Friday, June 28, 2013

Wiktionary - Recent changes [en]: User talk:Pereru

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User talk:Pereru
Jun 28th 2013, 23:16, by Pereru

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::So: it doesn't ''matter'' what the form of the tree is. It doesn't ''matter'' that PB has already been reconstructed. One cannot simply assume that PB = PBS. The PB forms don't "magically" become PBS as if Slavic added no new information; this has to be shown case-by-case. And as far as I know, this hasn't been done yet. I haven't done it; you haven't done it (have you?); so we can't assume it. Just as we can't assume that the next Dutch word will be "just like German" just because Bad/bad, Platz/plaats, Stand/stand etc. are. --[[User:Pereru|Pereru]] ([[User talk:Pereru|talk]]) 21:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

  

::So: it doesn't ''matter'' what the form of the tree is. It doesn't ''matter'' that PB has already been reconstructed. One cannot simply assume that PB = PBS. The PB forms don't "magically" become PBS as if Slavic added no new information; this has to be shown case-by-case. And as far as I know, this hasn't been done yet. I haven't done it; you haven't done it (have you?); so we can't assume it. Just as we can't assume that the next Dutch word will be "just like German" just because Bad/bad, Platz/plaats, Stand/stand etc. are. --[[User:Pereru|Pereru]] ([[User talk:Pereru|talk]]) 21:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 

::: Actually I have done it, at least for the etymologies I already converted and/or created entries for. I'm not so familiar with Baltic sound changes but I know the Slavic ones well enough (thanks in part to Kortlandt's work), so it is relatively easy to judge whether a Proto-Baltic form could also be the ancestor of the Slavic word, and therefore Proto-Balto-Slavic. The changes from PBS to PS are surprisingly small in any case, and don't really begin to "pick up" shortly before the end of the Proto-Slavic period when the palatalisations, dropping of final consonants and other changes take hold. Even early Proto-Slavic probably resembled the other Baltic languages far more than it did only 5 or so centuries later (Germanic borrowings for example generally appeared before all of the "typical" Slavic changes). Your analogy with Dutch and German doesn't really work, because you're comparing Dutch and German themselves, whereas I am asking the equivalent of "can this Dutch word be identical to the ancestor of the German word, given what is known about how German developed?". The example you give with 3 languages is certainly true, but it doesn't really apply in this case for the same reason. The whole point of the debate is whether languages 1 and 2 contain enough information to reconstruct the ancestor of them ''and'' language 3. Because that is what linguists are now finding out: Proto-Baltic, the way they have reconstructed, might as well be PBS because there are no significant differences, and Slavic does not really add any new evidence to the knowledge of sound changes as a whole. Not to say it can't often give evidence for individual words (if a Baltic equivalent is missing but there is a clear PIE origin), but the general picture is that one does not necessarily need Slavic to reconstruct a PBS word because PBS is also the latest common ancestor of the Baltic languages alone, and therefore the results are the same. If I am mistaken though, can you give me an example of an accurate PB reconstruction that clearly cannot be the ancestor of the PS cognate (while ruling out sporadic/non-regular changes)? {{User:CodeCat/signature}} 21:57, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

  

::: Actually I have done it, at least for the etymologies I already converted and/or created entries for. I'm not so familiar with Baltic sound changes but I know the Slavic ones well enough (thanks in part to Kortlandt's work), so it is relatively easy to judge whether a Proto-Baltic form could also be the ancestor of the Slavic word, and therefore Proto-Balto-Slavic. The changes from PBS to PS are surprisingly small in any case, and don't really begin to "pick up" shortly before the end of the Proto-Slavic period when the palatalisations, dropping of final consonants and other changes take hold. Even early Proto-Slavic probably resembled the other Baltic languages far more than it did only 5 or so centuries later (Germanic borrowings for example generally appeared before all of the "typical" Slavic changes). Your analogy with Dutch and German doesn't really work, because you're comparing Dutch and German themselves, whereas I am asking the equivalent of "can this Dutch word be identical to the ancestor of the German word, given what is known about how German developed?". The example you give with 3 languages is certainly true, but it doesn't really apply in this case for the same reason. The whole point of the debate is whether languages 1 and 2 contain enough information to reconstruct the ancestor of them ''and'' language 3. Because that is what linguists are now finding out: Proto-Baltic, the way they have reconstructed, might as well be PBS because there are no significant differences, and Slavic does not really add any new evidence to the knowledge of sound changes as a whole. Not to say it can't often give evidence for individual words (if a Baltic equivalent is missing but there is a clear PIE origin), but the general picture is that one does not necessarily need Slavic to reconstruct a PBS word because PBS is also the latest common ancestor of the Baltic languages alone, and therefore the results are the same. If I am mistaken though, can you give me an example of an accurate PB reconstruction that clearly cannot be the ancestor of the PS cognate (while ruling out sporadic/non-regular changes)? {{User:CodeCat/signature}} 21:57, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
  +

::The Dutch and German parallel are simply a cautionary tale against thinking that "because X is alike, Y will be, too" when we don't know Y yet. The message is simple: if we don't know, we can't claim that we know.
  +

::What you're saying is that Slavic fits well with Baltic. Good. What are the correspondences? What are the examples? What are the protoforms? If everything is as easy as you say, it should be easy to do. The data are out there, it should be simply a question of setting up the right correspondence sets and doing the work. Then you could publish it, and we could cite you as a source. Or you could actually publish the work here (setting aside a specific page for the examples and the protoforms), since I believe Wiktionary is not against original research.
  +

::But what I think can't be done honestly is pretend that the work has been done. To guess -- and it is, thus far, a guess, based on your familiarity with Slavic, but not with Batlic (i.e., 2/3 of the problem) -- that PBS will look just like PB without further evidence is no more than that: a guess.
  +

::I mean, what's the hurry? Why not wait for things to be done well before changing labels? Why run the risk? Shouldn't a good dictionary be a bit more reliable than that? --[[User:Pereru|Pereru]] ([[User talk:Pereru|talk]]) 23:15, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 23:16, 28 June 2013

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Contents

Question on Latvian terms needing attention[edit]

The problem with ala is that it needed information about which declension: first, second, or third.

I marked it as first declension, so it should no longer need attention. —Stephen (Talk) 02:35, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi! By WT:CDT, that template you just created should be named {{lv-decl-noun}}. A template with that name exists already. How does your new one differ from the existing one? Are they compatible? (They should be.) -- Gauss (talk) 22:25, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I wasn't aware of WT:CDT. I simply saw a pre-existing template that I didn't want to use (I'll say why below), so I decided to make another one. I didn't want to delete and/or replace it -- others may be using it, and I'd prefer to discuss the issue with them before deleting or doing considerable changes. (Where are the other Latvian specialists here, by the way? Who decides the format and content of Latvian entries? What would you advise me to do?)
The difference between the two templates is a matter of grammatical analysis. Traditionally, Latvian grammars mention seven cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genetive, dative, instrumental, and locative. This is the paradigm I follow in my template. Some grammarians, however, don't like always adding the vocative (because, for many non-human nouns, the vocative sounds strange or at best metaphorical), and some believe that the instrumental has really disappeared as a case (it can be claimed to have merged with the dative and/or the accusative in most situations). The first template, {{lv-decl-noun}}, follows this viewpoint: it doesn't include a vocative and an instrumental. The template I created, {{lv-noun-decl}}, includes both vocative and instrumental. (I point out that my template follows the format used in the Latvian wiktionary, as in e.g. the word "galds" ('table').) --Pereru (talk) 22:39, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any (other?) active Latvian editor here. I gather that the mainstream opinion is that Latvian has seven grammatical cases, so your template should probably be used universally. Could you maybe take a few minutes and convert the few entries that use the old {{lv-decl-noun}} to your template? Then yours should be renamed and replace the old one. I wonder why we should be so foolish to retain the old one. -- Gauss (talk) 12:29, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
The Latvian templates are actually quite a mess. To be consistent with similar (highly inflected) languages, it would be good to do without a switch like {{lv-decl-noun}}. Instead, it would be better to use the {{lv-noun-decl-1}} etc. directly (which should probably be renamed nevertheless); they are now based on {{lv-decl-noun}} (new, previously lv-decl-noun2). That strategy should also work for singular-only and plural-only words. What do you think? -- Gauss (talk) 13:22, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the changes! Indeed, the Latvian templates are a mess (there's another series, {{lv-noun-d1}}, {{lv-noun-d2}} etc... which I think should be deprecated). As for the switch, I tend to like it: it seems aesthetically pleasing to me to have one overarching template deciding which subtemplate to apply in each case. Is there a reason why highly inflected languages (I noticed Lithuanian) use the specific templates rather than an overarching switch? (I'm willing to submit to this practice if there's a reason or if it's the local community standard, of course.)
If there are no other active Latvian editors here, does it mean I can pretty much decide how do to things by myself (as long as they don't contradict local Wiktionary policy)?
On renaming: I don't have all the declension templates in my the new format yet (only {{lv-noun-decl-1}} and {{lv-noun-decl-4}}) -- I'm creating them as they are needed -- but as soon as they're all ready I would agree that they be renamed so as to replace {{lv-decl-noun-1}}, etc. (I assume you guys have bots that can replace all occurrences of {{lv-noun-decl-1}}, etc. after the name is changed?) --Pereru (talk) 13:34, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Your creations have now been moved to {{lv-decl-noun-1}} and {{lv-decl-noun-4}}. When you create respective templates for the other patterns please do it right at {{lv-decl-noun-2}} etc. and fix the few entries where the deprecated template is used. I don't know Latvian so I should only convert existing templates but not create new ones. -- Gauss (talk) 16:46, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Do I still keep using the switch at {{lv-noun-decl}}? --Pereru (talk) 16:55, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I have just replaced the switch at {{lv-noun-decl}} with a redirect to {{lv-decl-noun}}, where I placed the original switch template. Now, how can I get someone to use a bot to change all the {{lv-noun-decl}}'s to {{lv-decl-noun}}'s in the Latvian pages I have edited? (There's about 130 of them). After that, {{lv-noun-decl}} can simply be deleted. --Pereru (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I wanted to change the table frame to {{lv-decl-noun-table}}, so as to have {{lv-decl-noun}} free to be my switch template. Is that a problem? I see you reverted my edit. --Pereru (talk) 17:08, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I have just reverted your revert, so that the declension tables go back to looking OK in the Latvian words. In principle, the table frame is now in {{lv-decl-noun-table}} (to which both {{lv-decl-noun-1}} and {{lv-decl-noun-4}} now refer), and {{lv-decl-noun}} is the declension type switch. --Pereru (talk) 17:15, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
(After two edit conflicts!!) {{lv-noun-decl}} is, as usual, the frame which provides the layout for all particular declension patterns (imagine what happens if some general policy on declension tables changes or if some software update interferes with the current syntax). Your change broke that so I had to revert it.
What exact advantage do you see in {{lv-noun-decl|stem|ending|1st}} over {{lv-decl-noun-1|stem|ending}} ? Because the latter would likely be the easiest system. -- Gauss (talk) 17:16, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
No bad feelings here, I just didn't understand what you were doing, and we happened to be working at the same time. As I said, I just like switch templates better: things look more hierarchically organized. Is the policy here that xx-noun-decl always marks your general table frame, and xx-noun-decl-y the y declension/conjugation type? If this is local policy, I will be happy to comply. (Is it?) (But then it would be necessary to change all the {{lv-decl-noun|stem|ending|1st}} and {{lv-decl-noun|stem|ending|4th}} calls in all first- and fourth-declension nouns I have edited to {{lv-decl-noun-1|stem|ending}} and {{lv-decl-noun-4|stem|ending}}. Can you do that with a bot? --Pereru (talk) 17:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Now stop and wait. We need a consistent system which breaks neither what you did this afternoon nor what I did this afternoon nor what has been done before. -- Gauss (talk) 17:21, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. What do you suggest? --Pereru (talk) 17:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok. Policy is that stuff isn't copied but moved. Other than that, your suggestion looks quite feasible. The frame is not always at ...decl-noun. Switches are among the well-covered languages very rare (see [la], [el], [fi], [pl], [ro], [sh]); the only exception seems to be [cs]. So, if you want to do it that way, all you should do is to write a good documentation for the templates at Template:lv-decl-noun/doc; see Template:de-conj-weak/doc for an example. Besides I'd appreciate it if you'd check that the current state is what you suggested. -- Gauss (talk) 18:09, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and I don't have a bot. Perhaps you ask User:Mglovesfun. -- Gauss (talk) 18:09, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
OK. Since I've already started like that, I might as well continue -- so I don't need to ask for bot help to change the template calls. (But perhaps you could delete {{lv-noun-decl-1}} and {{lv-noun-decl-4}}, if you are able to? They are only redirects now, and nothing links to them. --Pereru (talk) 18:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Double hash[edit]

Please don't use ## to start definitions, just look at the entries and you'll see why. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, that was a mistake. Where have I used ##? I'll correct it (if you haven't already). --Pereru (talk) 13:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

inflection template[edit]

Hi! I see you made {{lv-inflection of}}. I think it's nice to see someone has made an equivalent of my {{is-inflection of}}. :) However, I think having categories like XXXX XXXX forms - genitive singular is a teensy bit of overkill hehe...I think it would be better to stick to the way I have Icelandic doing it ; only categorising by declension and definiteness (but well, I guess Latvian doesn't combine an indication of definiteness into the forms of its nouns does it?). Also, could you make it so that the categories are named like this:

Category:Latvian noun forms - genitive, as opposed to with brackets? I'd like that to be the standard. :) After all, if truth be told I modelled is-inflection of on {{hu-inflection of}} and while I had a hand in sorting other those Hungarian categories it was Panda10 who made the templates. 50 Xylophone Players talk 01:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi! It's nice to meet the author of the Icelandic template! Given the principle of creative laziness, I simply copied it and adapted it to my purposes -- better than starting from scrach... You (and/or Panda10) had a nice idea there, since it allows for big lists of forms by grammatical category, which I find quite nice.
As for your criticisms...
I am not favorable to the idea of having singular and plural forms of the same category together in one list -- not only does it look like putting apples and oranges together, but it creates some confusion (in Latvian, sometimes a singular form of one case has the same form as the plural form of another case -- so brīvības is both the genitive singular and the nominative (and vocative, and accusative...) plural form of brīvība 'freedom'. If I keep them in separate lists there is less confusion. Definiteness is not important for nouns, but it will be for adjectives (like Lithuanian, Latvian has definite and indefinite forms of inflected adjectives). My idea, in principle, is to also sort out definite and indefinite forms of adjectives, for the same reasons as for the nouns (so: 'genitive sg def', 'genitive pl def', etc...). The lists are more homogeneous this way. And, if one wants a big 'genitive' category, it's always possible to create one with the 'genitive pl' and 'genitive sg' as subcategories.
I understand the idea of overkill, but I don't think it's the case with nouns, when we're dealing with so few categories. For verbs... hm, that does begin to look like overkill (Category:Latvian transitive verb forms (pres condit 2pl) ?!?...). That one sure needs more thought; I don't know what to do with that yet.
As for brackets versus hyphens... This is personal preference, of course, but I tend to like the brackets better; hyphens are not used like that in texts, so in category names they look strange, while brackets enclosing names look more natural. (I note that similar categories for inflected forms do not use your hyphens; e.g.: Category:Bulgarian noun vocative forms, Category:Portuguese verb subjunctive forms, etc.)
I had bad experiences in the past arguing about such things; I prefer to avoid fights. Maybe the best solution is to have a vote? If there still isn't a standard way for naming such categories of inflected forms (is there a page somewhere about that?), then I'll accept whatever is decided. What do you think? --Pereru (talk) 02:35, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
There isn't a standard as far as I know but I would like it to stay with the hyphens as has been with Hungarian and Icelandic. I don't see the point in your example though:
>in Latvian, sometimes a singular form of one case has the same form as the plural form of another case -- so
>brīvības is both the genitive singular and the nominative (and vocative, and accusative...) plural form of
>brīvība 'freedom'. If I keep them in separate lists there is less confusion.
Icelandic has overlapping forms in at least some declensions too; see grey. Back to Latvian, brīvības is the singular form in two cases and plural in three?numbers are wrong but yea you get the idea. Well, there is no categorisation problem here AFAICT; each invocation of {{lv-inflection of}} for each definition line would categorise the entry into the appropriate case category. Also, if someone really wants to find out more about the form when they look at the category, they should just look at the entry by following the link. As for that Bulgarian category you cited, I don't like that at all...while Bulgarian apparently does have less inflections I might try to make a bg-inflection of template sometime heh...50 Xylophone Players talk 02:49, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I think to me the lists of category members aren't just a quick way to get to the actual entry, but also, well, lists of word forms that have enough in common to be meaningful. (Why else would a user be looking through the lists of words in a case or number category?) And to me 'genitive singular' makes more sense than simply 'genitive' -- so a list of genitive singular forms is more meaningful that a list of genitive (singular, plural and dual) forms. I agree that there is no categorization problem -- it's simply a question of how meaningful the list is. (Also, the wiki software doesn't have an easy way to produce category intersection -- I can't easily produce a list of genitive plural forms from a category of genitives and a category of plurals. But the opposite is easy to do -- if you want a category with all genitives when you already have a category of genitive singulars and a category of genitive plurals, you just make them subcategories of a larger genitive category.)
I didn't quite like the Bulgarian and Portuguese category names either -- they feel awkward to me. But again -- if we want to decide on a standard way of doing things, then I suppose we should have a vote. If it's decided that category names can have only one grammatical feature ('plural' or 'genitive', but not 'genitive plural'), and that hyphens will be used to separate the feature from the rest of the name, then I'll do it. But since there are no standards yet... I'll go on using the names I like better. (Also, if some standard policy emerges, it's not difficult to change the categories: they are all being populated by templates, we don't have to manually edit and change every member.) --Pereru (talk) 03:06, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I guess I can respect your different preferences. However, I think it would be best to have the categories say singular and plural not sg and pl, pl is an ISO code for Polish and sg is probably a code too, so it would be best to avoid using them in this context IMO. 50 Xylophone Players talk 03:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Could you maybe modify the template though so that it make the genitive category and such (case only) as well as the current categories? :) 50 Xylophone Players talk 03:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
OK, let's agree to disagree :-). I chose sg and pl to make the names shorter -- very long category names tend to clutter the category section at the bottom of the page. But then again, at least for nouns there won't be that many categories... so I'll do as you say. I'll also add the simple case categories as you ask. --Pereru (talk) 03:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for updating the template. :) 50 Xylophone Players talk 14:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, this is the only remaining Tbot entry for Latvian. Can you confirm its accuracy? If so, please remove the tag at the bottom of the page. Thank you, Mglovesfun (talk) 21:20, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Sure. It's now Yes check.svg Done. (I note that the head has lūdzu as an adverb, but the definition mentions it as a particle. Are there guidelines here at Wiktionary for choosing part-of-speech identifications in ambiguous cases like that -- lūdzu is a verb form like German bitte, meaning 'I ask / am asking (for something)', but it can also be used just like English please; in the latter case, why call it an adverb (rather than, say, a particle)? --Pereru (talk) 21:47, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Curious about some Latvian words...[edit]

I noticed that some Latvian words end in a double s or some variety, like īpašs. How is that pronounced? It seems rather hard when I try it... —CodeCat 19:16, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

That's a good question. As far as I know, the final s after a sibilant is not really pronounced -- īpašs is really just 'īpaš' (IPA: iːpaʃ). Final double s's are also pronouonced like single s' (sekss is just IPA: seks). The s is just really a morphological marker of nominative singular (cognate with Latin -us, Greek -os, Sanskrit -ah, Lithuanian -as, etc.). It is useful, though, as a way to differentiate stems that end in a sibiliant -- and which conserve the sibilant in other forms (e.g., sekss 'sex', in the genitive singular seksa), from those that don't (e.g., cilvēks 'person, human being', in the genitive singular cilvēka). --Pereru (talk) 19:26, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh I see. We do something similar in Dutch. Dutch has word-final devoicing, so -d and -t sound the same. When a verb stem already ends in -d, we just add -t to it even though it's not pronounced, so you get -dt. But the same doesn't happen with -tt though. —CodeCat 23:30, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Inderdaad! (Ik woon nu in Nederland, ik moet dus iedere dag Nederlands praten...) So when you see a stem like praten -- hij praat, and compare it to, say, staan -- hij staat, you see that you can't tell what the infinitive form is only on the basis of the third-person form. In Lavian, though, a nominative Marks (the name Mark) clearly shows that your genitive must be Marka, while a nominative Markss (the Latvian version of Karl Marx's name) clearlly shows that your genitive will be Marksa -- i.e., you can always predict the genitive based on the form of the nominative. (There are some problems with other noun forms, though -- no language is perfect, alas.) --Pereru (talk) 23:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh wow you know so many languages! How did you learn them all?? —CodeCat 23:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Een taalknobbeltje? :-) I started when I was 10 (I'm 40 now), and learning languages has always been a passion. But I suppose there are other people like that here? A dictionary is certainly a good place for language nerds like me... --Pereru (talk) 00:00, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Note the changes I made. Please make sure you check to see what templates are available for any language you contribute in. :) Oh, and if you add something for a language that doesn't have a suitable template yet, like {{de-noun}} be sure to use {{head}} in its place. 50 Xylophone Players talk 20:09, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

OK -- point taken! I had just checked out Eigenschaftswort, which didn't have any inflection-line templates in it, and I simply copied it. I should have looked around; I'll do a better job next time. (Just to be sure, have a look at what I did with Eigenschaftswort -- let me know if it's not up to standard.) --Pereru (talk) 21:40, 19 June 2012 (UTC) (I noted, by the way, that no {{head}}'s were used in the inflected forms Dingwworts and Dingwörter -- is this the standard policy for German inflected forms, or should one use some form of {{head}} -- say, {{head|de|noun form|g=n}} or something like that? I've used no templates for the inflected forms of Eigenschaftswort (Eigenschaftsworts, Eigenschaftswörter) and Tätigkeitswort (Tätigkeitsworts, Tätigkeitswörter). --Pereru (talk) 21:48, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I think the German forms are okay as the accelerated creation makes them, but I still like to replace the raw headword lines with a simple {{head|de}}. 50 Xylophone Players talk 01:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Hey again, I was hoping you could help me here. See, the Esperanto translation sets off alarm bells for me, though I can't speak the language, because it starts with a capital letter. Is this wrong or is like some odd little reference/homage to the German translation? 50 Xylophone Players talk 03:00, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no need for a capital "T" in "trink-korno". It is a simple compound, from trinki ("to drink") and korno ("horn"), like thousands of other Esperanto compounds. I don't have the Plena Analiza Vortaro (the Esperanto Academy's dictionary) right here with me (I'm not at home), but I'll bet that, if the word is mentioned, it is with a lowercase "t". I think whoever contributed it added a spurious uppercase "T", maybe because other words already had a capital initial. In fact, I'm going to go there right now and correct it to a lowercase "t". --Pereru (talk) 11:05, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I made a comment at Talk:tīkls about the computer meaning of "network fabric" that's used to define this word. Also, I wonder about the definition "to weave a network." As a native speaker of English, I'm not sure what that means. --BB12 (talk) 22:37, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the interest! Since the issue is about that word, I've tried to answer your questions there. --Pereru (talk) 23:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Latvian[edit]

Hi and thanks for the Latvian contributions. You may be interested in fulfilling the requests at Wiktionary:RE:lv. --Vahag (talk) 21:10, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm keeping these in mind. I've already done one of them (lazda) -- does this mean that word should be removed from the requests list? --Pereru (talk) 21:15, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes. I now removed lazda. --Vahag (talk) 21:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Спасибо большое! --Pereru (talk) 21:58, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

It is desirable to use templates for oft-cited references, so I made {{R:lv:LEV}}. It automatically categorizes into Category:Latvian etymologies from LEV. Would you consider using it? --Vahag (talk) 11:39, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Sure, I think it's a great idea. (Sorry for not answering immediately, but I'm away in Brazil on a research trip, so I have very little time for Latvian... I'll be back in mid-July, though.) Hm... Could someone help with replacing my current references to LEV (using <ref>...</ref>) with your new template? --Pereru (talk) 10:17, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
This is so awesome what you are doing: i'm learning Latvian as well (i'm from Russia). Thank you so much. Your word articles are immensely thorough and complete - I really admire it, so helpful! Soshial (talk) 03:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I have been away for a while (extensive research work in Brazil right now), so I haven't been able to contribute much, but I plan to resume in late June. Thanks for the appreciation! I hope you enjoy learning Latvian as much as I do. (If more people learn Latvian in Russia, maybe the 'hard feelings' between the two countries will someday be resolved...)
The situation is gradually changing now throughout Latvia (except south parts like Daugavpils). But people from Russia don't learn Latvian - I'm an exception because I have Latvian ancestors and I'm trying to restore my cultural heritage. I'm planning on working on Latvian words as well, but in Russian wiktionary. Also, I have a proposal for you: what do you think about compiling the most needed vocabulary (needed for average conversation) and start filling the dictionary from these words first? I have already finished the verbs and I need to do nouns. Interested? Cheers! :) Soshial (talk) 14:17, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, do you feel any bad feelings from other Russians because of your Latvian heritage, or are they cool with it? (My mother-in-law, who is Russian, is rather angry at all Baltic people...). On your proposal: in principle I've already started doing that; I've been entering words based on two Latvian courses: A Grammar of Modern Latvian by T. Fennell and H. Gelsen and Latviešu Valoda Studentiem by I. Klēvere-Velhli and N. Naua. Right now I'm away from home, and I don't have much free time or resources, so I'm adding words only occasionally, and mostly words that don't need much information like country names. High-frequency words (particles like lai or arī or the verb būt) demand a lot of effort and take a long time, while low-frequency words like Irāka or vāvere. But hey -- if you do have a list of high-frequency words, do place it here. And you can also add words yourself, just format them like the others... How about that? --Pereru (talk) 20:52, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, a Russian butting in. :) Can you guys add most common and basic Latvian verbs, which are still missing, like "meet" (translation). Perhaps, you need to check some frequency lists, so you can add not only words you like but those, which are most required for communication. I add Latvian translations sometimes but with verbs it's harder to make sure it's correct and is a lemma form, as I don't know Latvian. @Pereru, I'm also interested in automatic generation of inflected forms, similar to the way you did for Latvian but I need it for Russian. Russian templates are very different though and verbs are being gradually moved to Lua. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Pereru, I never faced any bad attitude towards me because of my Latvian heritage. And people in Russia don't care much about the things happening in Latvia, because it's too far away. Also, Russian people in Latvia are much more patriotic about Russia than Russians in Russia themselves :) On the matter of the contemporary situation in Latvia, Latvians and Russians are constantly spiking each other and barking and bitching about everything: quite often it's stubbornness and rudeness on both sides. So here's my list which I compiled (and it is still in process). Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to work on English wiktionary as well. I will work in Russian one for now... but we can coordinate our efforts! :) Soshial (talk) 11:24, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Very impressive list! I'll take some time at some point this month to check which words from it I haven't entered, and then start entering them as time permits. Thanks for the suggestion, Soshial! --Pereru (talk) 16:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, at this point the only impressive are the verbs -- those are the most essential. I will work on nouns and adjective soon very closely and it will be approximately 2000 most needed words in everyday life. If you have any words to add there - you are welcome! I can send you an invite :) Soshial (talk) 15:40, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
Besides the words that need most attention because of their frequency, we also should make an Index:Latvian to be able to see the progress :) I will work on making this list (of all Latvian words) in the next couple of days. Soshial (talk) 10:25, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
That would be a good idea. Do you have some quick way of making an Index (say, some big list of words that could simply be placed in the appropriate namespace)? Or do you actually have to type every single word? --Pereru (talk) 22:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
No, of course we don't need to do it manually, but I might need a week or so to solve this programmatically (the quality of words, without garbage ones is essential). Meanwhile, I would like to provide you with two interesting things: Wiktionary:Frequency lists/Latvian wordlist and Pamata vārdi. Also, why do you bother making articles for non-canonical word forms? Do you consider it valuable? Because in my opinion it is not that much needed, taking into account that so many new other words might have been added. What do you think? Soshial (talk) 04:11, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
I think this is an old, old question in wiki's, dating back to Wikipedia's first consideration of the Wiki is not paper concept. Basically, anything that meets the criteria for inclusion in Wiktionary (the word must be real, not invented; attested somewhere; etc.) is worthy of being put here. Arguing about "what is more necessary" and "what is less necessary" to people who are here doing voluntary work on something they like rather than obeying some project timetable for their companies is bound to end up being a question of personal preference (Someone might say: "shouldn't we stop entering Latvian words and enter Lithuanian/Polish/Russian/etc. words instead? Lithuanian/Polish/Russian/etc. is a bigger language, there's more need for it, there are more potentially interested people, etc.; and we can go back to Latvian once Lithuanian/Polish/Russian/etc. is complete, etc. etc. etc..."). In the end, it all boils down to the question "what do you want to do here?". I certainly agree that adding more words from frequencies list like the ones you mention is, by certain criteria, more important than simply adding word forms (though, by the same criteria, it would be more important to add Russian words -- more demand, etc. -- than Latvian words...). I also like the idea, and I think I'll spend some time doing exactly that. BUT I also -- for personal reasons -- like the idea of adding word forms. I like it quite a lot, actually. I get a real feeling of 'completeness' when, after adding, say, nams, I also add nama, namā, namam, namu, nami, namus, namiem, and namos -- I get a kick out of seeing all the blue links, and I feel like I really 'finished' this word. Of course, this is a personal feeling, and you don't have to feel the same thing, or to want to do the same thing. I suppose you won't be adding many word forms, whereas I think I won't stop -- I like it.
To summarize:
  1. Wiki is not paper, so there is no reason not to add word forms: they're words like all others, and they meet Wiktionary's criteria;
  2. 'what is more important' is a subjective question ('isn't completing Russian more important than adding Latvian words?', etc. etc. etc.), especially when you're in a place like a wiki, where people do voluntary work on whatever they happen to like and for as long as they like it;
  3. I'm of course doing it also for the people who might want to look up Latvian words here at Wiktionary, but ultimately I'm doing it for myself: I'm learning Latvian, adding words (and word forms) here helps me learn (you should see how quickly I can recite nominal paradigms now :-), and it also gives me a perverse thrill (I'm kinky like that :) to add word forms. Since we don't have a timetable (no boss saying 'get Latvian ready by the end of the year or you're FIRED!'), why shouldn't I continue like that? :-)...

--Pereru (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

You have your point: I have no right to say how to do the work, but I had no intention of that - I just wanted to be sure that you know that it is not obligatory to have all forms described here :) And it's just more rewarding for me to have larger amount of completed articles each of which pertain to different words. Also, may see which materials do you use for writing articles with such fine-grained senses and such long list examples of usage? Will you be interested in exchange of dictionary materials? :) Soshial (talk) 13:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Neither do I--everybody does what they like, and as long as it's a real contribution that increases the coverage (in width or depth), it's OK. By all means, follow your own instincts and add anything that strikes you as necessary here! As they say, it takes all kinds to make a world (or a dictionary).
I've listed links to most of my sources at the end of the About Latvian page. I can repeat them here. Konstantīn's Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca I have as a published book; I get etymologies from it. For the examples, I have three-four sources: (a) the Latviešu Literārās Valodas Vārdnīca, where there are longer examples (usually quotations from literary sources) -- there are other useful dictionaries in the same website http://www.tezaurs.lv, all from the Latvian Language project at the University of Latvia in Riga, by the way --; (b) the Latviešu valodas skaidrojošā vārdnīca, where I find shorter examples and collocations; and also (c) the Latviešu-Anglu Vārdnīca which I have as a book, and which sometimes has good collocation examples. I basically use (a), very often also (b), sometimes also (c) to find examples. Sometimes I also google them -- there are surprisingly many Latvian language pages on the internet -- and I also occasionally use a corpus compiled by the University of Latvia at http://www.korpuss.lv, and also sometimes traditional texts (at http://www.pasakas.lv you'll find an extraodinarily rich collection of stories in Latvian), to search for words and uses. There are some other sources at http://www.tezaurs.lv which you can also use (and every now and then I did use some of them). --Pereru (talk) 21:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much on your links - I did know some of them already. I would like to express extra-special thanks to your numerous etymological section of Latvian words: for me as a Slavophone, guessing Slavic cognates for Latvian words isn't obvious at all, but when I do (with the help of your translated etymology) - you cannot explain my joy of feeling the connection with such comparatively distant language! :) I would like to state again that my primary field of work on Latvian language lies in Russian Wiktionary, so I am unfortunately of almost no help to your goals, but I am your complete companion-in-arms =) On the other hand, if I see any incomplete information or missing sense here, I will correct it so that the articles in both Wiktionaries stay synchronized; also, if you don't mind me taking your etymology and examples translated to Russian section. In addition to that, Russian biggest Etymological dictionary by Max Vasmer has quite some amount of Russian and Latvian cognates (e.g. kurt#Latvian and ru:курить#Этимология) As for materials, if you are interested in the Latvian synonyms dictionary oПr Latvian orthographic & orthoepic (with all intonations as well!) dictionary with 80 000 entries, be my guest :) Soshial (talk) 02:27, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Пожалуйста! :) I understand what you feel when you see a connection (it's similar to when I was studying Romanian and could find cognates between it and my native language, Portuguese). Also, I speak Russian (my wife is Russian, we speak mostly Russian at home) better than Latvian, so I can also get some ah-ha! feelings when I realize a certain Latvian word is connected to a certain Russian word. Hm... Maybe I'll go have a look at what you're doing at the Russian wiktionary. The army of Latvian-dictionary-makers is not big, we might be the only Latviešu strelnieki here... Where is the Latvian dictionary of synonyms you mentioned? Is it online? Do you have a link? --Pereru (talk) 03:47, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Хочу вас предупредить, что я ещё не приступил к работе над латышскими словами в Викисловаре: однако я создал "координационный Проект", собрал и выложил всю доступную литературу (там вы можете найти упомянутый словарь синонимов) и работаю над созданием Индекса. А словарь с произношениями слова вам не нужен? Мне казалось, вы где-то тут писали, что вам он очень необходим. Или я неправ? Soshial (talk) 12:27, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Это уже отличное начало, Soshial! Буду обязательно смотреть эти материалы, особенно те, которые мне ещё не известны. Да, мне тоже нужен словарь с произношениями слов, и для себя самого (чтобы лучше учить латышкий), и для работы в Викисловаре (чтобы определить интонацию -- я до сих пор ползуюсь этимологическим словарём господина Константиинса, но многие слова там не упомянуты... гм, я только что посмотрел, и увидел, что "Latviešu valodas pareizrakstības un pareizrunas vārdnīca" больше не в дропбоксе; кто-то его почему-то убрал). Один вопрос: как вы собираетесь создать индекс? Это много работы? Могу ли я, если вы не против, просто скопировать ваш индекс сюда (после того, как он станет готовым, разумеется)? --Pereru (talk) 10:31, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Файл "Latviešu valodas pareizrakstības un pareizrunas vārdnīca" снова доступен: я обновил для вас ссылку. Дело в том, что, чтобы получить нужный нам индекс, необходимо распознать весь этот файл, о котором мы сейчас говорим. Мне удалось выудить из файла следующую информацию автоматически: ru:Индекс:Латышский_язык/Ž - это уже очень хороший результат, но в нём есть определённое количество ошибок распознавания, и любой результат необходимо вычитать на предмет ошибок. Скопировать из русского Викисловаря в английский -- конечно, можно, ведь я это делаю ради того, чтобы информация была доступна как можно большему числу людей! Однако, повторюсь, сначала надо всё вычитать. Если вы готовы каждый день посвящать проверке 5 страниц железно, мы вдвоём сможем управиться со всем словарём за 3 месяца. Согласны? Можно попытаться привлечь больше людей к этому. PS. Большая просьба ставить буквы ё, если вам не трудно :) Soshial (talk) 12:08, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Спасибо! Я в принципе хочу помочь с проверкой файла; однако, у меня сейчас тоже много работы вне Википедии (мне надо закончить одну книгу и её отправить издательству -- наверно вы заметили, что я сейчас менее часто бываю здесь в Википедии), так что я не могу гарантировать ежедневного участия... С чего начать? Со страницей ru:Индекс:Латышский_язык/Ž? (Кстати, почему вам так важно писать букву "ё"? Я не против, но, посколько я знаю, она по-русски не обязательно пишется, в отличие от белорусского, правда?) --Pereru (talk) 00:48, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Буква "ё" в словарях и энциклопедиях обязательна. :) --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:55, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Тоже в страницах обсуждения? O-: ... (Правда, что "ё" помогает нам нерусским с произнашением неизвестных слов... Надо только заставить всех добавить и ударение, ах! подвижнoe такое... Иначе никак мне не удастся стать шпионом как г-н Фогле...) --Pereru (talk) 01:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Нет, конечно. Только в статьях. Это правда, написание "ё" помогает нерусским правильно прочитать (и не только нерусским, сами русские делают ошибки в произношении). Удачи с латышским проектом. Буду обращаться, если не против, с переводом на латышский. Сделать ударение обязательным - не плохая идея, жаль, что министерство культуры России меня не послушает, я б заставил всех писать букву "ё" и проставлять ударение, как греки, испанцы и итальянцы. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:03, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Предлагаю тогда подождать с проверкой индекса. Я пока сосредоточусь на других вещах, связанных с латышским (и подучу его немножко;)), а когда у вас будет время - тогда ударными темпами всё и сделаем. Я могу попытаться ещё людей привлечь, но если делать что-то подобное, то уж разом. PS. Заметьте, что я поправляю ваши ответы на русском, надеюсь вы не обижаетесь, а анализируете ошибки :) PPS. А букву ё по правилам русского языка надо писать там, где возможны разночтения, но я пишу её везде, потому что из-за этого даже русскоговорящие не знают как произносить некоторые слова. Об этом довольно интересно написано в русском разделе Википедии о букве Ё. Soshial (talk) 21:48, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Согласен. Было бы действительно лучше найти ещё некоторых заинтересованных коллег, раз проверка огромна. Насчёт поправок, я не только заметил, а тоже обрадовался, и сейчас даже благодарю! Приобретение иностранных языков, это -- бесконечная задача, при которой помощь постоянно нужна. Пожалуйста, правьте дальше! Если у вас тоже какие-то общие или специфические замечания насчёт моего русского, не стесняйтесь сказать мне. (Большая часть моего русского от разговоров с моей женой, где часто прощаются ошибки, не мешающие пониманию...). --Pereru (talk) 00:19, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
Да, когда на ошибки не обращают внимание - это стопорит изучение языка. Ну, буду исправлять, если увижу что. Будем ждать появления у нас свободного времени, а я пока поспрашиваю. Soshial (talk) 23:12, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Part of Speech[edit]

Hullo Madame or sir. You seem to be forgetting to put the part of speech (===Noun===) in your entries. --Æ&Œ (talk) 01:54, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

That happens sometimes... nobody's perfect, and I'm not nobody. :) Thanks. --Pereru (talk) 01:55, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a really minor thing, but {{rfap}} goes under the ===Pronunciation=== header. Thanks for all your good work. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

A little something to pique your interest[edit]

Hey, I picked up a leaflet while in town with my mom today because I felt like it. I have only transcribed a little bit of it so far but I thought you might be interested in looking at it for words to add. User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 17:39, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the link! Where is that text from? Was it a leaflet translated into all EU languages? I had thought of doing something like that with some short text from the Latvian Wikisource -- I'm really glad you've started it already. Thanks again! --Pereru (talk) 22:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I guess it was likely translated into all (major) EU languages and other languages but the two I picked up were Latvian and Mandarin. As my subpage name suggests it's a leaflet about the Irish "register of electors". User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 00:43, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Go raibh maith agat! (Out of curiosity, why was there a Latvian version of a leaflet about a referendum? Are there many Latvians in Ireland?) --Pereru (talk) 00:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure, maybe. The place is a council office or something like that. I guess they just try to provide the info in various languages of people that may be in/come to Ireland. User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 14:26, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Have you considered using a bot to create forms of Latvian terms? I've noticed you've created a ton of noun forms (great job, by the way), and you would have even more time to create lemmas if the forms were taken care of automatically. I bet if you ask at the Grease pit, someone will offer to modify their bot for Latvian. Ultimateria (talk) 20:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I have thought about this (especially for the word types that have many forms, like verbs or adjectives; I'm mostly doing nouns because they have relatively few forms). Do you think they would do this? After all, they're probably already doing all kinds of things with their bots... --Pereru (talk) 21:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
That's the thing about bots: they don't mind a big workload. :P And those who run bots are usually very open to requests. I encourage you to ask. Ultimateria (talk) 21:53, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
OK, I've just asked! Let's see if anyone is willing to help. Thanks for the suggestion! --Pereru (talk) 22:03, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Latvian noun forms[edit]

Hey, I was wondering why do you often seem to skip vocative singular forms? I think I've seen a couple of entries lately with this problem (e.g. skābekļa spilvens just now). I thought I'd ask since it seems almost non-accidental. User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 14:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm intentionally avoiding most of the vocative, especially vocative singular, forms. This is because they are somewhat doubtful -- the few Latvian speakers I've been able to ask are sometimes in doubt as to whether or not specific vocative forms exist (except of course for person names, occupations, animals, where usually they're OK); try to imagine a good, commonsensical context for the vocative of skābekļa spilvens... For many, perhaps most, nouns (first-declension masculine nouns, some second-declension feminine nouns), the vocative is usually formed by subtracting the nominative ending ("Edvards" becomes "Edvard!"; "vecmāmiņa" 'granny' becomes "vecmāmiņ!"), but not always (for feminine nouns, this is often not obligatory, or even dispreferred). Now, the few speakers I've talked to were not simply unsure about the usability of a vocative; they were unsure about the very existence of many words without their final "-s" or "-a". In other words, there's something funny with Latvian vocatives that I don't quite understand yet. Until I find more information about the use and formation of vocatives, especially those of non-human, non-animate nouns, I preferred to avoid creating their pages here at Wiktionary (so that I won't have to delete a #*$load of pages if at some point in the future I learn they officially don't exist). If the vocative forms were at least homophonous with some other form, then I could create the pages (which is why I do include, in inflection-of pages like skābekļa spilveni, those vocatives that are homophonous to other forms); if it turns out these vocatives don't officially exist, at least the pages don't have to be deleted, just edited. --Pereru (talk) 14:39, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, strange, but fair enough. Thanks for your time. User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 14:55, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Latvian "ass"[edit]

Can you verify for me the Latvian adjective ass ("sharp"), and add inflection? – Krun (talk) 21:36, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I've just added the inflection. Yes, ass, besides being a noun with the meaning 'axis', is also an adjective with the meaning 'sharp'. Examples: ass nazis, sharp knife; stikla asā mala, the sharp edge of the glass. Why do you ask? --Pereru (talk) 21:44, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I was going through Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ḱrós and correcting some errors, and I wanted to see the full inflection (and make sure it's correct). Apparently there is another form as well: ašs. – Krun (talk) 22:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Indeed there is, but it's a different adjective. According to my Latvian-English dictionary (Dz. Kalniņa's Latviešu Angļu Vārdnīca; Avots: Rīga, 2002; ISBN 9984-700-52-6), ass is (n.) 'axis; axle' and (adj.) 'sharp; keen; acute' (cf. Russian острый), while ašs is (adj.) 'fast, quick (esp. answer: prompt, immediate)'. The LEV does list them both as deriving from Proto-Indo-European *aḱ- ("sharp, pointed; stone"). Does this help? --Pereru (talk) 22:32, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Since you're here, and working on PIE roots... May I ask you if you know what source the PIE roots and nouns listed here at Wiktionary were taken from? I don't see a reference anywhere, and I wondered if it was Pokorny, or some other source. --Pereru (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Could you check something please?[edit]

Could you check the Baltic cognates listed under the etymology of bær#Old English? Particularly the Lithuanian one (if you are familiar enough with it) because it seems to me that if it's an adjective, it ought to end in -as, not -a. —CodeCat 16:10, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really familiar with Lithuanian (I may take it up after a couple of years of Latvian, but we'll see... I've been thinking about Mari instead). But my trusty Latvian Etymological Dictionary does mention, under Latvian bass "barefoot", Lithuanian basas (bãsas) as a cognate -- as you expected, with the ending -as. Both the Latvian and the Lithuanian forms are apparently derived from Proto-Baltic *basas, itself from Proto-Indo-European *bhoso-s. I hope this is enough for your purposes. --Pereru (talk) 20:50, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, thank you! —CodeCat 21:30, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Noun forms[edit]

Hey, would you mind only using the noun header? We don't really use noun form as a header AFAIK; as you know we categorise noun forms separately of course but we still only use the header ===Noun=== in the entries. Would you mind fixing the entries you've created like that? Thanks. User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 01:23, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure. That was a mistake -- I don't want to use ===Noun form=== either, it's just that after typing for a while my hands get tired and start repeating things. (Were there many? I only noticed one that had ===Noun form===). --Pereru (talk) 01:31, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure; the only ones I noticed were some of the forms of minerālūdens. User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 01:40, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
These have now been rectified. If you see any others, please let me know. Thanks for the help. --Pereru (talk) 01:49, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks ;) Bli med (talk) 23:00, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you know about list templates? They work like the lists you've been making like for Latvian letter names, but the code is a lot cleaner ([1]) and they're easier to keep track of, plus they're easier to put in an entry. Ultimateria (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've heard about them. But I remember reading a debate somewhere in one of the Community portal rooms about how the basic template {{list}} used up a lot of system resources (I think it was Liliana60 who made this point), and I agreed, so I thought it would be better not to use it. --Pereru (talk) 17:45, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
They are still preferred to not using a template at all. Templates can always be changed later, but if an entry doesn't use a template at all, it's much harder to track down and fix it. —CodeCat 17:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Considering how some pages are already slow to load (I'm thinking of [[a]], which was tiring to edit...), maybe it's better to avoid system-taxing templates. It's true, if I want to change one of those lists, then I'll have to track its occurrences; that's a minus. But not such a big one: after all, all the words which include the list are listed in the list itself, so finding one of them means having a list to all of them. Besides, the format that {{list}} uses -- one word after the other right after the definition rather than under it, plus little links to add or edit the list -- is, I think, not very aesthetically pleasant.--Pereru (talk) 18:36, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Numbers[edit]

Could you please read my reply on my talk page first? It might save you having to undo some things... —CodeCat 00:26, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Latvian neologisms[edit]

Words coined in the 19th century cannot be neologisms. Neologisms are words that are so new, most dictionaries and people don't acknowledge them. So, the categories of "neologism" by certain authors are incorrectly named. You mean "Latvian words coined by [name of author]", not "neologisms". --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:50, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

They were neologisms when they were invented, and they are still referred as such in Latvian (at least in the Latvian Etymological dictionary I'm getting this data from). I'm not in love with this nomenclature either, but at least it is practical. Do you have a better name for the main category in question? If not "Latvian neologisms", then Latvian "what"? I'm open to suggestions. --Pereru (talk) 01:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
We reserve "neologism" for words that (1) meet CFI, and (2) are recently coined. Words that have been around for a century just don't fit that definition. Perhaps "nonce words"? We have some words from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland or from Joyce's Ulysses that appear in only the original work. Does that describe the words you're working with? If not, then perhaps you should make an appeal in the Beer Parlour for suitable terminology. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
In the Latvian case, the words in question are mostly like new coinages necessary to translate international cultural and scientific terms that didn't exist in Latvian up until then; words like "noun" and "verb", or "biology" and "psychology" and suchlike. You might compare them to, say, the names of chemical elements not known since antiquity, like uranium or polonium, in that they are also not neologisms (they've been around for a while), but they have a specific author and date of birth, and they are not nonce words either -- they are the correct (and only) words to refer to those elements, and are normally used today. I've made an appeal at the Information desk once (see here), and there didn't seem to be an agreed-upon good category name. What do you think? --Pereru (talk) 02:11, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Not many people patrol the Info Desk often, so questions there are other overlooked. I think an appeal for ideas in the Beer Parlour, with the explanation you've given, would help. I'm not sure what I'd call such words, but someone else here might have a clever solution. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:39, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
OK. I'll copy that question to the Beer Parlor. --Pereru (talk) 03:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

You entered a Latin translation but I think you meant Latvian? —CodeCat 00:17, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed! Thanks for being so attentive. I always feel glad knowing that you guys are watching what I'm doing and can jump in and point out problems and mistakes. --Pereru (talk) 00:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello Pereru, should the Category:Transliteration of personal names (and it's sub categories) be deleted? See: User_talk:EncycloPetey#Categories:Transliteration. What's your opinion? --Greek-Trans (talk) 17:30, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

esp. to especially[edit]

Hi, can you please type "especially" instead of esp. like here, please. --81.9.217.33 18:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but why? Isn't "esp." better? --Pereru (talk) 18:53, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
people may not know what esp. means --81.9.217.33 18:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Hm, I see what you mean -- it's not in the Appendix. OK. (It would be kind of hard to trace the pages where I wrote "esp."; one group is animal names, when they referred to more than one species but there was one that was the basic, central one (basically the one found in Latvia), like bebrs. Is there a bot-based way of searching for "esp." and replacing it with "especially", rather than doing it manually? --Pereru (talk) 19:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
The pages are at Wiktionary:Todo/unhelpful abbreviations --81.9.217.33 19:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Not all of them are there (bebrs isn't). I'll change the Latvian ones I see listed there, but they're only a handful. (By the way, I had also often used "cf." in ==Etymology== sections. Is it also policy to avoid them there, or do we assume that anyone who likes to read etymological info knows what "cf." is? And also ">" = "changes into"?) --Pereru (talk) 19:13, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't know about cf. I don't actually care about esp. myself, just that I found myself pretty bored and wanted to fix something. As for ">", again, no idea. --81.9.217.33 19:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes check.svg Done, for the words in that list, and also for bebrs. There are other cases of "esp." in Latvian pages, though. Maybe someone could get a bot to search for them and replace with "especially"?... --Pereru (talk) 19:25, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It says it's a form of trusis but it doesn't have anything in common with that word except for the meaning, so form-wise they are completely different. I think the usual practice on Wiktionary is to repeat the definition on such entries, but add {{context|obsolete}} to them. The synonyms should then provide a link to the more usual modern word. —CodeCat 23:41, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I remember having read somewhere here that this is what {{obsolete name of}} was for -- indicating an obsolete word with a synonym still in common use. Trusis replaced the earlier kaninķenis; I suppose they were in competition at some point and then trusis won. If they were connected form-wise (like patskanis and patskaņa, for instance), then I imagine one should use {{obsolete form of}} instead. I think it could be useful to repeat the definition (even though it is only a click away); but it does seem to me there's a (non-form-wise) connection between the words -- one replaced the other -- that goes beyond mere synonymity and that also needs to be pointed out. Don't you think? --Pereru (talk) 23:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Well it looks like {{obsolete name of}} is only used in Latvian entries, so before you added it, it probably wasn't used for anything at all. —CodeCat 01:03, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 !?! I'm really surprised. There is some discussion somewhere in one of the communty portals that mentions it with this function; that's why I started using it. Well, if there is some better, consensus solution to the problem of how to mark words that were replaced by other words (maybe a new {{obsolete synonym of}} template?), then do let me know. --Pereru (talk) 06:37, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Já é a palavra do dia. Abraço. — Ungoliant (Falai) 00:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Language title[edit]

Hullo again. Are you forgetting to include the language title (==Latvian==) in your entries? Ciao. --Æ&Œ (talk) 01:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed I was. Already corrected. Thanks for the help! --Pereru (talk) 01:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Hi Pereru
as I can see you create Latvian adjective forms but why do you don't use a Bot in order to make your work easier?Best regards--GeorgeAnimal. 20:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Hi Animal,
I don't have a bot myself and I reckon it would take time to learn how to make one (in Python, right?). I once asked in the Beer Parlor (I think) if someone would be interested in helping me with a bot. One person said yes, but he was a bit busy at the time, and I asked him to drop a word when he had more free time to help me. Until now this hasn't happened, so I have continued to enter adjective forms manually.... sigh. --Pereru (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I think I can help you with (GanimalBot if you say me how the adjective forms work.GeorgeAnimal. 20:18, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Hm! That would be great. What do you need to know? If you need a quick description, adjectives in Latvian inflect for gender, number, case, and definiteness; they also have comparative and superlative forms, and usually an adverbial form (like English manner adverbials in -ly: happy -> happily). I basically have one lemma page for the main basic (positive) adjective (like, say, bīstams "dangerous") with links in the inflection line to the definite, comparative, superlative, and adverbial forms as sublemmas with their own pages. On each page, there is a table with the case/gender/number forms. For every case-gender-number form, I create a form-of page with the case-gender-number form described in one line, with a link back to the original sublemma (so a positive dative feminine form like bīstamai "to a dangerous (fem.)..." links back to the positive form bīstams, a comparative dative feminine form like bīstamākai "to a more dangerous (fem.)..." links back to the comparative sublemma bīstamāks "more dangerous (masc. sing.)", a comparative definite dative femine form like bīstamākajai "to the more dangerous (fem.)..." links back to the comparative definite sublemma bīstamākais "the more dangerous (masc. sing).", etc. Is this the kind of information you need? --Pereru (talk) 20:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
HI, no, no only the endings if they are regular.GeorgeAnimal. 07:50, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The endings are quite regular (there are exceptions, but very few). As you can see with bīstams: the stem is bīstam, the endings of the indefinite forms are:
  1. -a (e.g., bīstama) nominative singular feminine and genitive singular masculine,
  2. -u (e.g., bīstamu) accusative singular masculine, instrumental singular masculine, genitive plural masculine, accusative singular feminine, instrumental singular feminine, genitive plural feminine
  3. -i (e.g., bīstami) nominative plural masculine, adverbial form
  4. -am (e.g., bīstamam) dative singular masculine
  5. -ā (e.g., bīstamā) locative singular masculine, locative singular feminine
  6. -as (e.g., bīstamas) genitive singular feminine, nominative plural feminine, vocative plural feminine
  7. -ās (e.g., bīstamās) locative plural feminine
  8. -us (e.g., bīstamus) accusative plural masculine
  9. -ām (e.g., bīstamām) dative plural feminine, instrumental plural feminine
  10. -iem (e.g., bīstamiem) dative plural masculine, instrumental plural masculine
For the definite forms (from sublemma bīstamais "the dangerous"), the endings are:
  1. -ā (e.g., bīstamā) genitive singular masculine, nominative singular feminine, vocative singular feminine
  2. -o (e.g., bīstamo) vocative singular masculine, accusative singular masculine, instrumental singular masculine, genitive plural masculine, vocative singular feminine, accusative singular feminine, instrumental singular feminine, genitive plural feminine
  3. -ajam (e.g., bīstamajam) dative singular masculine
  4. -ajā (e.g., bīstamajā) locative singular masculine, locative singular feminine
  5. -ie (e.g., bīstamie) nominative plural masculine, vocative plural masculine
  6. -ās (e.g., bīstamās) genitive singular feminine, nominative plural feminine, vocative plural feminine, accusative plural feminine
  7. -os (e.g., bīstamos) accusative plural masculine
  8. -ajai (e.g., bīstamajai) dative singular feminine
  9. -ajiem (e.g., bīstamajiem) dative plural masculine, instrumental plural masculine
  10. -ajām (e.g., bīstamajām) dative plural feminine, instrumental plural feminine
  11. -ajos (e.g., bīstamajos) locative plural masculine
  12. -ajās (e.g., bīstamajās) locative plural feminine
The comparative form is made with the suffix -āk, followed by indefinite or definite suffixes (e.g., bīstam-āk-as "more dangerous (indefinite, nominative feminine plural)", bīstam-āk-ajos "in the more dangerous (definite, locative plural masculine). The main sublemma pages are the nominative singular masculine forms, indefinite bīstamāks and definite bīstamākais. The superlative form has both the suffix -āk and the prefix vis-, and only has definite endings: vis-bīstam-āk-ās "the most dangerous (definite, nominative plural feminine)". The main sublemma page is the nominative singular masculine visbīstamākais.
Is this what you need? Please let me know. --Pereru (talk) 08:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes this is what I need.I will make a test run (tonight).--Best regardsGeorgeAnimal. 10:50, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
PS:But I need adjective whose forms don't exist.Could you create one?GeorgeAnimal. 10:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm still adding forms for adjectives that have already been created but don't have their form-of pages ready... A good one for your test is tievs "thin" (not fat). The main lemma page is ready (including definitions, examples, quotes), but none of the form-of pages have been created. (You'll follow the style and order of senses of other form-of pages, so that all Latvian form-of pages have the same format, right? Note also the pages that have the {{also}} template, like bīstamam and bīstamām, only differentiated by a diacritic; in general, all forms in -am need this template, because they're always almost the same as the forms in -ām, and vice-versa; same thing for the forms in -a and -ā, -as and -ās.) --Pereru (talk) 11:00, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Has got the tievs also an indefinite form?--GeorgeAnimal. 12:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Test done. here--GeorgeAnimal. 12:31, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Great! Everything seems to be as it should; I've looked through the forms and they seem OK. Now, on the definite, comparative indefinite, comparative definite, superlative, and adverbial forms... Can your bot also create them? I mean, the sublemma pages? (See e.g. labais "the good" compared to labs "good", and also labāks "better", labākais "the better (one)", and vislabākais "the best (one)"; also the adverbial forms labi "well", labāk "better", vislabāk "best"). I've created the page of the simple definite form tievais "the thin (one)"; could your bot do it? And also for tievāks "thinner", tievākais "the thinner", vistievākais "the thinnest", tievi "thinly", tievāk "more thinly", vistievāk "most thinly"?
Another problem is homophonous forms. Indefinite form tievos "locative plural masculine" is homophonous with definite form tievos "accusative plural masculine"; I try to keep these senses in separate paragraphs (see labos). Another example is tievi, which is both an indefinite form (nominative plural masculine) and also the adverbial form ("thinly"); I also keep these separates, but with different PoS headings (as in labi). Could your bot do that?
And, of course, thanks for the help! --Pereru (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
My prroposal is to create a files which contain the information abour the forms of adjectives, like:
For example:
  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}u'''  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|acc|s|m||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|ins|s|m||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|gen|p|m||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|acc|s|f||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|ins|s|f||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|gen|p|f||adj}}  {{-stop-}}     {{-start-}}  {{also|{{{1}}}ā}}  '''{{{1}}}a'''  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|gen|s|m||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|nom|s|f||adj}}     {{-stop-}}     {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}i'''  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|nom|p|m||adj}}  {{-stop-}}  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}us'''  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|acc|p|m||adj}}  {{-stop-}}  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}ā'''  {{also|{{{1}}}a}}  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|loc|s|m||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|loc|s|f||adj}}  {{-stop-}}     {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}as'''  {{also|{{{1}}}ās}}  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|gen|s|f||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|nom|p|f||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|acc|p|f||adj}}  {{-stop-}}  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}iem'''  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|dat|p|m||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|ins|p|m||adj}}  {{-stop-}}  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}ās'''  {{also|{{{1}}}as}}  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|loc|p|f||adj}}  {{-stop-}}  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}os'''  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|loc|p|m||adj}}  {{-stop-}}     {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}ām'''  {{also|{{{1}}}am}}  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|dat|p|f||adj}}  # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|ins|p|f||adj}}  {{-stop-}}  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}am'''     {{also|{{{1}}}ām}}  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|dat|s|m||adj}}  {{-stop-}}  {{-start-}}  '''{{{1}}}ai'''  ==Latvian==     ===Adjective===  {{head|lv|adjective form}}     # {{lv-inflection of|{{{1}}}s|dat|s|f||adj}}  {{-stop-}}
  • {{{1}}} is the parameter for the verb--GeorgeAnimal. 17:25, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
And that for all adjective forms (indefinite, definite.
And then a page like User:Pereru:Latvian-adjective-definite-forms and
{{subst:User:Pereru:Latvian-adjective-definite-forms|viet}}
  • {{{1}}} -the adjective, adverb etc.GeorgeAnimal. 17:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Are that forms correct?.If yes then the bot create the missing adjective forms.GeorgeAnimal. 19:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I think they're correct. I hope so. :-) Please create all the forms for tievs, and then let me check if everything is OK. --Pereru (talk) 20:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

.Done.Best regards--GeorgeAnimal. 13:02, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Some forms are missingsee here.Could you add them to the template/file with all forms.GeorgeAnimal. 13:05, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Could you create the adjective Kurdish on Latvian.Thanks--GeorgeAnimal. 18:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes check.svg Done. It's kurdisks. (The words kurds (male) Kurd, kurdiete (female) Kurd already exist.) --Pereru (talk) 18:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks a lot
Could you create the page User:Pereru:Latvian-adjective-forms and add this page to it [ and if you have created a adjective then add the head lemmata as {{subst:User:Pereru:Latvian-adjective-forms|adjective]].All forms will be created and I will upload them.OK?
It may be off-topic, but would you like to change kurdisks' example sentence? I think it's outdated. [2] --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 18:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
It was the first usable example I found when I googled the term... but since there were others after that, no problem. I'll change it.

--Pereru (talk) 18:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC) @Ximiendo

I don't think that it is outdated.GeorgeAnimal. 18:59, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, I found another sentence that is less polemic. I don't know much about Kurdish in Turkey (other than what I hear from the owner of the local Turkish bakery, who, unfortunately, is very anti-Kurdish and often expresses this opinion...) --Pereru (talk) 19:10, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
George, I'll change the name of that page where you put the template (because I wanted that page to only have the list of adjectives), and then I'll add four more adjectives. Hm! This is working really well. --Pereru (talk) 19:10, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, here we are: User:Pereru/Adjective forms has four more adjectives other than kurdisks (which is there, but crossed out). The source code is at User:Pereru/Adjective forms/source code. So, can we go on working like that? It would be great.
A problem: kurdiskā is OK, but tievā is not: it needs links to the definite sublemma. Maybe you could run your bot again for the main (indefinite) forms of tievs to correct such mistakes?
Two questions:
(a) does your bot notice when a page already exists, and then only adds Latvian as a section?
(b) does it check for similar terms without diacritics to add to the {{also}} template? (If it doesn't, I'll do it myself manually.)
(c) if I can produce a similar source code version for nouns and verbs, would you be willing to add Latvian noun and verb forms as well? (Nouns are simple, they only have 6-8 forms; verbs are more complicated, they have full conjugations plus 2-4 participles, each with a full adjective definite and indefinite declension, often even with comparative and superaltive forms). --Pereru (talk) 19:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

If the pages exists then the bot overwrites the content so that the old conts are updated. If a word exist then the bot dd the forms as extra section.GeorgeAnimal. 20:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Problem. If a page created by you or ... is overwritten [3].Should the bot add overwrite the content added by you?GeorgeAnimal. 20:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
If possible, no, the extra info I added should not be deleted. But I can always add it again manually, it's not difficult.
I don't have any time in that weeks so that will start with nouns/... next week or if I have time enough.GeorgeAnimal. 20:44, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
OK. I will prepare source code templates for nouns and place them in a separate page (probably User:Pereru/Noun forms/source code), and I'll leave new nouns at User:Pereru/Noun forms. I'll do the same with verbs, but the verb conjugation template isn't ready yet so this will take some time. You can add them whenever you have time.
Again, thanks a lot for the help! This is going to make my life a lot easier... --Pereru (talk) 20:48, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
HI Pereru
the bot is creating the forms added by you.You can make it easier for me if you use {{subst:User:Pereru/Adjective forms/source code|the adjective}} if you add thenon-existing forms to your page.--ThanksGeorgeAnimal. 18:37, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I dont know much about {{subst:}}. How can I use it? Do you mean writing # {{subst:User:Pereru/Adjective forms/source code|svabads}} instead of writing simply [[svabads]] if I want to add [[svabads]] to the list at [[User:Pereru/Adjective forms]]? --Pereru (talk) 18:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Only {{subst:User:Pereru/Adjective forms/source code|svabad}} without s (because see <code><nowiki>{{lv-adj|svabad}}and add this to your page and this is the same for other words.best regardsGeorgeAnimal. 18:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Test exampleGeorgeAnimal. 18:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Could you add the other adjectives, too?.GeorgeAnimal. 19:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I see. I've just done it on that page for [[svabads]] and [[tukls]]. I simply put the {{subst: line right under the adjective. Is this what you wanted? Should I do this to all other adjectives on the list? Won't that page become too big? --Pereru (talk) 19:12, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes. If the formes are created then I will blank the page.Ok?GeorgeAnimal. 19:14, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, I'll do it now. So the page being big is not a problem?
A note: vecs is an adjective that has some forms in common with the noun vecis. When you're adding vecs forms, if a page already exists with a form of vecis, don't delete it, just add the vecs form under it as an extra (===Adjective===) section. --Pereru (talk) 19:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Latvian / Lithuanian[edit]

Good evening,

I see you have done much in Latvian recently. Since you seem to know quite a bit of it, I actually have a question for you : I am interested in Lithuanian (which I unfortunately don't speak) and in your opinion, how different are Latvian and Lithuanian ? As much as French and Italian ? Or English and German ?

Thank you :-) Regards, --Fsojic (talk) 18:31, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Labanaktis
yes, I am ! And you, are you interested in Lithuanian ?
Actually I don't plan to add Lithuanian words here currently : I am already quite busy on fr.wiktionary, where I add very basic, necessary entries. By the way, if you want to add Latvian entries there, you will be most welcome :-) I think it is good to have the two to compare.
Regards, --Fsojic (talk) 23:05, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Ačiū! Yes, I'm interested in Lithuanian, but right now I'm concentrating on Latvian which I'm trying to learn (I love the way the language sounds, and I also find their current situation -- with all those non-assimilated Russian-speaking immigrants -- very interesting).
I've thought about adding Latvian words to other Wiktionaries, but there's so much to do on Latvian here... I think I want to concentrate on getting the Latvian part of Wiktionary at a good level, say equivalent to a good bilingual dictionary, before I do something else. (And after that it's more likely that I'll switch to some other language rather than to some other Wiktionary... maybe Lithuanian, maybe Mari... I am also quite fond of Mari.) --Pereru (talk) 23:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Choose Lithuanian :-) it would be so great to have a good Lithuanian dictionary online that I can understand :D
Actually, how do you plan to proceed for Latvian ? You have begun by adjectives, and then you will take charge of nouns and verbs or something ?
Regards, --Fsojic (talk) 07:49, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Who knows? Lietuvių kalba is also cool. :-) I've spent about a month and a half doing nouns (up to 1700 now), and I'm now doing adjectives; but I am also working on the verb templates, so I should be able to move on to verbs in a couple of weeks. I like spending some time in each word class. Ultimately, I think I will start doing texts -- like this one -- and simply entering each word that has a red link in it, whatever word class. There's enough for years of fun here. --Pereru (talk) 08:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I won't add request to Wiktionary:Requested entries (Latvian) then, since you will probably create them later. Indeed, you are going to have a lot of fun :-)
If you don't mind my asking, how did you manage to master so many languages ? --Fsojic (talk) 21:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
I just like learning languages. Some people collect stamps, I collect grammars and dictionaries -- I have more than I could possibly learn... so I pick a language for a year or two to concentrate on, and give it my full attention in my free time. I buy or borrow several teach-yourself textbooks, I get cassette tapes (now I go to the internet, where everything can be found...) I started with French, many, many years ago... and now it's Latvian. (In case you'd like to try an interactive Latvian course that I found quite useful, click here, then click on the first lesson (1. Iepazīšanās). It's fun! --Pereru (talk) 22:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Translation requests[edit]

Have you ever thought of Category:Translation requests (Latvian)? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 09:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Not really -- interesting. Do you happen to know what makes someone want a specific translation? It's a very random collection of words there. I would have expected people to ask for new words based on, say, how frequent they are? --Pereru (talk) 10:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know much about Ancient Greek but it seems a bit strange that the feminine is the same as the masculine. Shouldn't it be ámorphē or something like that? Can you have a look? —CodeCat 02:09, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon has ἄμορφ-ος, ον, without a feminine form in -η, which is their standard procedure with two-form adjectives. Groton's Ancient Greek course does not mention ἄμορφος directly, but she has several other privative (negative ἄ-) adjectives like ἄμορφος in the two-form class, where feminine and masculine have the same endings (e.g., ἀθάνατος "immortal", ἀνάξιος "worthless", ἄδικος "unfair, unjust"). Given Liddell and Scott's entry, I believe that ἄμορφος is a two-form adjective, with feminine and masculine in -ος, which means the Wiktionary entry is correct. (Note that many of these adjectives developed a feminine form in Modern Greek; cf. Modern Greek αθάνατος, and also Modern Greek άμορφος.) --Pereru (talk) 10:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I didn't realise there was a whole class of adjectives with no separate feminine form. I saw the modern Greek entry had one but when I compared the Ancient Greek entry it seemed a bit odd. Thank you for your explanation. Do you know if there is a way to tell which adjectives have two forms and which have three, or can only attestation answer that? (And then what if no feminines are attested?) —CodeCat 13:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I suspect there are regular subclasses; apparently adjectives with the privative α-. Groton mentions third-declension adjectives -- those in -ων, likr εὐδαίμων "happy" -- as also being two-form, i.e., masc./fem. in -ων, neuter in -ον. When in doubt, I'd look the word up in the Liddell and Scott dictionary (available online in the word study tools of the Perseus digital library page, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/). --Pereru (talk) 13:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
The Ancient Greek adjectives with prefixes have indeed identical masculine and feminine forms, unless the prefix is not considered as one anymore. --Fsojic (talk) 14:18, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you solve this Ancient Greek puzzle? —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 02:54, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I thought you might be interested to know about another Latvian editor... Special:Contributions/IndulisMX is a good place to look for more Latvian substantives to add. Thanks! —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 06:03, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! I added a welcome message in Latvian to IndulisMX's talk page. Maybe we can collaborate, if he's interested in entering more than just translations. --Pereru (talk) 08:37, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

eine Bitte[edit]

Hi Pereru
könntest du das lettische Wort Kurdistān erstellen, wenn es dir keine Mühe bereitete?--Danke im Voraus und LG--GeorgeAnimal. 21:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Aber natürlich. Tue ich jetzt. (Ich habe auch neue Adjektive fertig für Dich, auf User:Pereru/Adjective forms, wenn Du jetzt noch Zeit hast.) --Pereru (talk) 21:47, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi Pereru
soll ich per Bot context durch qualifier ersetzen?So ist es einfacher.--GeorgeAnimal. 12:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi George,
Das wäre prima! Danke für die Hilfe! (Im Prinzip musst Du "context" durch "qualifier" nur dann ersetzen, wenn der Text "dialectal form" ist -- also {{context|dialectal form}} -> {{qualifier|dialectal form}}. Und diesen Text findest Du ausschliesslich bei den form-of Seiten der Wörter aus der Category:lv:Dialectal. Kannst Du das tun -- für jedes Wort in dieser Kategorie alle form-of Inflektionsseiten aufsuchen und dann "context" durch "qualifier" ersetzen (falls es noch nicht ersetzt worden ist)? --Pereru (talk) 12:48, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi, ja es ist easy.Das werde ich gleich tun.--GeorgeAnimal. 14:01, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Pereru
du musst es nicht ersetzen bot macht das. Test. Vorgestern konnte nicht alles, weil keine Zeit hatte nur ein paar Beispiele angefangen.--GeorgeAnimal. 17:52, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
OK. Ich dachte, du hättest vielleicht Probleme mit dem Bot gehabt. Ich sah die Beispiele und dachte, Du könntest nicht weiter. Aber wenn Du weitermachst, dann is alles in Ordnung. Danke! --Pereru (talk) 18:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Ich habe auch neue Adjektive auf User:Pereru/Adjective forms fertig... --Pereru (talk) 18:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Good evening,

could you put this article at the same level than the others, please ? I would be very grateful :) Does it have a declension ? --Fsojic (talk) 16:51, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Not really -- numbers up to 9 decline like adjectives, but not desmit. It does have a locative plural form desmitos meaning "at ten (o'clock)", though this is probably an extension from other "o'clock" locatives rather than a remnant of a larger declension. I'll tackle this article later today or tomorrow; I want to look at some wrong form-of pages that were bot-created by mistake. --Pereru (talk) 18:51, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Sure, take your time. Thank you ! --Fsojic (talk) 21:59, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks ! --Fsojic (talk) 16:53, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

A lot of the entries in Category:Latvian terms needing attention ought to be looked at, especially important terms like Rīga which still lack a declension table. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 16:50, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Indeed they should. It's simply that my plan was to work on other things before geographic place names -- numbers and verbs are the next topics. I will eventually get to place names, and then these entries will be corrected. --Pereru (talk) 16:55, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Awww... but verbs will take forever... can't you make an exception for some of these common ones? :) —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 16:58, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
I've just added a declension table to Rīga. Let's see if I can add a few more to other important geographic locations. Well, at least just adding the declension table is easy enough; I can leave the other stuff I wanted to do to these pages for later. --Pereru (talk) 17:24, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:20, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
The linking is doing now.here Best regards--GeorgeAnimal. 19:56, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! --Pereru (talk) 19:57, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Pereru
the Latvian entry Kurdistān dont exist.Could you create it if you have time and aren't busy..-thanks in advance--GeorgeAnimal. 20:02, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
But the Latvian entry Kurdistāna does exist. (Country names are feminine in Latvian; all the -stans are -stāna). --Pereru (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh sorry
bacause I have seen the word here--GeorgeAnimal. 20:07, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Oops--my mistake. I've corrected it already. --Pereru (talk) 20:12, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Danke für die Korrektur und das Vertändnis--GeorgeAnimal. 20:16, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

"sister" in Latvian[edit]

Good evening,

could you create the word for "sister" in Latvian, māsa or something? Thank you :) --Fsojic (talk) 00:27, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure. It's done: māsa. --Pereru (talk) 01:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks ! It is funny how Latvian has replaced several terms of Proto-Indo-European origin that were kept in Lithuanian : māsa vs. sesuo, dēls vs. sūnus, meita vs. duktė. --Fsojic (talk) 12:23, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. And in some cases (like māsa), it was a term of endearment that did the trick -- like "mommy" replacing "mother". Isn't language history fun? :-) --Pereru (talk) 13:24, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Good evening. I have another small question : do you know a Latvian cognate of daiktas? --Fsojic (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes; according to my Latvian etymological dictionary, that would be daikts. --Pereru (talk) 10:09, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! And one more request (I hope I don't bother you; if I do don't hesitate to tell me) : could you create the translation of "tired"? --Fsojic (talk) 18:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
I'll see if I can do it later today. (If you don't mind my asking, why precisely this word? Just curious.) --Pereru (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Because I think it is quite a common word, isn't it? --Fsojic (talk) 09:23, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Certainly, but so are many others. Are you especially interested in it, or was it just a random choice? Just curious; either way it's a good word to add. --Pereru (talk) 09:42, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Not particularly, it's just that when I think of some basic stuff and I don't find it here, I feel like I must "warn" you (it's a bit difficult for a single person to think and remember of all that should be created, isn't it?). Anyway, take your time! --Fsojic (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I see. Perfectly fine. It's good to know there's someone looking up Latvian words here. Makes the work seem more meaningful (it's already enough as a way to learn the language -- my vocabulary has progressed a lot while adding words here -- but it's even better if there are other people interested in this language.) --Pereru (talk) 21:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
For someone like you who is already quite fluent with Latvian, it must be very enriching indeed. For me, well... I should study the language seriously for my participation to be really useful. Creating new words in Lithuanian like I do, while fascinating and entertaining, isn't really "formative" (formateur in French, I don't know if it can be used with the same meaning) since I know nothing of it. I am very much interested in these two Baltic languages, but I am such a procrastinator! --Fsojic (talk) 21:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
"Quite fluent" is not exactly the word; I can read newspaper articles in Latvian, but I've never actually tried to speak with anyone (and I'm not sure how I'd do if I had to). I also find Baltic peoples fascinating; I can't really explain why, but I have so much fun with them... Hey, if you have some time and if you like this kind of thing, you can check out this Course of Latvian for beginners -- I find it good and fun. (You probably know this Lithuanian course already, but here it is, just in case)... --Pereru (talk) 21:40, 14 December 2012 (UTC) / Here is "tired", by the way: noguris. (It's the participle of a verb, and in due time I'll get to this verb and expand its coverage... so right now it's not really very explicative. But it's a start. --Pereru (talk) 21:48, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, read newspaper seems quite good to me! And if you're already used to speak and hear and listen to other languages than your mother tongue it probably should not be too difficult to grasp the "oral part"?
Actually, my interest in it is more because Latvian and Lithuanian are said to be so archaic within Indo-European family; in fact I know nothing of Latvia nor Lithuania. Have you already been there?
Thanks, and btw I still had to thank you for the first link you provided. But as I said I am such a procrastinator that even with all the possible resources on earth... And in theory I currently don't have time at all but I spend some here anyway (as I said, procrastination :D) --Fsojic (talk) 22:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Could you please add Latvian lai while you're at it? Thanks, and sorry for these random requests. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 00:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I'm the one mostly following a random path here... But lai is a word with a rather large number of meanings; this will take some time... but I promise to go back to it before the end of the week. --Pereru (talk) 01:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Great! I can't wait. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Wow... that is extraordinary. Lai is now my favourite word in Latvian. Thank you so much! —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 06:51, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
You're welcome! I just wished I knew more people in real life who like words just because of their meanings and etymology... :) --Pereru (talk) 06:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this more likely related to Slovene zob and Serbo-Croatian zobati, a Slavic borrowing? —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:38, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

According to my trust LEV (i.e., K. Konstantīn's opinion is...), zobs is not a borrowing but an honest cognate to all the Slavic forms like zob, зуб', etc. The change *žambas > *zuobas > zobs (pronounced [zùops]) is slightly irregular; the LEV suggests that there could have been a parallel form *žanbas, from which *zuobas > zobs would be a regular development (coda n is lost in many environments in Latvian, usually with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel -- cf. Lithuanian patinka, Latvian patīk -- and the original *a was in this environment diphthongized to [uo]. Since the word is attested in the oldest sources, and since it does correspond (almost) exactly to what one would expect from a word that was retained from Proto-Baltic, there is no need to assume borrowing. --Pereru (talk) 03:50, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
OK. It seemed a bit fishy to me, but your opinion seems well reasoned and supported by the LEV. Thanks! —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 04:45, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm not a specialist in Baltic etymologies either, so the best I can do is summarize what the LEV says. Since Konstantīn usually mentions other theories when there are any, and nothing is mentioned for zobs, I assume he is convinced that it's not a borrowing. --Pereru (talk) 13:26, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Verzögerung[edit]

Hi Per4eru
zurzeit bin ich sehr besch#ftigt und habe kaum Zeit und deshalb hat sich die Erstellung der Adjektive verzögert.In den nächsten Wochen (1-1.5) werde ich hier nicht aktiv sein.Trage trotzdem die zu erstellenden Formen auf deiner Seite ein, so dass ich, wenn ich Zeit dafür habe, erstelllen kann.Liebe Grüße nach Portugal--GeorgeAnimal. 11:51, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi George,
Absolut kein Problem. Wenn Du wieder Zeit dazu hast, kannst Du die Adjektive erstellen. Ich bin jetzt sowieso mit Verben beschäftigt... und: herzliche Glückwünsche zum neuen Jahr! --Pereru (talk) 14:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi frohes Neues!
Wie heißt Kurmanji auf Latvian?Könntest du den Eintrag erstellen, wenn's möglich ist.Danke und lg--GeorgeAnimal. 20:29, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Ich hab's schon erstellt! Und jetzt einige neue Adjektive (und Partizipien)... Danke! --Pereru (talk) 23:13, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The word fête is pronounced "fight" in Quebec French. Fête (talk) 23:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Why are you telling me that? --Pereru (talk) 23:24, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te69JK28DDo Fête (talk) 23:50, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, it's nice, but again, why are you telling me this? I'm not a specialist on Québec French. --Pereru (talk) 23:53, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Prononcadoj[edit]

Saluton Pereru, mi volas scii se ĉi tiu duba redekto estas malfarenda. Dankas frue pro via respondo Ĉiuĵaŭde (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Saluton Ĉiuĵaŭde, ŝajnas bone, sed mi tute ne estas specialisto pri prononcado en Aŭstralio... Kial do vi domandas al mi? Inter la anglalingvaj Wikivortariistoj nepre estas iu, kiu povos pli trafe opinii, ol mi. --Pereru (talk) 14:39, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Dankon. Mi pardonpetas pro demandis al vi tion, ĉar la specialistoj pri prononcadoj estis mankantaj. Feliĉan novjaron! Ĉiuĵaŭde (talk) 16:00, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Dankon, kaj feliĉan novjaron ankaŭ por vi! --Pereru (talk) 16:02, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

A Latvian request...[edit]

hi is a very common word but it's missing a Latvian translation. Could you find out how to say it and add it? —CodeCat 00:39, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Sure! It's actually an adjective, sveiks ("safe", "unharmed"), used in the masculine singular to address one man, in the feminine singular to address one woman, in the masculine plural to address a group of men or of men and women (and also as a polite form to a person or several peopel of either gender) and the feminine plural to address a group of women. I've already added it to the translation table. --Pereru (talk) 01:06, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! The entries for sveiks and such don't really give much information and the definition is just "hello", so I wondered if there was any difference between hello and hi. I've added some grammar notes to your translations to make it a bit clearer what each form is for. —CodeCat 01:32, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Indeed, at some point I'll have a look at these entries (there's always so much to do...). My textbooks all have only "sveiks", no other terms; apparently it's the only word for informal "hi" and "hello". Maybe they do as the Dutch and sometimes use the English "hi", but thus far I have no evidence of that... Thanks for adding the extra information. --Pereru (talk) 01:36, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
In Dutch there is hoi though, which is much more common. I don't think that many people use hi unless they want to sound fancy. —CodeCat 01:43, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Inderdaad... Maybe it's mostly the young people who watch too many American movies. Those who say "what about..." or "happy" or "yesss!". (It's also possible that I get more "hi"s than you because I'm a foreigner, I look like one, and I have an accent, so many Dutch have the instinctive reaction of switching to English, sometimes even those who know I speak and like Dutch.) --Pereru (talk) 02:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Pereru,

Currently we have Latvian declension templates that link to these five redlinks, so they're near the top of our most wanted entries (User:DTLHS/WantedPages). When you have a chance, could you:

?

Thanks in advance!
—RuakhTALK 05:11, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and similarly for tagadne, izteiksme, īstenības, vēlējuma, vajadzības, pavēles, pagātne, divdabji, atstāstījuma, nākotne, please. :-)   —RuakhTALK 06:20, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Sure. I've been meaning to do that for ages, but there's always something else going on or I get distracted or then there's this other word that just needs to be entered... I'll get to those, I hope, in the next few days. --Pereru (talk) 12:43, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! —RuakhTALK 17:10, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi Pereru
wie geht's denn dir so?Der Bot erstellt gerade die Formen.Ich habe vor auf ku.wikt lettische Verbformen zu erstellen, aber habe keine Ahnung, wie das funktioniert und wollte da auch Verbformen per Bot erstellen.Könntest du mir beim Anfangen so helfen.Liebe Grüße nach Portugal--GeorgeAnimal. 19:13, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
'türlich. Aber wie kann ich helfen? Was weisst Du nicht? (Und, wenn ich fragen darf, warum lettische Verbformen auf ku.wikt erstellen? Sollte man nicht zuerst die wichtigeren Sprachen völlig behandeln und erst danach kleinere Sprachen als das Lettische?) --Pereru (talk) 19:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

This seems to be preferred over l|lv now, so it would be great if you could start using it if you haven't noticed it already. Hopefully all the old l|lv transclusions will be replaced soon enough. Thanks! —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 19:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure. Just one question: why is it better than the old {{l|lv}}? Why was it changed? And when will the replacements take place, more or less (if you happen to know)? --Pereru (talk) 20:46, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
All this and more at Wiktionary's one-stop shop for sitewide policy entertainment: [[WT:BP#Replacing e.g. {{l|ca|…}} with {{l/ca|…}} whenever possible.]]. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 22:46, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
PS: I can't seem to make this a link, because Ruakh annoyingly decided to fake {{temp}} in a section title, but at least you know which section to look at in WT:Beer parlour/2013/February. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 22:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Like this: WT:BP#Replacing e.g. {{l|ca|…}} with {{l/ca|…}} whenever possible.. — Ungoliant (Falai) 22:59, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
OK. Thanks for the info, I feel informed now. I'll start using {{l/lv}} the first chance I get. (I would feel curious about the speed improvement; I've been thinking that some of the Latvian verb conjugation templates are a bit too complicated; but then again they're called only once per page, and only on Latvian verb pages, so probably it isn't worthwhile to split them into smaller, slimmer templates.) --Pereru (talk) 23:01, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
@Ungoliant: That's awful... but thanks :)
@Pereru: I agree about the templates. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 23:04, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

bisschen verzö[...][edit]

Hi Pereru
ich war seit 2 Wochen nicht aktiv am Wiktionary, und deshabl hat sich die Erstellung der Ajektivformen verzögert.Habe jetzt damit angefangen--Liebe Grüße nach PortugalGeorgeAnimal. 16:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Hiya!
gar kein Problem, so was kan passieren, wir haben alle ein Leben mit allerlei Aktivitäten und Pflichten. Danke für alles! (NB: ich komme aus Brasilien, nicht aus Portugal ;-) --Pereru (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Brasilien ist ein schönes Land, sei es mit seiner Tradition, sei es mit mit seinen Menschen.Ich bewundere Menschen wie dich, die so zuverlässig und mehrere Sprachen beherrschen.Hut ab!GeorgeAnimal. 16:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Danke für Deine Meinung :). Mit dem Öl im Ozean wird's jetzt den Brasilianern vielleicht besser gehen; das Land hat immer noch zuviel Armut... Ich fahre am Ende des Monats nach Brasilien und werde dort sehr beschäftigt sein, also ein paar Wochen werde ich hier bei Wiktionary minder zuverlässig sein (vielleicht selbst abwesend...), aber danach komme ich zurück. --Pereru (talk) 16:46, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Somehow never attended to... —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:21, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

It happens... Now it is Yes check.svg Done. --Pereru (talk) 08:24, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

"3rd pers. sg." appears twice, should the second one be "3rd pers. pl." ? - Francis Tyers (talk) 21:21, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

So indeed it should. My, all this time and I didn't notice this obvious flaw. Thanks for pointing it out. --Pereru (talk) 21:29, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
No problem! Another question: you have -dams for the "Present Active 2" -- should it be -damas ? - Francis Tyers (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
As far as I know, the lemma ending for this participle is -dams; -damas is the feminine plural form. Or are you perhaps thinking of Lithuanian? --Pereru (talk) 21:58, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Haha! You're right (on the Lithuanian thing) -- I should get my eyesight checked. Do you know of a good URL describing the Latvian participle system ? - Francis Tyers (talk) 22:09, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Hmm... there is this one, but there is something wrong with their fonts: the characters with diacritics all look strange. The Latvian version of this page has all the right diacritics, but it is written in, well, Latvian... There is also a table of contents with other texts on Latvian (most in Latvian, some in English) that you might find interesting. Are you interested in Latvian? --Pereru (talk) 22:24, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey there. I saw you added the etymology for Latvian gādāt. I'm not sure that is accurate. I speak mainly from the Slavic perspective. I think the accurate Proto-Slavic equivalent is *ględati (Russian глядеть, Serbo-Croatian gledati, Slovak hľadať, Czech hledat), which in general means "to watch", "to take care of" or "to look after" and is an exact meaning of the Latvian entry as well. --Dijan (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's not my etymology, it's Karulis Konstantīns', from his Latvian etymological dictionary. Since it's a published source, I suppose it gets the precedence -- or do you also have a source for the etymology you propose?
Anyway, just out of curiosity: the cognates you suggest all have an extra l, not present in Latvian gādāt. Neither in Mr Konstantīns' essay on the evolution of Latvian nor in other possible cognate sets (e.g., glāstīt "to stroke, to fondle"; cf. Russian гладить, Belarusian гладзіць, Ukrainian гладити, Bulgarian гладя, Czech hladiti; or also Latvian glaust "to smooth, to cuddle"; cf. Russian глудь, dialectal глудкий, глудкой ("slippery"); and a few more others) did I see any reason to assume l-loss in this environment in Latvian (or l-intrusion in Slavic). How do you explain the absence of an l in Latvian gādāt? (I'm not a specialist in Baltic languages; maybe there's a reason, I just would like to know what it is.) --Pereru (talk) 21:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi. I didn't say it was your etymology, only that you added one. I don't have a separate source and I wasn't able to find much on the word in question. I am not too familiar with proto- forms nor early etymological data. I was just making an observation. Perhaps Karulis Konstantīns is correct. --Dijan (talk) 03:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
No problem, Dijan. I'm not accusing you of anything; I just thought maybe you were a specialist and could give further arguments (I'm not one; well, I am, but not in Baltic languages). But, you see, etymologies have to be good not only semantically, but also phonetically: if the words in a cognate set once were really a single word, then it is necessary to explain how they changed into the forms that the reflexes have today. If this can't be done, then they are probably not cognate. Which is why it seems to me that Mr. Konstantīns' etymology looks better than the one you propose: it is not necessary to posit any arbitrary changes in his case, whereas in yours we'd have an otherwise unmotivated l loss. Sorry if I offended you in some sense -- it wasn't my intention. --Pereru (talk) 13:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
You have not offended me in any way :) I was just curious and the correspondence between not only the spelling (minus the "l") but also the usage and meaning is remarkable. Also, I'm not 100% certain if the Slavic root given by Konstantīns is actually two roots (*goditi and *gatati) and not one. Perhaps you could find out more about this? --Dijan (talk) 06:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Baltic in etymologies[edit]

There has been a discussion where it was decided to abandon "Proto-Baltic" as a name, and use "Proto-Balto-Slavic" instead. There are still some entries in Category:Latvian terms derived from Proto-Baltic that need to be fixed. Could you help out? In most cases, changing "bat-pro" to "ine-bsl-pro" is enough. Sometimes you may need to remove one or the other, and move any Slavic cognates around. —CodeCat 19:45, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I would disagree with that. The etymologies from my source are labeled "Proto-Batic", and to label them "Proto-Balto-Slavic" would simply be factually wrong. Either all Proto-Baltic etymologies I add would simply have to be deleted, which is, I think, overkill, or "Proto-Baltic" can be kept as a category for those sources that mention it (while "Proto-Balto-Slavic" would be for those sources that do mention it). Is it possible to restart the discussion? --Pereru (talk) 20:54, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Why would they be wrong? What difference is there between Proto-Baltic and Proto-Balto-Slavic? —CodeCat 20:57, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Logically speaking, Proto-Balto-Slavic is one step removed form Proto-Baltic. PB reconstructions only consider Baltic languages (Latvian, Lithuanian, Old Prussian, Jatvingian, etc.), whereas PBS ones consider also Slavic languages; the reconstructed forms will, in general, be different. If PB does exist as a valid node, then it is a later development (comparable to, say, Proto-Ibero-Romance as compared to Latin, or to Proto-Western-Germanic as compared to Proto-Germanic). The question, of course, is whether PB is a valid node or not; some people think Baltic is paraphyletic (i.e., it doesn't form a single group without Slavic), in which case PB would not really exist. But the last I've heard, this hasn't been resolved yet. Also, I don't want to disagree with the sources: if they say PB, not PBS, I feel I can't change this without misquoting the source. (It would be like quoting a Proto-Brythonic form from as if it were Proto-Celtic, for instance.). --Pereru (talk) 21:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I understand that, but more practically, if we distinguish the two, how do we keep them apart if we don't even know if any regular sound changes are supposed to have happened in between? We can't always rely on sources and we certainly don't always need to if all the languages agree with each other perfectly. From what I have seen so far, all of our Proto-Baltic terms are, in fact, valid Proto-Balto-Slavic as well. —CodeCat 22:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
In the same way that you'd keep apart reconstructions that are Proto-Germanic from those that are Proto-Indo-European, I suppose. I imagine that one either familiarizes oneself with the details (sound correspondences, current debates, etc.), or then one trusts one's source (in which case the choice of source is of course critical). Up until now, most reconstructions (at least the ones I've seen) are PB, and do not take Slavic into account; so they should be labeled as such. I don't know any PBS sources; maybe the forms are similar, maybe they aren't. Do you happen to know somewhere where the differences are explained, so we can evaluate them? --Pereru (talk) 18:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
Also: up until now, as far as I know, there hasn't been any extensive reconstruction of PBS vocabulary, since the growing acknowledgment of Slavic as part of PBS is more or less recent. So I think it is premature to label things as PBS before PBS has really been fully (or at least more extensively) reconstructed (say, when a PBS dictionary or a PIE dictionary that makes direct reference to intermediate PBS forms, is published). Why the hurry? Why not remain labeling things as PB (which are labeled as PB in most sources anyway) until there is one authoritative PBS source to cite? --Pereru (talk) 18:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
My point was, really, that there is no difference between the two. That is what linguists have now realised. If you reconstruct Proto-Baltic, then see if you can also derive Proto-Slavic from it, the answer is generally "yes". In linguistic terms, Proto-Baltic does not have any linguistic innovations that are not also shared with Proto-Slavic. Thus, Proto-Baltic must also be the ancestor of Proto-Slavic, and it is identical with Proto-Balto-Slavic. Have a look at Category:Proto-Balto-Slavic nouns for example. How many of those would be different if reconstructed for Baltic alone? I don't think any of them would. (Also, a side point, see w:Proto-Baltic language) —CodeCat 19:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
That is not what I've heard, nor is it what I would expect. What I've heard is that Slavic may be (the situation is not yet clear) a sister language to Eastern and Western Baltic. In this case, if there is any information that was retained only in Slavic, or only in Slavic and one of the other branches, then there is no way to reconstruct it on the basis of the Baltic evidence alone (disagreement => non-reconstructibility). For instance, trying to reconstruct PIE vowels without Greek would be different from trying to reconstruct PIE vowels with Greek. You'd get different answers. So, even though your claim is (according to one of the versions I've heard of what PBS is) right, it still follows that all PBS reconstuctions must be redone, and cannot be expected to show the same forms -- again, just as PIE cannot be expected to look the same with or without Greek. (Another example is the effect of adding Hittite to PIE: an important argument for the laryngeal theory).
And basically, my point is: we cannot presume to know more about PBS or PB than our sources do. To speculate about which forms would or wouldn't be the same when logically we can't tell is not, I think, the right role for Wiktionarians in Etymology sections of words. --Pereru (talk) 19:19, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
Note also: the article you linked to has only two sources, none of which is an etymological dictionary, and which will have only a handful of reconstructions. The author of one of them -- Kortlandt -- happens to be someone I know (as a teacher). I don't think he would agree with the kind of relabeling you're suggesting, for reasons similar to (though not exactly identical with) the ones I mention. --Pereru (talk) 19:23, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
My real point is that it is a redirect... But anyway, there is also some material with many more sources at w:Talk:Baltic languages#Baltic as a valid IE group. Kortlandt is specifically cited as saying that the Baltic languages are not a single clade within Balto-Slavic. —CodeCat 19:26, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
And mine is that it isn't a redirect... so to consider it as such would be a mistake. Yes, this is indeed Kortlandt's position, but I don't think he would agree that all forms thus far reconstructed for PB can simply be relabeled as PBS without further work. That is at best hasty, at worst downwright wrong. --Pereru (talk) 19:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, I contend that if we were to have separate Proto-Baltic and Proto-Balto-Slavic entries, almost all of them would be the same, giving a huge reduplication of effort for no real benefit. We've already merged Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian on the same grounds, as well as Anglo-Norman and Old French. The merging of Proto-Baltic and Proto-Balto-Slavic is the same, really. —CodeCat 19:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
And I say this contention needs evidence. Where are the PB and PBS reconstructed forms that look the same? As far as I know, there are very few PBS reconstructions; how can you say they will always (or in fact ever) be the same? Where have you seen them? Who has said that? (In the Serbo-Croatian case and in the Anglo-Norman/Old French cases, the sources are obvious, and I can easily agree with the decision. But claiming a language that hasn't even been properly reconstructed yet "will be the same"... that is rather hasty. You wouldn't have claimed that Croat is the same as Serbian if nobody knew any Croat words to compare with Serbian, now would you?) --Pereru (talk) 19:37, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm not asking this rhetorically. I really don't see how anyone could make the claim that forms reconstructed without all the information will simply remain the same when the missing information is added... as if the missing information didn't matter. So, who has made the claim that adding a whole family to Proto-Baltic is not going to change anything in the current non-Slavic-informed reconstructions? This person has a rather difficult case to make. And maybe s/he does make it -- it's improbable, but not impossible. But the case does have to be made, because that is not the way to bet. --Pereru (talk) 19:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
You say this as if the sources are all that matter and that Wiktionary editors are not informed enough to decide these things for themselves. If we really required sources for every single reconstruction then the vast majority of our Proto-Germanic entries would go down the drain, even though I doubt anyone here would dispute their validity because most of them are based on current research (like Ringe 2006). Having a source is no guarantee for correctness, and having no source is no guarantee for incorrectness. Thebutre are many sources of reconstructions that are terribly outdated, such as Pokorny. Generally, the older a source is, the less likely it is going to be correct. More unfortunately, other dictionaries often don't stay on top of the latest sources but instead rely on older, less accurate (by modern standards) research. An example is etymonline.com (which is sourced from elsewhere), which often gives Proto-Germanic reconstructions that are very outdated and sometimes even contradict each other as far as sound changes go. So if a dictionary gives a Proto-Baltic reconstruction, I would cast some doubt about the reliability (not validity) of that reconstruction. —CodeCat 20:19, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
You need to have some criterion for correctness, or else we could just invent etymologies and place them here. Having a source is the best indication (not guarantee) of correctness we can have -- it's basically what separates Wiktionary from Tolkien's Proto-Elvish. Sources should be carefully chosen, and newer sources are of course better than older ones -- who's citing Bopp or Diez these days? -- but nothing is worse than no source at all. Something without a source is speculation. And I'm not necessarily against speculation -- but, of all choices, it's the unsourced one that is most likely to be wrong. The etymologies from the LEV are better than those taken out of the blue, because the author (of the original etymology -- not always the author of the dictionary) took the time to argue for them with evidence -- and that must be respected; or else, what is the point of research? Why not just invent etymologies? Now, maybe Wiktionarians want to speculate and suggest etymologies of their own -- nothing wrong with that (if clearly marked as such, of course). But I insist: this is NOT the same as doing the whole research. To claim that it "doesn't matter" begs the question.
Now, a dictionary that gives a Proto-Baltic reconstruction is simply one that considered only Latvian and Lithuanian (and Old Prussian, Jatvingian, Curonian, etc.). That's a valid choice -- no reason to cast doubt on it yet. Now, the problem is whether PB exists at all; and the jury is still out on that one. If PB doesn't exist -- and we don't know that yet -- then all PB reconstructions should be deleted as non-existant, not relabeled as PBS. To assume that they would be "just the same" as PBS -- which is what you keep claiming -- is what I would cast doubt on. There is no a priori reason for that. The opposite is what we should expect, actually.
So: I could agree with simply deleting all PB etymologies (though that seems like overkill to me -- at least until we're sure that this is the new consensus; yes, it's Kortlandt's opinion, but not Beekes', for example; I think we should wait for some kind of consensus). But just relabeling PB as PBS as if Slavic just "didn't matter at all"... That goes against everything I've been taught about the historical-comparative method. It would be like relabeling Dutch as German just because "the words are often the same". --Pereru (talk) 20:41, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
I think you are still misunderstanding the linguistic position on this. The argument isn't whether Proto-Baltic exists, as such. It's obvious that the Baltic languages do have a common ancestor. What the debate is about is whether that ancestor is identical when the Slavic languages are added into the consideration. Thus, the question is not "is there a common ancestor of the Baltic languages?" but "is the common ancestor of the Baltic languages the same as the common ancestor of the Balto-Slavic languages?". If that is accepted as indeed true, then I don't see any reason to delete PB etymologies rather than convert them to PBS. After all, if linguists agree that they are synonymous, then surely we can swap one name with the other? The position you are arguing on the other hand is to add Proto-Baltic etymologies; which are themselves in dispute in this very issue. Some linguists say that those etymologies are valid while others say they are simply Proto-Balto-Slavic. So if you really want to avoid adding anything tentative, then Proto-Baltic should be removed until linguists have a consensus that it does exist. On the other hand, there is little dispute about whether Proto-Balto-Slavic exists, so there is no problem with having that in etymologies. Note, aside from this, that there is a similar debate among linguists (though not quite as vigorous) about West Germanic: some linguists say there was a Proto-West Germanic while others say there was no common ancestor later than Proto-Germanic. We have solved that issue in the same way, by using only Proto-Germanic as the name until there is consensus that Proto-West Germanic indeed existed. —CodeCat 20:52, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
Ah! I see what your mistake is now: you're confusing the structure of the PBS tree with the actual reconstructed protoforms, which are two logically distinct things. Let me elaborate a little.
Of course you're correct in saying that Baltic and Slavic share a common ancestor (though you're not necessarily correct in claiming that the Baltic languages share an ancestor not shared simultaneously with Slavic; that is part of what is still being argued about, i.e. whether or not Baltic exists as a single paraphyletic clade -- which, as a question, is independent from Balto-Slavic, Slavic, or Indo-European as clades). In fact, I also agree that Balto-Slavic languages share a common, exclusive ancestor, intermediate between them and PIE and not shared by other families -- ye olde Proto-Balto-Slavic.
Now, turning to the etymologies: the linguists I know who claim that PBS exists and PB doesn't do NOT say that the forms reconstructed as PB "are right" and just need to be re-labeled as PBS. (In fact, I actually know nobody who says that. Can you name someone?). I know linguists who say that, IF PB doesn't exist, then ONLY PBS forms have validity (reliability is never an issue for this particular question -- only validity), and PB forms don't really exist -- Kortlandt (but not Beekes) is one of them. In any case, they all say PBS needs to be redone.
Let me give you an example. Consider the following set of correspondences:
Vowel...Lang-1 Lang-2 Lang-3
*a ----> a.......a.......a
*e ----> a.......e.......a
*i ---->  i....... i....... i
*o ----> o.......o.......o
*u ----> u.......o.......o
The five vowels can only be reconstructed because the three languages -- Lang-1, Lang-2 and Lang-3 -- are known. If Lang-1 were not known, there would be no way to reconstruct *o and *u as different vowels, since Lang-2 and Lang-3 both have o as the regular reflex -- only a single *o would probably be reconstructed. Likewise, if Lang-2 were missing, *a and *e would not be resconstructible as different vowels, since Lang-1 and Lang-3 do not distinguish them -- only a single *a would be reconstructed. So, in this protolanguage, words having *e or *u would have been reconstructed as having *a or *o if Lang-2 or Lang-1 were missing -- *pelor would become *palor, *utu would become *oto, etc. Mutatis mutandis, the same is, in general, to be expected if Lang-1 = Proto-Slavic, Lang-2 = Latvian and Lang-3 = Lithuanian.
Note that this does not depend on the form of the tree. Indeed: it does not matter whether or not Lang-2 and Lang-3 ("Latvian" and "Lithuanian") form a proper subgroup, or don't form a subgroup. It also does not depend on whether Proto-Lang1-Lang2 had been previously reconstructed or not. Because, in general, when a new language is added, more information becomes available, and typically the reconstructed forms change. "Proto-Lang1-Lang2" doesn't exist in a vacuum; its protoforms are not "guaranteed" against the onslaught of further information, such as Lang-3 (= "Slavic") suddenly being added to the mix. "Proto-Lang1-Lang2" is a hypothesis to be changed as more information becomes available. And a new language added to the group is the textbook definition of "more information becoming available".
So: it doesn't matter what the form of the tree is. It doesn't matter that PB has already been reconstructed. One cannot simply assume that PB = PBS. The PB forms don't "magically" become PBS as if Slavic added no new information; this has to be shown case-by-case. And as far as I know, this hasn't been done yet. I haven't done it; you haven't done it (have you?); so we can't assume it. Just as we can't assume that the next Dutch word will be "just like German" just because Bad/bad, Platz/plaats, Stand/stand etc. are. --Pereru (talk) 21:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
Actually I have done it, at least for the etymologies I already converted and/or created entries for. I'm not so familiar with Baltic sound changes but I know the Slavic ones well enough (thanks in part to Kortlandt's work), so it is relatively easy to judge whether a Proto-Baltic form could also be the ancestor of the Slavic word, and therefore Proto-Balto-Slavic. The changes from PBS to PS are surprisingly small in any case, and don't really begin to "pick up" shortly before the end of the Proto-Slavic period when the palatalisations, dropping of final consonants and other changes take hold. Even early Proto-Slavic probably resembled the other Baltic languages far more than it did only 5 or so centuries later (Germanic borrowings for example generally appeared before all of the "typical" Slavic changes). Your analogy with Dutch and German doesn't really work, because you're comparing Dutch and German themselves, whereas I am asking the equivalent of "can this Dutch word be identical to the ancestor of the German word, given what is known about how German developed?". The example you give with 3 languages is certainly true, but it doesn't really apply in this case for the same reason. The whole point of the debate is whether languages 1 and 2 contain enough information to reconstruct the ancestor of them and language 3. Because that is what linguists are now finding out: Proto-Baltic, the way they have reconstructed, might as well be PBS because there are no significant differences, and Slavic does not really add any new evidence to the knowledge of sound changes as a whole. Not to say it can't often give evidence for individual words (if a Baltic equivalent is missing but there is a clear PIE origin), but the general picture is that one does not necessarily need Slavic to reconstruct a PBS word because PBS is also the latest common ancestor of the Baltic languages alone, and therefore the results are the same. If I am mistaken though, can you give me an example of an accurate PB reconstruction that clearly cannot be the ancestor of the PS cognate (while ruling out sporadic/non-regular changes)? —CodeCat 21:57, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
The Dutch and German parallel are simply a cautionary tale against thinking that "because X is alike, Y will be, too" when we don't know Y yet. The message is simple: if we don't know, we can't claim that we know.
What you're saying is that Slavic fits well with Baltic. Good. What are the correspondences? What are the examples? What are the protoforms? If everything is as easy as you say, it should be easy to do. The data are out there, it should be simply a question of setting up the right correspondence sets and doing the work. Then you could publish it, and we could cite you as a source. Or you could actually publish the work here (setting aside a specific page for the examples and the protoforms), since I believe Wiktionary is not against original research.
But what I think can't be done honestly is pretend that the work has been done. To guess -- and it is, thus far, a guess, based on your familiarity with Slavic, but not with Batlic (i.e., 2/3 of the problem) -- that PBS will look just like PB without further evidence is no more than that: a guess.
I mean, what's the hurry? Why not wait for things to be done well before changing labels? Why run the risk? Shouldn't a good dictionary be a bit more reliable than that? --Pereru (talk) 23:15, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
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