Talk:Wp/liv/Eḑḑilēḑ

Jõvvõ päuvõ!

This test-wikipedia is expanding quite fast, but still the grammar and writing (f.e. letters in words) of Livonian language is in very bad level. Can you explain, where do you get a materials to study writing, in case that I know you (LIV wikipedia authors) are not a native speakers and even do not speak this language fluently?
Vȯnnõ tīēs! // My level of language could be liv-3.
Roalds* 10:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Tienū komentārõst !

Where do I get my materials? Good question. For example, komentār from my previous sentence I took from livones.lv , decided that this newly invented word should probably be declined in the same way as jumāl which I can check from many sources starting from Sjögren grammar book so it goes. You are liv-3, that should include ability to write texts, don't you want to write an article here? About your concern about spelling, I am using now LiNDA (vilkatis.lv) to check my spelling. Warbola 03:20, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Wp/liv/Vaḑa kēļ

Jõvvõ päuvõ! I've only recently started learning Livonian. Hope you don't mind my contributions. --Comp1089 15:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Indigenous contributions?

Hi, I appreciate everybody's efforts to create wikis in endangered languages. But are any ethnic Livonians involved? As far as I could see, only Fins, Estonians and other speakers of Finnic languages have contributed to it. Of course, it is too much to hope for native speakers showing up, but it would be nice if language revivers, Livonian cultural organisations or... just anyone with Livonian heritage participated in some way. For whom else are you writing this Wikipedia? Steinbach (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Dear Steinbach! I removed your post because I didn't/don't see any sence in answering questions, which had been asked very much times. It's tiring too quickly... I also didn't see any disagreement with that action, it can mean that nobody cares. :3

So, it's Ēlmaz and (maybe) Warbola, they are real Livonians. Maybe Nuclear Star is Livonian too, but I doubt in it and can't tell you for sure. You may ask him/her, if you're really interested, in which I doubt too. He/she is active here.

"for whom are you writing this Wikipedia?" -> for ethnic Livonians and enthusiasts of Livonian language. Do you wait another answer?--Aig mest ei varasta (talk) 11:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

"don't censor critical contributions!" -> It's good to do something without any criticism. The best criticists are LangCom. As for me, I think that this is an active project, and it's enough for a first time. For sure the project wasn't created "for lulz", but possibly for real readers and contributors, including ones of Livonian origin. (P.S. By the way, we have such similar nicknames. =))--Leinbach (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I have been talking about this project with some indigenous ethnic Livonians who live in Latvia (according to the census, there were 250 of them in Latvia) and there has been some interest; one of them, the editor of the new Livonian-Latvian-Estonian dictionary cited the lack of time as the reason why he himself is not active here but has given valuable input in the form of advice.

I think that the majority of people who can read Livonian are not Livonians (as with English — native speakers do not form the bulk of the users of the language) and this project is intended for all who can read Livonian. or, for that matter, for anyone who WANTS to be able to read and understand at least some Livonian.

the number of people writing Livonian is doubtless much smaller than the number of people reading Livonian. but I think this project can in part pave a way for increasing the number of people who, in addition to passive knowledge of the Livonian language, could take up writing in Livonian also. this can be achieved by providing a platform for writing something in Livonian and a Wikipedia edition is very good in this sense, I think.

the Estonian edition of Wikipedia was started by two people who were neither ethnic Estonians nor native speakers of Estonian. as far as I know, the Northern Saami edition of Wikipedia has mostly been edited by people who are neither ethnic Saami nor native speakers of Northern Saami. so the situation is not anomalous in any way, rather it can be seen as kind of typical.

I do not think that the ethnic discrimination of contributors is necessary — or a valid topic of concern when writing an encyclopedia. what matters more is adherence to the rules of encyclopedic content (as always in any edition of Wikipedia) and how well the articles are written and edited in terms of language, grammar and style (as always in any edition of Wikipedia).

the existence or absence of a few "token Livonians" among contributors does not pertain in any way to the quality of the project or the composition of its target audiences. thus I think it is irrelevant.

in the first phase of the project, the contributors and the readers using it for references might well be different sets of people. I hope that in subsequent phases this will change. any ideas or tricks to this effect are more than welcome. -- Ohpuu (talk) 21:11, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

at this stage of the project, in any case, we can't be too picky about contributors. anyone's help is welcome as long as it is useful for advancing the project. any other criteria seem irrelevant to me. -- Ohpuu (talk) 21:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

in more practical terms, if Steinbach is willing to initiate or design some kind of an outreach project (e.g. on other Wikimedia projects, on Facebook, elsewhere on the web, by e-mail) for involving the ethnic Livonian communities and student/faculty communities dealing with Livonian language in the universities of the world, then I can provide some guidance and advice on who to contact, i.e, who would be the targets of such outreach. -- Ohpuu (talk) 21:20, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Correct "softened" letter diacritic

Hi, I noticed that when I used the virtual keyboard to type out "Latvia" at Viitso's dictionary (for a link on here, not having made a custom keyboard layout yet) with the standard T-comma it redirected to an article where it is spelled with a T-cedilla – Wp/liv/Leţmō. This article has a nice large picture comparing the two: en:T-comma.

Is cedilla instead of comma used for convenience? My books say that softened letters are diacriticized with a comma, I'm thinking use of cedilla could adversely influence searchability on Google.

I'm also think of requesting an edittools box for Livonian (when or if I compile it of course) so people who want to make small edits could easily enter the letters without pasting and I'm thinking that T-comma should be favored. Thoughts? Objections? Neitrāls vārds (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

As I know, "Ţţ" is from official Livonian orthography. I don't why mr. Viitso used exactly that kind of letters (with commas), usually we use ones with cedillas. --Tomoi (diskussii • tond) 10:50, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a pretty good page (I was actually thinking it should be archived somehow in case the owner decides to stop maintaining it *knock on wood*) But one thing that really struck me about the site was its outdated dealing with even very basic diacritics like a-macron (ā), so, IMO, it might not be the most reliable reference.

Viitso's dictionary is probably one of (if not the) most important sources on Livonian, so that should be taken into account.

The compilation Lībieši: Vēsture, valoda un kultūra page 267 says "to render Livonian we take into account Livonian language conference 1995 and 2005 decisions on orthography. (..) Comma below a letter indicates consonant softening."

A certain w:Michael Everson (according to wiki a specialist in the field of writing systems of the world) says: "The characters Ḑ ḑ Ģ ģ Ķ ķ Ļ ļ Ņ ņ Ŗ ŗ Ț and ț must always be drawn with a COMMA BELOW, although these characters are identified in ISO standards as LETTERs WITH CEDILLA." (http://www.evertype.com/alphabets/livonian.pdf) As far as I understand it was some type of a historical "mistake" that letters diacriticized with comma where named as being derived with a cedilla in some early specifications which might be a reason why there might be some confusion. Neitrāls vārds (talk) 22:13, 13 January 2014 (UTC)