User talk:SPQRobin

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Wp/ber

Hoi SPQRobin,

Bedankt voor de Tifinagh editing hulp bij Wp/rif. Het kan heel handig zijn voor mensen die geen Tfinagh keyboard hebben. Maar er ontbreken 2 Tifinagh letters in deze oplossing van jou: ⵞ en ⴵ

I am hoping to revive Wp/ber and build a pan-Berber / Standard-Berber Wikipedia encompassing all Berber dialects and varieties. There are many enthusiastic people willing to contribute to such pan-Berber project. Also, an alternative language code for standard/unified Berber might be released soon.

So we might use your help soon as a member of the language committee.

I have spoken earlier to Gerard Meijssen through e-mail, and he gave me some good ideas too.

--Aryaz-3D 13:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Tifinagh - Latin - Wp/ber - Wp/rif

Hi SPQRobin,

Ja, ik woon in Nederland, in Amsterdam om precies te zijn. Woon je misschien in de buurt? :)

I am not against regional Berber Wikipedias at all (Wp/rif, Wp/shi, and Wp/kab which is fully functional). I think those regional Wikipedias have the absolute right to exist, just like the case of West-Vlams Wikipedia for example. Only my interest goes to a more unifying Berber project with wider scope.

About the Tifinagh letters. The official Tifinagh alphabet designed by IRCAM, and used in Moroccan elementary schools does not include the two letters ⵞ and ⴵ, but IRCAM did register them with Unicode as reserve letters (among many other ones). The funny thing is that these two letter-sounds are used in two of the three main varieties of Berber in Morocco, not to mention Algeria and Libya and Tuareg Berber varieties. The equivalent of ⵞ is: Č č (pronounced like: tch). The equivalent of ⴵ is Ǧ ǧ (pronouneced: dj). IRCAM just decided that these two letters are too regional and not significant enough in Morocco, and not worthy to be included in the official alphabet.

But from a pan-Berber point of view, ⵞ (č) and ⴵ (ǧ) are extremely important and indispensable.

I usually use Paul Anderson's (akufi.org) keyboard layout to type Tifinagh, but I think that even IRCAM's keyboard contains many extra Tifinagh letters, including ⵞ and ⴵ (using keyboard combinations).

I have some information that another code for literary Berber / standard Berber might be released soon. Otherwise we could go with a temporary code, or apply for a new ISO code if there are enough people and supporting linguistic materials behind the idea.

About the script for the pan-Berber Wikipedia project, the best thing to do is to use both Tifinagh and Latin (the Serbian Wikipedia also uses Latin and Cyrillic), in order to satisfy the different preferences of Berber readers and enthusiasts and to respond to the differences between Morocco and Algeria. The Berber Latin alphabet would be the default script (also for editing) for the capitalization issue (Tifinagh doesn't have capitals) and for general accessibility.

Speaking of the script, do you have any expertise on the double script technique? If you do, it would be great if you tried it on Wp/ber or on the other regional Wikiepdias.

Bedankt.

--Aryaz-3D 00:06, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Ik sta zeker open voor de bijeenkomst. Houd me op de hoogte.

IRCAM recognizes ⵞ and ⴵ among many other extra Tifinagh letters that are not in IRCAM's official 33-letter alpahbet (used in schools). IRCAM was the one that registered a total of 55 Tifinagh letters with Unicode. So you still can consider ⵞ and ⴵ as IRCAM-approved Tifinagh letters. Or better, you can simply consider them as "Unicode Tifinagh". Have a look at this page of the IRCAM website. Besides, the font "Tifinaghe-Ircam Unicode" does support ⵞ, ⴵ, ⵠ, ⵒ,...and many other additional Tifinagh letters recognized by IRCAM (try them on your MS Word for example).

I tested the converter, and I noticed that it doesn't convert the Latin letter "Ɣ ɣ" to/from Tifinagh "ⵖ".

Also it doesn't convert "V v" to its Tifinagh equivalent "ⵠ". And it doesn't convert "P p" to its Tifinagh equivalent "ⵒ".

NB: The Berber language rarely or never features the sounds "P" (ⵒ) and "V" (ⵠ). The two Tifinagh letters (ⵒ,ⵠ) are used more to transcribe European names or terms that contain "P" or "V".

For the Webfont I advise you to use Hapax Berbère (for Tifinagh text). Hapax Berbère is free.

For the Berber texts written in Latin letters, I think Tahoma is the best candidate because it's sans serif and it doesn't confuse small "l" (ell) with capital "I" (i), unlike Arial and other sans-serif fonts. A lot of berber words start with the letter "i" which creates a confusion with "L" in capitalization. And Tahoma is very common in all computers. I know that it is owned by Microsoft, thus not free, but my question is: is there a trick to make all Berber Wikipedias look automatically in Tahoma font on all computers, without installing a webfont on Wikipedia's servers? (since Tahoma is present on all Windows-run computer)

--Aryaz-3D 22:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Hoi SPQRobin,

Thanks for the Tahoma font thing.

If "č" and "ǧ" are difficult to type for some people, then so is the rest of the extended Latin letters used in Berber: ṛ, ṭ, ṣ, ɣ, ɛ, ḥ, ḍ, ẓ...etc!

So it's about using a keyboard that allows to type such characters. The same applies to Tifinagh. Many Berber enthusiasts are now starting to get used to extended and non-conventional keyboards allowing them to type "ɣ, ḍ, č..." as well as Tifinagh letters. Many people are developing personal keyboards that do just that. Others propose interesting Berber-friendly alternatives to the traditional and limited QWERTY and AZERTY stuff (see: www.akufi.org).

Besides, Wikiepdia editors can use the character help tools to insert those extra letters if they can't type them. Berber Wikipedia projects already have that tool (the dropdown menu under the "save" button that somebody created and named "Tarrifit / Tachelhit", maybe we could better call it "Berber letters" or something similar).

Also, the person that created the "Tarrifit / Tachelhit" tool made the mistake of confusing the Turkish letter "Ğğ" with the Berber letter "Ǧǧ" (the correct one).

Bottom line is: I think it's important that the conversion tool creates a conversion between Berber-Latin and Berber-Tifinagh in a consistent way with the Berber language's typical phonetics.

If it's possible to widen the syntax of the conversion, it would be great.

For example: Latin-to-Tifinagh:

"č", "tc", and "tch" all convert to: "ⵞ"

"ttc" converts to: "ⵞⵞ"

"ɣ" and "gh" both convert to: "ⵖ"

"ɛ" converts to: "ⵄ"

"dj" and "ǧ" both convert to: "ⴵ"

"ddj" converts to: "ⴵⴵ"

"x" and "kh" both convert to: "ⵅ"

"p" converts to: "ⵒ"

"v" converts to: "ⵠ"

"u", "o", "oo", "ou", "oe", "uu", all convert to: "ⵓ"

"i", "é", "è", "ee", "ie", "ii", all convert to: "ⵉ"

"a", "aa", "à", "á" all convert to "ⴰ"

NB: Tifinagh doesn't accept the doubling of vowels. So for example "aa" should be converted to "ⴰ". Like "Den Haag" would be "ⴷⴻⵏ ⵀⴰⴳ".

For example, "ou" is found in a lot of Moroccan and Algerian personal names (of writers, singers,...etc), due to French influence, while it's actual pronunciation is equal to that of the Berber "u", thus it should be converted to "ⵓ" (not "ⵓⵓ").

I am just beginning to scratch the surface here. If you're interested we could discuss this in detail, and maybe we can make a more comprehensive conversion sequence that reflects Berber pronunciation and spelling more naturally.

Bedankt

--Aryaz-3D 23:38, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed a problem with Wp/rif. Whenever I try to edit an article, I can only type in Tifinagh letters even when I use the standard Windows keyboard EN, or NL!

Everything you type appears in Tifinagh letters no matter what Latin keybord you use. Also everything appears in Tifinagh after you save it. Do you know where this problem comes from?

--Aryaz-3D 13:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Hoi SPQRobin! Ahaa now I'm starting to get the hang of these things. Thanks for the explanations!

The extra conversions I gave in my previous message were meant only for Latin-to-Tifinagh entire page conversion.

For the keyboard input conversion I propose these additional values: ['C', ", 'ⵞ'], ['B', ", 'ⴱⵯ'], ['J', ", 'ⴵ'], ['P', ", 'ⵒ'], ['V', ", 'ⵠ'], ['W', ", 'ⵯ']

About the Shi Coverter (hopefully to be available soon for all other Berber Wikipedias) I think this value: 'ⵖ' => 'γ' should not be present while 'ⵖ' => 'ɣ' should stay, because the Greek gamma "γ" is becoming increasingly abandoned by Berber linguists and writers in favor of the Latinized gamma "ɣ". 'ⵄ' => 'ε' should be replaced by 'ⵄ' => 'ɛ' (the use of Greek epsilon "ε" [capitalized as sigma: Σ in old Berber books!!!] is declining in Berber literature in favor of the Latinized epsilon "Ɛɛ"). Also 'ⵛ' => 'š' should be replaced by 'ⵛ' => 'c' because "š" is only used by some linguists for limited purposes, and "c" is the established Berber equivalent for the English sound /sh/.

In the other direction (Latin to Tifinagh) I think that all the synonumous / similar values (even the declining or the rare ones) should be present in the page conversion source code in order to broaden the conversion net. So all of these should be present there: 'ɣ' => 'ⵖ', 'γ' => 'ⵖ', 'c' => 'ⵛ', 'š' => 'ⵛ', 'ε' => 'ⵄ', 'ɛ' => 'ⵄ', 'č' => 'ⵞ', 'ǧ' => 'ⴵ' ... plus the ones I mentioned in my previous message.

What about the conversion from Tifinagh to Berber-Latin words with capitalized initials? Is there a possible solution?

Going back to the keyboard input tool, are you going to make an input tool that helps people type the extra Berber-Latin letters (č, ḍ, ɛ, ǧ, ɣ, ḥ, ṛ, ṣ, ṭ, ʷ, ẓ) in the Wikipedia editing box, like you did with the Tifinagh one?

Bedankt en groeten,

--Aryaz-3D 20:02, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok man. I will see if I can do it myself.

Gelukkig nieuw jaar.

--Aryaz-3D 21:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Help

I have translated media wiki translations for pnb.wikipedia.org, now I feel some improvement is needed in some translations. Your help is requested how can I do so or change them. For example [[1]] in the page mentioned in the brackets some changes will improve it and the improvement will change all such pages. Please guide from where I can do it. Some readers of our wikipedia (pnb.wikipedia.org) have requested for the size increase of fonts. Please increase the size of font equal to Urdu Wikipedia (ur.wikipedia.org). Thanks. PS: wt/pnb and wq/pnb are still pending. --Khalid Mahmood 15:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You can change the translations on translatewiki:Special:Translate as always. Is there anything specific you want to change in the Punjabi translations? You can change the font and font size through pnb:MediaWiki:Common.css. I have removed the font size so it should display larger now. Wt/pnb should be created soon (only technical staff can create a wiki), we are waiting for it as well... Wq/pnb is for later on. SPQRobin 16:07, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Functie

Ik heb uw hulp nodig. Ik heb op Wn/li/Waer een overzichtje met 't weer per dag per plaats. Ik kan met mijn wikikennis enkel een tabelletje voor de huidige dag d'ropkrijgen. Ik weet dat er rekenfuncties zijn waarmee ik wel 't weer van morgen d'rop kan krijgen, maar ik weet niet zelf hoe dat moet. Kunde mij daar misschien mee helpen? --OWTB 17:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, da's moeilijk. Ik ken 21 en 22 (zie bron) maar dan zit ge in de problemen met de maanden en jaren... Misschien vindt ge hier een oplossing: mw:Help:Magic words en mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions. SPQRobin 21:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, 'k zal 't strak 'ns doornemen è :P --OWTB 11:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Volgens mij is maanden en jaren op te lossen met redirects, maar dan moet ik efkes kijken of subst-page ook werkt daarmee. --OWTB 11:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Danke voor de linkskes, ik heb 't nu opgelost. Als 't 31 januarie is, kan een redirect het probleem oplossen. Namelijk 32 januari redirecten naar 1 februarie en 33 januarie naar 2 februarie :) --OWTB 11:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You Wrote this

You Wrote the following:

Hello, I see you created Wp/pus. If you are looking for the Pashto Wikipedia, see ps.wikipedia.org. SPQRobin 21:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I answered this:

Its Romanized form of Pashto language. the other one is Arabic. --Khangul 21:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello There

Hope you are doing well.

It has been a while since i have applied for Pashto Wikiquotes, but we havent been granted space for that project. Would you let me know how can we get this project? You can find the list of people interested in this project here

Thanks --Khangul 21:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, please take a look at Help:Manual. You have space for a Pashto Wikiquote at Wq/ps. There you can create pages (starting with Wq/ps/) and you should also translate the interface at translatewiki.net, and later on you can request to move it to a separate ps.wikiquote.org. Regards, SPQRobin 21:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Robin !

It is one of best moments of my life to see Punjabi Wikitionary [[2]] in normal form. I am thankful to you for your help and I am sure that it will be a big help as well as pleasure for Punjabi speaking community around the world. I will translate those messages which you have mentioned on my talk page. Well, I am afraid there is some problem in the new counter of Punjabi Wikitionary as it is showing less pages. In incubator we have reached at almost 3700 but in normal form it is showing below 3000. Please check. And yes, thank you again. --Khalid Mahmood 18:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is a known problem that statistics are wrong. It should hopefully be fixed soon. SPQRobin 14:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Wp/osx

Hello. Can I ask you how can I do to make an appeal for creating a community of Old Saxon for requesting in future an Old Saxon Wikipedia? Thank you in advance! --Italian Norman

Hi. What do you mean with an appeal? And you should know that the current policy does not allow the creation of wikis in historical languages, so you are allowed to work on Wp/osx but it will probably not result in a separate osx.wikipedia.org (like Wp/grc). SPQRobin 17:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Inuktitut translatewiki

I know this message has nothing to do with the Incubator, but I thought it would be easier to reach you here. On translatewiki, they use two different languages code for Inuktitut , one for syllabics and one for latin alphabet (ike-cans and ike-latn), but I don't think there is a point to divide iu since there is an automatic conversion tool. I thin only syllabics should be on translatewiki. Amqui 23:23, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It is in theory possible to use the conversion for system messages, but this is unfortunately not implemented in the software. If you choose one of the variants on iuwiki then only the page content will be converted, not the interface. I already submitted this as bug 32971. And when it is implemented, Latin should be chosen because it has lowercase & uppercase letters whereas converting from Syllabics to Latin would only give lowercase. SPQRobin 14:42, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Incubator:About

"... regarded a a "behind the scenes" ..." - is mistype? --Kaganer 12:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I fixed it to "as a". Thanks! SPQRobin 12:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Help:Editing

" - " is also language-dependent; e.g. in the cyrillic's typographic tradition is to use " — " ("em dash") in this role. --Kaganer 22:07, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I have merged the links into the text messages, so it's easier to change. SPQRobin 22:24, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Mapudungun

Mari mari peñi ("Hello, brother" in mapudungun),

Thanks for your change at the Mapudungun Wikipedia project. I didn't know how to do it and it is a really important change. :) --B1mbo 03:11, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Great :) I introduced it specifically for Mapudungun. I hope Wp/arn will be more active now :) SPQRobin 09:06, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Translation of Main Page

I was editing from school and was in a hurry so I never noticed the change. Anyways sorry for the mistake and thanks for spotting it. Aviyal (talk) 18:07, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason why the translation of the main page isn't grouped under Special:Translate? --OWTB (talk) 11:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It isn't yet converted to the new system. SPQRobin (talk) 16:11, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

OK. --OWTB (talk) 11:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit buttons don't work any more

Hello, SPQRobin. I just saw, that the edit buttons don't work any more. Do you have an idea? I think, that the update of the softvare to 1.19 is the cause. Greetings --Tlustulimu (talk) 15:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello Tlustulimu. You are right, I don't see the edit bar either. It's strange because it does work on other wikis. SPQRobin (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for my mistake

I deleted the page. --Μαρτῖνος ὁ Νέος (talk) 19:05, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for all your work at the incubator: (This is also a test to see that it works well)

Ebe123 (^{Talkabout it}|_contribs) 21:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Re

Now I understand better, thanks for the warning. But I live in that state (Rio Grande do Sul), but unfortunately do not speak that language.Érico Júnior Wouters (talk) 20:46, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Wq/pnb

Punjabi Wiki Quotes (http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/pnb/مکھڑا) are being regularly edited and enlarged since last one year. Now I think it is mature and large enough to be normalised.

--Khalid Mahmood (talk) 10:09, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, it is indeed active, but you are the main contributor for Punjabi Wikipedia, wiktionary and wikiquote. It would be better if more contributors joined these projects. SPQRobin (talk) 11:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Lezgi

Hi would say that in the Wikipedia logo Lezghin mistake, instead of ВикипедиЯ ВикипедиA wrote the phrase and should mount a free encyclopedia. Sasibo. And to mount a intervki with other languages ​​Ада энциклопедиа Lezgistxa (talk) 13:34, 28 March 2012 (UTC)