WikiProjects at Wikipedia. The proposal page can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/WikiProject Applied Linguistics. Thanks for your time. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 04:41, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Please see the thread below for the latest version of this proposal. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 10:32, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Linguistics proposal: your comments are requested

I have created a proposal that the smaller daughter WikiProjects of WikiProject Linguistics be converted into task forces, and your feedback would be much appreciated. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics#RfC: Proposal to merge smaller daughter WikiProjects into WikiProject Linguistics. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 10:32, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Translating text on Nastaʿlīq

Hello. Could anyone help to decipher and translate this text which seems to be writen in Nastaʿlīq? Hugo.arg (talk) 20:53, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Ou (ligature)

Hi, the article Ou (ligature) does not seem to follow the same layout as e.g. Rho. Should that be the case? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 12:48, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

It should probably have the Greek alphabet infobox, although it is a multi-script phenomenon. It might require some additions to the template. I'll look into it for Kai as well. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 17:44, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hand (writing style)

I came upon this "article" and have been struggling to figure out what, if anything, "hand" actually means in this context. As I said on the article's Talk page, all the article seems to say is "Some writing styles are called hands. Here's a list." The only dictionary definition I've found that seems to come close appears to be using it as a synonym for "handwriting", which obviously isn't what's meant here. Is anyone here able to shed any light (and, ideally, improve the article)? Theoldsparkle (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Eastern Nagari alphabet

The article Eastern Nagari alphabet was recently deleted after being prodded. Although the prod concern was that this term was coined on a Wikipedia talk page, Google Book search does return a few results for "Eastern Nagari". There are a number of pages which link to this page: Special:WhatLinksHere/Eastern Nagari alphabet. Can anyone comment on whether this page deserves to exist, or if it needs to be redirected to some other page (such as Bengali script)? utcursch | talk 05:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Alphabet article

I've made a move request, to make Alphabet into a disambiguation page. Please participate in the discussion there. Thanks! Mlm42 (talk) 18:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Reassessment request

Requesting a reassessment for Djed. I added considerably to the article. Regstuff (talk) 03:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Done Van Isaac_WS^contribs 07:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Another reassessment request

Requesting a reassessment for Stroke (CJKV character). A number of significant updates have been made since this was last assessed. Missylou2who (talk) 17:51, 31 July 2012 (UTC) Done Van Isaac_WS^contribs 18:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC: WikiProject home for Unicode pages

I've been having a discussion at my talk page about Unicode articles, and the fact that there currently is no Unicode WikiProject. As such, I am looking for feedback on a WikiProject home for Unicode articles. 05:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Keep everything as is

Currently, most Unicode pages are unclaimed, while a few are tagged by other projects. This option would not establish a WikiProject home for Unicode articles and templates.

Pro

Con

This all started because there isn't any centralized repository for Unicode pages, so we don't really know where to have discussions about broad changes effecting them. Van Isaac_WS^contribs
Claim all the pages by the discussed WikiProjects (Writing Systems, Computing+Software, Typography). — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Let someone else do it

Computing and Typography have both claimed the main Unicode article, and may be more suited to Unicode articles and templates. Van Isaac_WS^contribs

Pro

Given that someone else is the same we, but without separate WikiProject, this option is preferable. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Con

Unicode is bridging those two topics, so each one of then will be insufficient. Say, when it is code point number chrunching it is cumputing, and the visual effect is typographical. In between are the processes and algorithms (like bidirectional, Arabic rendering) that needs both fields. And that is where WS comes to mind. -DePiep (talk) 00:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Either of these projects may be better equipped. Van Isaac_WS^contribs
Typography could be merged into Writing systems as a working group. – Pnm (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

RfC to create WikiProject Unicode

Let those of us interested in the topic go off on their own.

Pro

Con

We have to many dead WikiProjects already (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing#WikiProject restructuring).
The topic is a way too narrow in scope. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Make it a task force of either Computing or Writing systems. It's entirely within Computing's ginormous scope. – Pnm (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Make a Unicode working group under Writing Systems

Separate it out, so that we can tag the articles with something called "Unicode", under the auspices of Writing Systems. Van Isaac_WS^contribs

Pro

This makes sense. A task force under Computing would be fine too. – Pnm (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Con

WP:WikiProject Typography would be a better place, but I still can't get the idea of why this unit needed. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments

It would create an unambiguous home for Unicode articles, and create a dedicated repository for Unicode article discussions. It would also split what is already a fairly small community in Writing Systems.

We claim this topic in the name of Writing Systems!

Tag the heck out of every Unicode article we can find, so that Writing Systems is the de-facto place for those articles. Van Isaac_WS^contribs

Pro

As explained above, this project WS bridges the computing and typogrphic topics of Unicode and adds knowledge of scripts. On itself, a project Unicode would be small (in number of pages and editors involved), maybe too small. Good action to tag the Unicode talking pages for WP:WPW. -DePiep (talk) 10:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Con

The more projects are involved, the broader the coverage is in theory. In practice – who cares? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
No opposition to such tagging, but clearly it's in the scope of computing. Same is true of computer-based typefaces, many of which were tagged with typography but not computing. That still may be true, actually. – Pnm (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments

I will post a link to this conversation at Computing and Typography to get a broader consensus, and it has already been tagged with a language/linguistics RfC tag. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 05:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Tagging is not exclusive. Unicode articles should be tagged tagged with both WikiProject Writing systems, WikiProject Computing and (if applicable) WikiProject Typography. —Ruud 09:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I apologize if I gave the impression that I was suggesting exclusive tagging. Obviously, each of these WikiProjects has some claim to some of the Unicode articles. The problem is that many Unicode-related articles are not tagged by any project, and there is no unambiguous home to all of these articles to discuss changes effecting Unicode articles and templates in general. Therefore, I think we need to figure out some place where, as part of their scope-of-project, all Unicode-related pages can be discussed, and persons interested in Unicode/10646 can know that they are in the right place. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 08:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

If you want to reach the widest possible audience there's no better solution than crossposting/announcing any discussion at all the relevant projects. It's wishful thinking to believe that all WikiProject Computing participants interesting in Unicode will put WikiProject Writing systems or the Unicode taskforce on their watchlists (or vice versa) because we've decided they should at this RfC. —Ruud 10:16, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Which, I think, is one of the arguments for a Unicode WikiProject. My concern is that anyone interested in Unicode will need to watchlist all of the WikiProjects if all three are going to tag Unicode articles and templates - which is quite possibly what is already happening now with no tags. Maybe this is actually an argument for a Unicode working group at each of Computing, Typography, and Writing Systems, and the main page of each working group could prominently feature links to each of the others. It's an idea, at least, and people wouldn't be bogged down by all of the other Computing, Typography, and Writing systems discussions if we had working groups at each. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 12:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

No, quite the opposite. Anyone interested in Unicode will need to watchlist only one of the related projects. It would be the responsibility of the anyone who wants to start a discussion or raise awareness of a specific issue to crosspost the message to appropriate projects. We can of course help that person by trying to keep the number of relevant projects as small as possible. I'm interested in Unicode, I'm not so interested in adding another WikiProject to my watchlist and in practice many interested editors are often not even aware of the existence of narrow and low-traffic WikiProjects. By starting a WikiProject Unicode you will only make effective communication more difficult. 13:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

So we require anyone who happens to drop by and has a question or suggestion about Unicode topics to cross-post everything? That doesn't seem like a workable plan to me. Do you have a similar concern about Unicode working groups? I guess I don't get your reticence about watchlisting another page. Maybe there's a bot out there that could automatically post a notice when a new section is started on a WikiProject page? Having an auto-notify for a Unicode WikiProject or working group to Computing, Typography, and Writing systems would seem to be the answer, no? Van Isaac_WS^contribs 14:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If such a bot is available that would be a perfectly workable solution, I'm not aware of the existence of such a bot though. Also my remark about a great majority of people simply not being aware of low-traffic WikiProjects should probably be given more weight than my aversion to watchlisting more WikiProjects. The latter is mostly due to the fact that I often miss entries on my watchlist, especially for low-traffic pages, and have to resort to checking them manually. Also there would be dozens if not hundreds of WikiProjects I would have to watchlist if all Projects where as narrow in scope as "Unicode". On the other hand, cross-posting the (very!) occasional message to both WP:WS and WP:COMP seems quite workable to me (it doens't even necessarily have to be done by the original poster). —Ruud 14:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Aparently, you can use a newsletter bot. I'm putting in a bot request to figure out how to do it. If we can get automatic notifications to all three WikiProjects, what would your preference, above, be? Van Isaac_WS^contribs 15:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Under that assumption: create a Unicode taskforce (don't particularly care under which project) and have the bot automatically crosspost messages to WP:WS, WP:COMP and WP:TYPO. —Ruud 16:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

How many articles are we talking about? – Pnm (talk) 00:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

There are over 200 chart templates and "List of CJK ideographs" pages, a dozen or so other templates, about 100 script pages with Unicode content, and probably 50-ish mainspace articles on Unicode, UCS, character properties, Unicode architecture, algorithms, transformation formats, etc. My guess would be 350-450 in total, not including redirects, files, categories, and the other miscellaneous quality categories. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 08:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking for a Roman inscription

The article Sicilicus could really use an illustration, if anyone knows of a picture of an actual use in paleography.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Classifying words

One way to classify English words is to put each word in 2 groups:

The first letter of the word
The language the word comes from (being native to English is an example.)

Check out a sentence at P. It should reveal an example of such a statement.

In every letter article, Wikipedia should have a similar statement revealing how common English words starting with the letter are classified by the language they are from. Again, here is the same statement copied from P:

Most English words beginning with P are of foreign origin, primarily French, Latin, Greek, and Slavic. In these languages, words from Proto Indo-European have p at the beginning if they come from initial p. Such words native to English, which is a Germanic language, start with F.

Here is what a similar statement about T would be:

Native English words beginning with T but not the th digraph are from words from Proto Indo-European with initial d. Native words starting with th or words of French, Latin, Greek, or Slavic origin beginning with T but not th are from words from Proto Indo-European with an initial t.

Did I get the above statement right?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That sounds right, but it's only an informed guess on my part. I'd take it to WP:Linguistics, as this is more their area of expertise. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 00:26, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

But this is a child project of WP:Linguistics. Georgia guy (talk) 00:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

What the hell difference does that have to do with anything? If you want the help I have to give, go to Linguistics, where they probably know the vagueries of Grimm's Law and PEI sound correspondences. If not, you're probably just not going to get an answer. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 10:21, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

No, the letter articles should not have such sentences, because they further obfuscate the differences between letter (graph, grapheme) and sound (phone, phoneme), e.g. ‘t’ vs. 〈t〉 vs. [t] vs. /t/. — Christoph Päper 00:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, the sentences must clarify whether it's the letter or the sound that they're talking about. Georgia guy (talk) 00:48, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

POV at Brāhmī script

We have a self-confessed Hindutva activist edit warring to push the POV that the Brahmi script derives from the Indus Valley script, against the "Anti-Indian conspiracy" of the Semitic hypothesis. Anyone want to help out? — kwami (talk) 10:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Romanization of Tuvan

Please join a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Central_Asia/Tuva_task_force#Transliteration_of_Tuvan_Language. Thanks. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 23:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 16:21, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Why do the individual letter pages link to ISO basic Latin Alphabet rather than just English Alphabet?

All the individual letter pages (for example, J) link to ISO_basic_Latin_alphabet] when English Alphabet is a much more sensible target. Its not like ISO provided any special change or improvement to the English Alphabet. Was there ever a discussion about which page should be linked to? Where can I view archives of that discussion?Truemathematics (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

But J isn't just a letter of the English alphabet. It's also a letter of the French alphabet and the German alphabet and the Spanish alphabet and so on. Linking only to English alphabet would suggest that J (or whatever) was only an English letter. The link to ISO basic Latin alphabet is less misleading. Angr (talk) 06:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

That Unicode region is an appropriate link target from a computer science point of view. Latin script would be more appropriate from a linguistic PoV, English alphabet is not. — Christoph Päper 23:11, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

What Unicode region do you mean? (btw, I agree with Angr on the main point) -DePiep (talk) 09:33, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I confused ISO basic Latin alphabet with Basic Latin. Anyhow, my point remains. — Christoph Päper 20:30, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Latin script is broader than ISO basic Latin, the latter being a special part of the former. Indiana State (talk) 16:38, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Exactly my point. — Christoph Päper 13:17, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Excessive images in Arabic Script article

User:Ashashyou has filled Arabic script with numerous galleries containing nearly two hundred images. I have opened a discussion on the usefulness of these image galleries at Talk:Arabic script#Galleries if anyone wants to contribute to this discussion. BabelStone (talk) 00:08, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Done I axed them all. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 08:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

{{Braille}} template

We are lacking consensus on the most useful classifications of different languages' braille systems in the {{Braille}} template. Specifically, there is disagreement as to whether Hebrew, Russian, Greek, Indic, etc. brailles should be grouped with Latin-script brailles. Some extra eyes would be helpful. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 02:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Greek text notice

{{Contains Cyrillic text}} Every non-Roman script has an associated box like this, since every non-Roman script has potential problems with its display.
Except for Greek, since it's built in.
A number of pages I have written (film lists) use a bunch of different scripts.
It seems strange and inconsistent that all of the scripts get their little sign except for Greek.
Can we have a Greek notice? Varlaam (talk) 19:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Why are you talking in free verse?

Do any browsers have trouble displaying Greek characters?

If not, we don't need a Greek notice.

I find these notices annoying and would rather dispense with the unnecessary ones rather than adding even more of them. Angr (talk) 20:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Free verse, eh.

This is the most legible form of communication.

My emails have looked like this for decades.

As I have already noted, correct, no browsers have trouble, which is why there is no notice at present.

Perhaps you might try reading what I've written. Greek requires no special setup.

I am not talking about more of them, plural.

I am talking about one single one, the glaring omission. The source of the Cyrillic alphabet which I intentionally used above.

My pages use these notices to indicate the breadth and scope of the page, and what is allowable therein.

I don't wish to exclude Greek from a page that is already using Persian and Thai.

I want to encourage Greeks to provide the Greek text so I don't have to waste my time doing it.

Right?

Also, when you consider the full range of possible diacritics in Greek, I do find it surprising that every browser supports that, but has trouble with plain vanilla Russian.

Varlaam (talk) 22:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I would prefer a single "Non-Latin text" notice, and be done with it. It might have extra parameters allowing for a page-specific listing, but the proliferation of script-specific notifications seems like a problem that is getting worse, with half a dozen new scripts being added to Unicode each year. I've made this offer before at the writing systems infobox, and I'll make it again: Do we want to have a general exotic scripts notice, and do away with all the script specific ones? I'd be happy to work it up if people would agree that we want to obsolesce the script-specific boxes. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 23:29, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd support a single "Non-Latin text" notice too. That sounds like a good idea. Pages that just have one non-Latin script on them could take a parameter (as you said), e.g. {{Non-Latin text|Grek}} for Greek or {{Non-Latin text|Mymr}} for Burmese, while pages that have multiple scripts could just take the generic {{Non-Latin text}} message. Although we might want a more general name than "Non-Latin text" since these notices also cover IPA, which is Latin. Angr (talk) 17:20, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

RfC: Use of Simplified Chinese on Chinese characters

There is an ongoing RfC at Talk:Chinese characters#RfC: Simplified Chinese within the infobox image regarding whether or not Simplified Chinese should be removed from the infobox image on that article. It would be helpful if a third opinion can be provided to assist in forming consensus. If you would like to participate in the discussion, please feel free to do so. -- 李博杰 | —Talk contribs email 10:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Character mapping template

I've been working on a template to standardize the presentation of character codes for all the encodings a character is found in. I based it off User:Coroboy's Cyrillic computing codes tables. I will be moving it to the template namespace and putting a link on the writing systems project page soon, but I wanted to give everyone a chance to take a look and give some feedback before I did. You can either leave your comments here or at the template's User talk: page. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 10:35, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I've rolled it out at template:Charmap. I won't be actually be implementing it in any articles for a few days still, but feel free to do so yourself, with the caveat that it will probably have some slight changes in functionality for a few weeks as we get more feedback. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 01:12, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

ITRANS

Hi,

I am a registerd user.

Though ITRANS is adequate for transliteration of most of the Indian languages with the devanagari script, I find that it is not adequate for kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil languages. Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam have 50+ letters in their alphabet and have short vowels "e" and "o". The usage of consonants "t" "d" in Itrans is confusing. Here is an improved version of ITRANS(mentioned below). I would like the experienced editors of Wikipedia to review it and let me know how you feel about it. Could it be a new article? Your response will be very much appreciated.

ITRANS-2-An improved version of ITRANS Itrans - a transliteration scheme devised for transliterating Indian languages to English which is currently in vogue is mainly a transliteration scheme for languages with the devanagiri script. Though it may be adequate for many of the Indian languages, it’s not adequate for the southern Indian languages-Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil. Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam languages have 50 + letters in their alphabet. Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil languages have short vowels “e” and “o” and the Tamil also has a letter which sounds like twisted “L”. Itrans lacks representation of these letters and transliteration of these using itrans will not be correct pronunciation. Also usage of “t”s and “d”s in the Itrans scheme can cause some confusion. For example: using small case letter “ t” to pronounce a sound “th” like in English words theft, think, thermometer etc , can cause mistakes in pronunciation specially for people not familiar with south Indian languages. A word “thAraka” written in Itrans scheme as “tAraka” may be pronounced with the normal “t” sound like in “tree or teach”. Similarly usage of the small case letter “d” to denote a sound like in “then, there or that” also can cause mistakes in pronunciation. As these Indian languages are transliterated to English, It does not seem appropriate to use in transliteration the English letters “t” and “d” to sound like “th”. It will not make it easier to read. The sounds “t”, “d” and “th” are there in English language as well as in the Indian languages and does it not make sense to use them to sound like they naturally sound? It is more appropriate and sensible to use them in transliteration without distorting their natural sound. In ITRANS the “t” sounds like “th” as in the words “theft, thick, thin” etc and “d” sounds like “th” as in words “then, there” etc. It doesn’t make sense.

There is a need for an improved version of ITRANS which compensates for the deficiencies of ITRANS and ITRANS-2 will do that. Using ITRANS-2 makes it easier to pronounce specially for persons who are unfamiliar with the south Indian languages and Samskrutha(Sanskrit). There will be fewer mistakes in pronunciation with regards to the 3rd and 4th series of consonants: t, T, d, D, and th, TH, dh, Dh. Using the improved version ITRANS-2, all the words we use (in samskrutha and other south Indian languages and also Hindhi) can be written in simple English with least distortion of the pronunciation. Also, ITRANS-2 is simple to write and read, using just small case and large case letters of English with no special characters.

ITRANS-2:

All letters will be in small case except for the long vowels and hard consonants . Long vowels and hard consonants will have large case letters.

Vowels:

a A i I u U R (this letter is not in use that much except in words like “Rushi” meaning a sage, “Ruthu”etc) e E ai o O ou

Consonants:

k K g G (I have left out the ~N sound – again this is not much used)

ch Ch j J (have left out the “nya”-not used)

t T d D N

th Th dh Dh n

p P b B m

y r l v sh Sh s h L

Extra alphabets: gnya to write the word “gnyAna” meaning knowledge and "zh" for the Tamil alphabet (which sounds like a twisted “L”)like in words “azhagu”, mazhaikkaNNa” etc

Brmanjunath (talk) 14:57, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place to try to reform Indic transliteration. While you may firmly believe that ITRANS is inferior for southern Indian languages, it is a well-recognized and documented standard for transliterating Indic languages, and changing ITRANS transliterations on Wikipedia will be reverted. Continued attempts to change from that standard will eventually result in your being blocked. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 03:13, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but is there actually a WP convention for the transliteration of Indic languages? Wikipedia:Romanization has no relevant entry. (ISO 15919 as a close superset of most established systems, e.g. IAST, Harvard-Kyoto and LoC/Kolkata, would seem a natural choice.) — Christoph Päper 13:18, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

My recollection is that IAST is the default Brahmic script romanization. ITRANS uses punctuation marks as letter modifiers. It is decidedly inelegant. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 14:40, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. Our articles are meant to be about topics that have already received significant coverage in independent reliable sources. So ITRANS-2 in its current status cannot be the subject of an article. Perhaps the language section of the Wikipedia reference desk can offer suggestions on how to proceed with your ITRANS-2 project. --Lambiam 21:49, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistency - Latin script vs Latin-script

Kwamikagami introduced "Latin-script" while all over Wikipedia the term is "Latin script". [1] What are the reasons for each variant? There is also Greek script, Arabic script. Why suddenly a hyphen? Indiana State (talk) 16:41, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

He wrote "Latin-script digraphs". One of the most common uses of hyphens in English is in compound modifiers like this one. Angr (talk) 20:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I read the article you linked. The article would imply that it should be English-Language Proficiency Test opposed to "English Language Proficiency Test", to distinguish it from a language proficiency test that originated in England. I adjusted:

Indiana State (talk) 22:26, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistency - Latin alphabet vs Latin script

FYI Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 June 29#Category:Latin alphabets - Indiana State (talk) 00:16, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I now found that User:Kwamikagami introduced the inconsistency. Established since 2004 was the name Category:Latin-derived alphabets. Indiana State (talk) 00:44, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I don’T care much about the hyphen or the added “script”, but note that the change was probably one of the results that this discussion had. (I’m too lazy to reread it.) — Christoph Päper 14:18, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I just came to the conclusion that the renaming carried out by Kwamikagami changed the scope. Latin-derived does not include the Classical Latin alphabet. "Latin alphabets" when meaning alphabets using the Latin script does include Classical Latin alphabet. My proposal to use "Category:Latin-script alphabets" keeps the "Kwamikagami" scope but makes the name of the scope unambiguous. Indiana State (talk) 17:52, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Latin alphabet vs ISO basic Latin alphabet

FYI Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 June 30#Category:Latin-alphabet representations. Indiana State (talk) 17:37, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistency - Tamil script vs Tamil alphabet

Kwamikagami renamed the article Tamil script to Tamil alphabet [2]. But the lead talks about the script, the infobox too. I suggest to move this back. Indiana State (talk) 20:56, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

From memory: this was a pre-discussed systematic change, to have consistent script--alphabet disentangling. This was about "script" vs "alphabet". It was proposed (by kwami) & discussed. I recall there is consensus on this (could link that talk). So for now, no revert (earlier consensus exists). -DePiep (talk) 21:17, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

The move description says: "18:49, 30 July 2011 Kwamikagami (moved Tamil script to Tamil alphabet over redirect: we use 'alphabet' for the main segmental scripts; we should be consistent with the others)". There is no hint on any discussion. And as it stands now the naming is inconsistent with the scheme agreed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (writing systems) (Thanks to Christop Päper for pointing there.) See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (writing systems)#Scripts, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (writing systems)#Alphabets. - I see no discussion before "18:49, 30 July 2011", the moment when the move was carried out. I only see that on 16 August Kwamikagami created the naming convention page. The content of that page supports a move back. It is weird how one single editor can introduce so much mess and no one corrects it!!! Indiana State (talk) 04:50, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Braille again

An editor is classifying the braille scripts on {{Braille}} geographically, though that has nothing to do with the nature of the scripts. For some reason, he denies the blindingly obvious, and well sourced, fact that most braille scripts are based on French braille (by international agreement!), with its numerical order based on the ABC order of the French alphabet. In fact, he has produced several sources that this is the case. Why it's difficult to accept I don't know, but it's degenerated into an edit war. — kwami (talk) 07:48, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

A) As many as every braille system, or as few as none are "based on" French braille, depending on your definition of "based on", which, by the way, you have never bothered to cite or even define. B) I agree with you on all of those you consider being related, except for Tibetan braille. C) I can't actually source any beyond the well-worn listing (See WP:DRN, and neither can you, which is why we are fighting about our interpretation of things instead of being able to cite classification of braille systems. D) You have completely ignored the neutral third opinion in what is acceptable for this template. E) A geographic ordering at least ends this ridiculous content dispute, but I would accept nearly any organization that does not push your POV; except that you have never, not once, ever offered to meet me anywhere but your own POV on this matter. If you insist on both classifying all the braille systems by relation and also erroneously including Tibetan with systems to which it does not appear to have more than tangential similarity, then I will continue to pursue dispute resolution. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 08:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Then it appears that the only thing we disagree about is whether Tibetan braille follows the French order.

I've defined the family many many times, as have you and your sources. The international agreement that most nations follow decreed that French braille should be the basis of the world's braille alphabets. Arrange the letters of these alphabets in numerical order, and you'll find the order of the French alphabet, or, in the case of languages with non-Latin scripts, at least a phonetic approximation of the French alphabet. Here's the Tibetan case, compared to French braille and other alphabets you accept as being related to French braille. Non-matches are in bold:

numerical order

⠁

⠃

⠉

⠙

⠑

⠋

⠛

⠓

⠊

⠚

⠅

⠇

⠍

⠝

⠕

⠏

⠟

⠗

⠎

⠞

⠥

⠧

⠭

⠽

⠵

(...)

⠺

French values

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

q

r

s

t

u

v

x

y

z

w

Tibetan values

a

b

kh

d

e

–

g

h

i

y

k

l

m

n

o

p

j

r

z

t

u

ₗ

ts

ch

tsh

w

Greek values

a

b

è

d

e

ph

g

’

i

–

k

l

m

n

o

p

ồ

r

s

t

y

ỹ

x

ps

z

ô

Thai values

a

i

u

d

ua

e

k

h

o

ch

kh

l

m

n

∅

ph

uea

r

s

th

kh

b

f

y

am

w

Hindi values

a

b

c

d

ē

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

n

ō

p

kṣ

r

s

t

u

v

o

y

z

–

Arabic values

(a)

b

–

d

i

f

–

h

y

j

k

l

m

n

ya

–

q

r

s

t

u

–

kh

ya’

z

w

That's about as good a match as pinyin is to Latin. Are you really going to insist that the two alphabets are unrelated? — kwami (talk) 10:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

-Current grouping is not systematic: "French based" along "abiguda" is not on the same scale (not along the same criteria). Definitely not a solution.

-Grouping along "abugidas" and "semi-syllabaries" and such is just one language aspect, but not a braille aspect (braille is not the abugida). When looking for say Japanese braille, a reader should not be required to know what type that is.

-I do not see a problem when the geographic names are labeled "European languages" &tc. This way we would maintain the language based grouping, I think Kwami can find comfort in.

-Hey, why not all together in one group? Just an alphabetic listing of all the language articles?

-Being a navigation box, the overview aspect is more important than micro-facts (that are not present in article names). Minor notes: The Americas were missing in the now reverted edit, but can be added to European: "European and American languages". Also English braille should be in a group (suggestion: write "English (Grade 2 braille, Unified English Braille Code)"). There is no reason to make an exception for English. [DePiep]

Braille is not a language. It's a script. Language is irrelevant. We don't organize linear scripts according to language or geography. We organize them according to the type of script they are (syllabary etc.), and by their family as scripts (Brahmic etc.)

No, alphabet/abugida/semi-syllabary is a braille aspect. Most braille systems are consonant-vowel alphabets, but Japanese braille is an abugida, and Chinese/Cantonese are semi-syllabaries. This does not correspond well to the linear script: Thai is an abugida, but Thai braille is a CV alphabet. Japanese is a syllabary, but Japanese braille is an abugida. Chinese is a logography, but Chinese braille is a semi-syllabary (like zhuyin).

True, French-based is orthogonal to the type of script. The semi-syllabaries are also French-based. That's why "French-based alphabets". We use the same dual classification with linear scripts.

There's a very good reason to separate out English: This is English wikipedia. Our readers know English.

If it were just a list, we might as well delete the template and link to the braille category. — kwami (talk) 16:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

There is no need to organise (classify) them, it is a overview for navigation. Those classes like syllabary are just properties of that Braille script, but not clarifying or structuring to create overview.

"This is English wikipedia" - But not English braille wikipedia. Introducing another classification.

So you try to classify them along two dimensions, And excempting English makes three. That is not a way to make things clear in a navbox. On top of this, why would we use classification(s) that are not even described in the Braille article? NAbox is for support, not for new information.

No, the list would be only the "scripts" (and another list in "symbols"). The category has all the Braille-articles. It is called an overview for navigation, and rightly so. -DePiep (talk) 11:55, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

There is no need for classification in a navbox when that classification is not in the article. Navbox should not add information, just give overview of the topic.

I created {{braille/sandbox}} (I was surprised there was none!) illustrating my proposal. -DePiep (talk) 21:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Too bad your table only lists 26 out of the 63 French braille assignments; that you purposefully obfuscate the affinity of Greek to French by using a ridiculous romanization scheme to induce false negatives; that you mark Greek assignment to ⠉, ⠟, and ⠺ as a miss, even though Greek doesn't have an equivalent to the letters "c", "q", or "w"; that you completely ignore the actual historic relation of semitic letters to Greek and Latin in order to pump up the mismatches with Arabic; that you include accented Hungarian letters, even though you conveniently left out all of the French accented letters that would have induced dozens of negative matches; etc. etc. etc. You know that I think your process of finding affinities is deeply flawed and self-contradictory - at one point, you managed to claim that French braille only follows the French pattern 84% of the time - yet you continue to present it as self-evident. We have an actual accounting of how lots of these braille systems were designed to achieve harmony with each other, and the term "French based" is not used to describe this. So you can make up terms if you like, and then decide for yourself all the contradictory and self-fulfilling ways to define those terms, but it's the essence of original research, and it has absolutely no place in Wikipedia, whether in an article or a navigation template. Quite frankly, I think that you have moved on to a term that nobody but you has ever used because you can't actually defend Tibetan as unified world braille. So we can continue this ridiculous charade of an edit war, where I keep plodding through every dispute resolution processes and you ignore every neutral commentator (See DePiep, above; Coastside on the talk page) who say that we should keep a neutral presentation or dispense with any classifications that aren't sourced. Or, you can decide to try to meet me somewhere halfway, as I have done countless times and been met only with hostility on your part. So the ball's in your court: if you weren't trying to force your POV, but were actually trying to work to come to a good, solid consensus presentation, what would you do with this nav template? Van Isaac_WS^contribs 08:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

PS, I hadn't ever taken more than a quick look at Thai braille. Given that it actually seems to use Japanese vowel signs and has other anomalies, I would probably not classify it as unified braille either. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 08:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Are you being purposefully obtuse? I only used the basic 26 Latin letters, because they were the only ones that were unified. If I were to extend to all 63, we'd have even more mismatches, even among French, English, and German, which formed the original unification! In fact, I did that one time, and you objected to *not* restricting the comparison!

That's standard Greek romanization. Sure, you can make arguments for unused letters, etc. But if you do that for Greek and Arabic, you need to do it for Tibetan as well, and that reduces the number of Tibetan mismatches to just one. (I almost made that point, but decided it would be patronizing. Surely everyone here could figure it out for themselves?) Of course, you claim it's OR to do this for Tibetan, but that it's OR to *not* do this for other alphabets. That's simply perverse.

Thai braille follows the international standard for consonants. It's not completely unified. But then, as your Unesco source clarifies, braille never was fully unified. We do note already that Thai braille is somewhat exceptional.

Comparison, allowing OR exceptions for unused letters and near matches
numerical order	⠁	⠃	⠉	⠙	⠑	⠋	⠛	⠓	⠊	⠚	⠅	⠇	⠍	⠝	⠕	⠏	⠟	⠗	⠎	⠞	⠥	⠧	⠭	⠽	⠵	(...)	⠺
French values	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	x	y	z		w
Tibetan values	a	b	kh	d	e	–	g	h	i	y	k	l	m	n	o	p	j	r	z	t	u	–	–	ch	tsh		w
Greek values	a	b	–	d	e	ph	g	’	i	–	k	l	m	n	o	p	–	r	s	t	y	–	x	–	z		–
Thai values	a	i	u	d	ua	e	k	h	o	ch	kh	l	m	n	∅	ph	–	r	s	th	kh	b	–	y	–		w	(only consonants follow international braille)
Hindi values	a	b	c	d	ē	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	ō	p	kṣ	r	s	t	u	v	o	y	z		–	(Hindi has both q and x, as shown in Urdu braille, where these are regular)
Arabic values	(a)	b	–	d	i	f	–	h	y	j	k	l	m	n	–	–	q	r	s	t	u	–	kh	ya’	z		w

Tibetan still fits just fine.

Extending to the full French braille alphabet (up to #40):

Comparison beyond #25 'z'
numerical order	⠯	⠿	⠷	⠮	⠾	⠡	⠣	⠩	⠹	⠱	⠫	⠻	⠳	⠪	⠺	⠂	⠆	⠒	⠲	⠢	⠖	⠶	⠦	⠔	⠴
French values	ç	é	à	è	ù	â	ê	î	ô	û	ë	ï	ü	œ	w
English values	and	for	of	the	with	ch	gh	sh	th	wh	ed	er	ou	ow	w	ea	be	cc	dd	en	ff	gg	his	in	was
German values	&	%	—	ß	st	au	eu	ei	ch	sch	—	—	ü	ö	w	äu	ä	ie	#	$

I've only bothered to do this with the alphabets which formed the original unified braille, since there's obviously no pattern there. Apart from w, which is one of the 26 international letters listed above, the only matches we get are French ü, œ with German ü ö (and possibly with English ou ow), and German & with English and. As noted elsewhere, a second round of internationalization was partially based on the English values in this range, but as our sources note, it was never completely unified. — kwami (talk) 17:21, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You don't get it, do you? For the last month and a half, I've refrained from arguing about the classification of braille systems, because it is an argument about original research, and OR HAS NO PLACE IN WIKIPEDIA!!!!! Yet you continue to pursue a classification that has absolutely no citation in any reliable source. Since you have rejected every neutral presentation I have proposed, I've repeatedly asked you to propose your own neutral presentation of this template, which you have completely and utterly neglected to do. I reiterate: if you weren't trying to force your POV, but were actually trying to work to come to a good, solid consensus presentation, what would you do with this nav template? Instead of trying to poke holes in your self-serving classification scheme that includes and ignores whatever it wants, I'm going to concentrate on simply asking that question until you answer it. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 19:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I created {{braille/sandbox}}, showing my proposals (explained above) In general: within scripts we do not sub-classify (such a sub-classification is not in the Braille article itself even]]). There was no sandbox before, interestingly. -DePiep (talk) 21:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

My two concerns are that there are many aspects of English braille that are likely to have separate articles (we already have English braille topics split among separate articles), and this navbox just mixes English in with other languages. The other concern is that this list is going to become more unwieldy as we add more and more braille systems articles - we have no fewer than 47 unique braille systems defined in just one of our sources, and at least 3 of the WP braille articles are not represented in that source. So the Braille scripts listing need to be robust enough to handle over 50 braille scripts. How would you split things up if you were designing it to be robust enough to handle 50 braille scripts, or would you keep this? Note that these are simply concerns that I would like you to consider, rather than an argument against adopting your proposal. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 22:09, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

English braille is a script as any other one. The best place is under "E" - where else would one expect to find it? No need to complicate or make an exception. Now about that possible 50 future pages: if there is no single simple logic to subgroup them, then do not. Problem solved. Especially since we are at 22 articles now, so the problem is theoretical if at all. I maintain that one cannot make a subdivision here that is not even described in the article, and then using two or three grouping dimensions is defying navbox logic. Here is a similar situation with 90 names: {{Unicode navigation}} (see the scripts below). btw, I removed the words "braille" from view, we could do that anyway right? DePiep (talk) 14:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

PS, This matter was listed at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard when Kwami decided to post about it here. Just in case anyone wants to actually see what other uninvolved editors actually think. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 20:37, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

To be clear: it was listed at WP:DRN by Vanisaac [3] on July 10. Had to look for this myself. Now then discussing this here without notice is bad behaviour, Vanisaac. I feel trapped in an irrelevant discussion without knowing so. -DePiep (talk) 21:43, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I didn't post this discussion here, Kwami did, and I wrote about the Dispute Resolution when I realized that it hadn't actually been noted yet. If you feel that other cross-notifications should be happening, please post them, but I'm having to put out fires on this issue, and I don't get to chose where it happens. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 21:49, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

VanIsaac, will it matter if I answer your questions, considering that I have answered you many times, yet you insist that you're waiting for me to answer?

The OR has been on your part: You've been happy with the classification that we have/had, apart from Tibetan; you're the one who claims that Tibetan braille fails some test of sufficient derivation from French braille to be considered part of the same family, when there is no such test in your sources. Your sources are quite clear: the internationalization of braille in the 19th century established the alpha-numeric order of the basic and uncontracted French alphabet (plus w) as the alpha-numeric order for international use. So, the letter a (or the equivalent in a non-Latin script) is given braille cell #1, b (or its equivalent) is given cell #2, etc. The Unesco doc acknowledges that the unification is not perfect. In Hindi, for example, o is assigned braille cell #23, which is normally used for x. That is what we have for Tibetan. I tried comparing them without any OR, and you objected that I didn't provide enough leeway in the comparisons. So I provided the leeway that you demanded, and now you object that—well, I can't tell what your objection is. You appear to be objecting to your own version of the template as OR. Regardless, the Unesco and other sources distinguish between reordered alphabets such as Algerian, the international order based on Braille's original assignments, frequency-bases systems, and unrelated systems. Therefore making those distinctions here is not OR. A geographic organization, however, would be OR, as it has nothing to do with the alphabets, is arbitrary in many cases (which continent is English braille used on? Arabic? Spanish? French? Portuguese?), and is not supported.

BTW, pp 31–32 of the Unesco doc describes Thai braille as being based on the traditional European values.

BTW2, according to Daniels & Bright, braille is not simply an encoding of standard English orthography, like Morse code or semaphore, but rather an independent writing system, at least for the blind who use it. — kwami (talk) 10:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see the comparing table in the main braille article, a new section on comparing. To me it looks very clarifying in a first glance, esp. the boldings. -DePiep (talk) 06:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I thought of adding such a section, but figured it would be a WP:content fork due to the inevitable overlap with international braille and Bharati braille. But now that I look again, it would fit quite nicely at IN braille. — kwami (talk) 06:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Hm, yes, I didn't check for that. As said: at first glance - more like our average reader. Maybe it should be in Unified page only then. -DePiep (talk) 06:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, created the table. I left out Cantonese, Bulgarian (only one difference from Russian), and picked Hindi as the representative of Bharati. (I didn't bold anything, as w non-Latin scripts it would be OR to decide what to bold.) — kwami (talk) 08:58, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I think that ALL of them lack anything that would qualify them as being "French based". You have taken a single instance, where English braille changed the assignment of four! letters to be consistent with French (W, X, Y, and Z) as an all-consuming identity, ignoring the next 73 (1878-1951) years of braille development with no mention of French as a target for consistency. The fact that English defined the rest of its braille system - remember, there are 63 braille patterns - without regard to French braille is fairly instructive, and the fact that no other braille systems were developed with consistency to French as a goal is pretty definitive. We do, however, know that Bharati was developed with English consistency as a target, and that Perso-Arabic and African braille were likewise unified along with Bharati. This was not a simple "26 letters" consistency with English, which would also be consistent with French, but consistency with the entire 63 pattern corpus of English braille, which is why English braille is consistent with unified braille wherever possible. This is in marked contrast with French braille, which has essentially no correspondence (some punctuation being the only exception) of its extended repertoire to unified braille. I vehemently disagree with your characterization of ANY system as being based on French because they plainly are not unless you willfully ignore over half the pattern assignments for braille systems, which do show consistency amongst themselves, but not with French. Your definition of "French based" is a fantasy unsupported by sources, which obfuscates the affinities and differences of braille systems throughout the world. But again, I ask you: if you weren't trying to force your POV, but were actually trying to work to come to a good, solid consensus presentation, what would you do with this nav template? Van Isaac_WS^contribs 01:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

There are clearly different lineages in the French braille family, just as there are different lineages of Latin alphabets. But the fact that the Swahili alphabet is based on the English does not mean that it is not a Latin alphabet, for English itself is part of the Latin family. Similarly, there is a group of East European alphabets that share conventions such as š, č, j for English sh, ch, y, but that doesn't mean they are no longer Latin. If you wish to contradict your own sources, such as the Unesco document, then you'll need new sources to support your POV.

My concern is that there is a lot of conflating of Latin alphabet, Latin family, Latin, French, and all sorts of other things, and none of them are really directly about Braille, which, I think, is probably part of the problem with this entire endeavour: languages that use the Latin script have braille systems that correspond to each other on a different basis than than other international braille correspondences, ie by letter rather than by sound, although there are some distinct exceptions on that mark (see Czech braille's W = V+V). This is the crux of our difference, from my perspective: I am treating non-Latin languages from a native, phonetic perspective, and you are treating them from the Latin perspective. The basis for mine is that the world braille chart lists the braille patterns with "Main Broad Sound Value in World Braille", and the descriptions of the Perso-Arabic/Indic/African agreement is that the mappings were by sound. I can't get past that simple fact of the source material. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 21:43, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

These things *are* directly about braille, at least in its design if not in actual use: the IN agreement holds that values should be assigned as in the French alphabet. The only diff w non-Latin scripts is that the French derivation is less direct. Instead of braille–print–print–braille, it's braille–print–conversion–print–braille, where the conversion can be phonetic (Russian zh), graphic (Greek ω), numeric/historical (Arabic alif), romanization, etc.

The Perso-Arabic/Indic/African agreement is secondary: it deals with letters not covered by the original international agreement. — kwami (talk) 03:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

If we were to accept that the continuing development of world braille through the 1950s is something different from what happened in the 1870s-1880s, then French shouldn't really be listed with any other braille systems, except for German and English, with the latter dually listed as it was made back-compliant with the unified braille systems. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 03:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe that's where we differ. The English-based integration of the 50s was only partial. How close is close enough? It's not a very coherent system, so I don't see how we could use it in the absolute way that a classification requires. The unification of the 1880s, on the other hand, is straightforward. — kwami (talk) 06:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As for "no mention", they do say that whenever they use the name "Braille", unless they specify otherwise they mean the standard established in the 19th c. So every time they say "Braille" they are referring to this. — kwami (talk) 05:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Category:Latin alphabets

I have relisted the discussion for Category:Latin alphabets, which is within the purview of this WikiProject, in the hope of inviting additional comments and discussion. Participation by this project's members in the discussion would be most welcome. Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 06:13, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Romic alphabet

Needs to be confirmed, esp. the consonants. Haven't been able to find a good description, probably abandoning the article.

Important as predecessor of the IPA. — kwami (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)