User talk:SameerKhan

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[edit] Bengali script transliteration

Hi Sameer,

I needed help with the IPA only. The transliterations were decided after much discussion with other Wikipedians and hence, I need to know what your basis was for some of the transliteration changes. You seemed to only change the transliteration of আ from ā to a. The reason to not use a was to distinguish from the transliteration of the Hindi अ.

Just so that you know the transliteration is strictly based on an easy way to type in "Benglish"; it does not necessarily depend on IPA. Leave a message on my talk page. Thanks for the help.

By the way, I'm in a hurry so I can't leave a full welcome message, but welcome aboard. Check out the following topics:

You can sign your name using tildes: ~~~ for just the name and ~~~~ for name with a timestamp.

Also feel free to check out Bengal project.

Urnonav 09:07, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


Thanks for the clarification. Incidentally, I was initially a proponent of a as opposed to ā, but over the long process of negotiation, lot of things pushed towards the macron a. For now, let's leave it there. It helps in a subtle way actually. The more important case for Bengali Wikipedians was, not surprisingly, I think, অ and not আ!
On the note on some of the transliterations of letter names, I'll check with some other native speakers. Since you work on this field, you'd probably know that "East Bengal" pronounces some of them differently from "standard" Bangla.
I'll also add a table for the conjunct consonants. Hoping for some help from you!
For all of the IPA characters, use the IPA chart on Wikipedia and just copy/paste the symbols. I personally find that better than hunting down the ASCII codes.
As for ই and ঈ, if you talk to perfectionists in terms of Bangla pronunciation, like poets and so on, they'd tell you there's a subtle difference, although as an average person, I never make one!
The whole phonological preference of ê as opposed to æ went over my antenna! So, I'll leave it at that especially since I don't remember why we picked æ and since we haven't really used that a lot.
Just a few more things:
  • wikify: add links whenever possible - it enriches the navigability for users: use [[ and ]] to encose keywords that have pages associated or use [[page name|your keyword(s)]]
  • when you use external links, please try to put them in the format [http://www.domainname.com/subdomain/userpage explanatory keywords]
  • try to leave edit summaries: I shouldn't be the one advising people to do this since I forget all the time, but this really does help
  • make use of the "watch" feature to watch pages you work on
Have fun! -- Urnonav 14:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
PS: Just out of curiosity, are you a native Bangla-speaker? Check out Wikipedia:Babel!

[edit] Bangla

Hi Sameer, nice to see you joining the efforts to promote Bangladesh and our language. I see from your webpage that you are a linguistics student at UCLA, would you be interested to add to the Bengali language article? Right now, it doesn't have much on the history of Bangla language. Also, the language's origin all the way from Indo-European need to be clarified. I could google and look up stuff, but since you are doing research in Linguistics, you'd be a better person to do that. Thanks. --Ragib 22:05, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re:More transliteration

Actually, for the time being, leave the a's as they are. Would you happen to know if in Assamese language, are there separate a and ā - as in do they have a "a" sound similar to hindi "a"? In that case, the distinction is important, but otherwise, we could just keep using a. As for i and ī, I'm unsure. I'll check Samsad and Bangla Academy dictionaries' pronunciation guidelines to see if the two i's are pronouned separately.

By the way, it's never too late to start. Ironically, I started taking interest in my language after I left Bangladesh!

Juktak-khor coming soon!

-- Urnonav 12:03, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Plassey

I put a move proposal to change the name to "Battle of Palashee" or "Battle of Palashi". Would you add your comments in the talk page? Thanks. --Ragib 20:21, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Districts of Bangladesh task

Ok, I finished creating articles on all 64 districts, added a navigation template to almost all, and have inserted the standard sections to most of them. Now is the time for some other volunteers to insert information into them, may be taking stats/info from Banglapedia and paraphrasing that. You can start by taking over any articles from the nav template at Template:Subdivisions of Bangladesh. --Ragib 06:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] re: ian!

Posted on User_talk:ianneub

Hey Sameer! Thanks for the hello. It's good to hear from you! I hope you're doing well.

If you're ever bored on a 4th Monday of the month head over to the Wikipedia LA Meetup! I hope to attend the next one. Consider yourself invited!

Oh and nice edits to the HB article :-)

[edit] Great work in Bangla language

Sameer, great work in the article...about the linguistic analysis/difference of east and west Bengali dialects. As a CS grad, I am not familiar with the linguistic terms, so your expertise in this area made the analysis more scholarly. Keep up the good work. --Ragib 19:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rohingya dialect

Sameer, how close is Rohingya language to Chittagonian dialect? I looked into some Rohingya words, for example, ful (=flower), Hailla (=tomorrow, chittagonian has khhaliya=tomorrow). (see more here). Does any linguistic research/scholarly work focus on this? I'm asking this to back up the link between these two languages in the article Rohingya. Thanks. --Ragib 15:14, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] SoCal WikiProject

Since you are in the LA-area, you may be interested in the Southern California WikiProject. Please take a look at the project's page and see if there is anything that interests you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. BlankVerse ∅ 08:44, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Boy, you've been busy adding photos. Sooner or later I've been looking in to getting a digital camera, but haven't purchased one yet. BlankVerse ∅ 15:57, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I was surprised when you added a photo to the Seal Beach, California article—it's the town that I grew up in—although I probably wouldn't have picked the City Hall building as representative of the city. When I finally get a digital camera, I'd like to add photots of the pier and the Natl. Wildlife Refuge.
At one time I'd thought about creating a personal website on exploring the LA area that I was going to call "the resident tourist". There are so many interesting places in the LA area that even locals may not know about. BlankVerse ∅ 06:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Also, since you are interested in transportation issues, there are two more WikiProjects you might be interested in: Wikipedia:WikiProject California State Highways & Wikipedia:WikiProject California County Routes. (Along with the big controvery over whether it should be List of California State Routes & List of California County Routes, or List of California state routes & List of California county routes.) BlankVerse ∅ 07:17, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Personally, the naming issue is a little silly because it really doesn't matter that much for lists. On the other hand, I see the same problem spilling over (from the same group of editors) to the titles of regular articles where the rule for lower-case letters for non-proper nouns has very good reasons. When you read through all the blather it basically boils down to a few editors wanting the capitol letter versions because that's the way that they want it.
To date myself, I went to Huntington Beach High School when Seal Beach high school students were still part of the Huntington Beach School District. Either my graduating class or the one after it were the last on the campus before they tore down most of the original buildings except for the tower and the auditorium.
After seeing your city hall picture, I tried to decide what I would like to put in a gallery for the Seal Beach article. Here's what I decided. The pier should probably be used as the lead photo in the intro if there is a good picture. Then in the gallery itself, photos of 1) the Natl. Wildlife Refuge and 2) the Naval Weapons Station (if you can take them without being investigated as a potential terrorist--the best thing would probably be to take one of the tours of the Refuge), 3) Leisure World, 4) The former North American Rockwell, now Boeing building where they built the second stage of the Saturn V rockets, 5) Main Street--perhaps one of the older businesses such as Walt's Wharf, 6) some surfers (at Ray Bay?), 7) the sidewalk and some houses along the beach, and 8) that weird house built from the water tower at the entrance to the Surfside Colony (is it still there? I haven't driven through the Surfside/Sunset Beach area in ages). BlankVerse ∅ 11:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Haunting ā versus a

OK, it seems that I came up with a weird case of ā versus a. In our current transliteration there is no provision for the এ্যা sound. I was thinking of using a for that. However, since you have linguistics background, I need your opinion on this. Is there a reason to use something else like the é?

Urnonav 08:42, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Ooops didn't notice that was on the list. Thanks! -- Urnonav 15:07, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A request to u

Due to the continous vandlism of User:Truth aspirant-- the article Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman has become a ‘business-propaganda-feature’ rather an ‘encyclopedic article.’ Just see history of the article [[Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and Talk:Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman page--You are requested to take intrest in this serious editorial issue and make things straight in this global phenomena (Wikipedia). Thanx. Wiki4u


[edit] Calcuttan surnames

One doesn't often run into a linguist of Bangladeshi origins on the Internet, so I'll make full use of this opportunity and see if you can help me out! :-)

I have always been puzzled by the anglicization of certain Indian names. The internet provides no clue as to their origins. The names are primarily Bengali Hindu surnames, and they are anglicized as follows:

Mukhopadhyay becomes Mukherjee

Chattopadhyay becomes Chatterjee

Bandopadhyay becomes Banerjee

Gangopadhyay becomes Ganguly

I suspect this has something to do with Raj officialdom when India was a colony. Would you be able to shed some light / direct me towards possible source material? Muchas gracias.

-- Peripatetic 22:59, 5 September 2005 (UTC)


My memory of the middle age History of Bengal is not so sharp, but I remember that during the reign of Ballal Sen, of the Sen dynasty, several Brahmin priest families from Kashmir were brought to Bengal by him. The "*-upadhyaya"s are the descendents of those Brahmin families. Note that anyone with those surnames belong to the Brahmin caste. During the British rule, their names were shortened in English. --Ragib 23:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)


I have heard the theory that these shortenings are simply British bastardizations of Bengali Brahmin titles, but I personally am doubtful of this. British anglicizations of Bengali names are typically just slight changes in pronunciations, such as "Tagore" for "Thakur", or attempts at Sanskritic pronunciations, such as "Sen" for "Shen" and "Sarkar" for "Shôrkar". Other than the four or five -opaddhae/-erjee examples, there are no instances of such a major change in pronunciation. Also consider the fact that unlike Sen, Sarkar, Bose, Roy, Tagore, etc, which Bengalis will always pronounce Shen, Shôrkar, Bosh, Rae, Thakur, etc, the -opaddhae/-erjee names are pronounced both ways by Bengalis. It is not at all strange to hear a Bengali say "Mukharji" even when speaking in Bengali, although it would be quite odd to hear a Bengali pronounce "Sarkar" as in English. I suspect that both forms were in use at the time of the British Raj, with the -opaddhae forms considered more formal. The British probably made it a habit to use the -erjee forms to simplify the pronunciation for themselves, but I seriously doubt they just made the -erjee forms up out of nowhere. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, there is no evidence for or against this online, and if you come across anything online or otherwise, please let me know. I have wondered this myself for many years!

SameerKhan 08:37, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I also suffer from a dilemma similar to that of SameerKhan. In Bengali, commoners frequently use the following:
  • Mukhuj-je for Mukhopadhyay
  • Chatuj-je for Chattopadhyay
  • B(n)arhuj-je for Bandopadhyay
In fact the former is in some case more prominent especially among illiterate people. Now why would illiterate commoners know what the British called the Brahmins when the Brahmins themselves didn't use these titles. What would be interesting to investigate is if "-arjee" comes out of the word "arjo" or "arya". There might be a reason to think that local people associated these Brahmins from North-west with "Aryans" and added the suffixes to relate to their "country" of origin. "-upadhyay" might have been what the Brahmins called themselves? Any thoughts? -- Urnonav 15:06, 9 September 2005 (UTC)


I feel that the theory about the british changing the names as per convinience works because as far as I know Ganguly is originally Gangopadhyay. Hence The logic of "arjee" does not work here. Arvindmodi 07:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)Arvind Modi


I don't know how accurate this article on Bengali_Brahmins is, but it has a few theories:
  • Sanskrit -jiva ("holy man") became Prakrit -jye, and had about the same meaning as -opadhyaya. The first suffix became the -jee form. Pretty believable.
  • Sanskrit -opadhyaya istelf became Prakrit -ovajhaya and later to just -ji. This theory was removed from the article a few revisions back, but it makes sense to me phonologically and semantically.
This doesn't explain why Gangopadhyay alternates with Ganguly and not Ganerjee, but it explains the other names. The British heard the -jye/-ji endings and transcribed them as -jee, anglicizing the root words (baner-, etc.) a bit along the way. --SameerKhan 08:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bangla pronunciation

Thanks for updating/correcting the IPA notation. I'm not familiar with it, so tried to improvise to counter {{user|Tarikash}'s "spelling guide". --Ragib 23:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bangla and linguistics

Hi, Ragib suggested I contact you to see if you could confirm a translation of a phrase he has written in Bengali, you can find it here (do not click if you are offended by strong language) - please see the talk page of the article for further discussion.

Furthermore, I see that you are interested in linguistics, if you are interested in theoretical linguistics then please consider joining WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics. Thanks :) - FrancisTyers 09:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

As you can see from my userpage, I am only a heritage speaker of Bangla, so I can't give totally native-speaker judgments. But as far as I can see, Ragib's translation of "fuck the border" looks perfect. It is literally "May all the world's borders go to hell." A transliteration of the phrase would be "Prithibir shôb shimanto jahanname jak". --SameerKhan 04:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bangla upgrade

The important thing is you're doing what you think is best for the article, which is what we're all here for. I'm also real eager to try and get the article to FA status, but, alas, I know so little of Bangla, I may as well be a non-speaker. I can only contribute to formatting and wording issues. I'm going to have to depend on people such as you who actually know stuff about Bangla to provide the meat of the material. Acutally, I believe the article is pretty darn good as is. It just needs a few improvements to gets where we want it to be. --Ttownfeen 06:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Assamese script

I'd support the merger. I do not think the number argument is relevant when it comes to something like a script. The two scripts are nearly identical and they share a common history. Moreover, for technical reasons, they are considered the same script. For example, the Unicode has just script one script for both Assamese and Bengali. So I support a merger. --Chaipau 13:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sameer, I let to take care of the Assamese standardized phonetic spelling on Wikipedia! I hope you noticed and are not offended. I may have comments later, but not just yet. Good job, and thanks! Chaipau 11:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sameer, I made some changes to Assamese script but I am not sure I got the IPA's right. Could you have a look? Thanks. Chaipau 22:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chittagonian

Hello, Sameer

This is Tanzeel who started/created the Chittagonian language article. First of all, I leave this message to thank you for your expert contributions to the article. Second of all, I am not very familiar with wikipedia, so could you add the language code for Chittagonian which is "cit", as i don't know how.

Yours appreciatively, Tanzeel 18:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bengali / Bangla

Could you respond to Peter in Talk:Bengali language? He's asking for literature citations, justifications etc. for using "Bangla" over "Bengali" ... since you have a nice linguistic background, you may be able to answer his questions better. Thanks. --Ragib 17:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bangla wikipedia

Hi Sameer, we have started a drive for contributing to the Bangla wikipedia (http://bn.wikipedia.org ). If you are interested, get an account, and start expanding or inter-wiking english wikipedia topics there. Thanks. --Ragib 23:01, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kolkata

Sameer, can you do an IPA pronunciation for Kolkata, as requested by Dwaipayanc (talk • contribs) in my talk page? Thanks. --Ragib 20:13, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Could you please check if the IPA pronounciation in Kolkata is ok? Thanks.--Dwaipayanc 18:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Done. Discussed on your talk page. --SameerKhan 09:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Amazing! Bangla text in a Sri Lankan coin!!

See Image talk:Uttama coin.png. I'm no linguist, so can you explain why this coin has Bangla text in it? --Ragib 07:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Image Tagging Image:LA Blue Line.gif

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Thanks for uploading Image:LA Blue Line.gif. I notice the 'image' page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then there needs to be an argument why we have the right to use the media on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then it needs to be specified where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media qualifies as fair use, consider reading fair use, and then use a tag such as {{fairusein|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other media, consider checking that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stifle (talk) 21:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Transliteration vs Transcription

Dar Sameer Khan: What you (and indeed many others) call transliteration is really transcription. These are standard terms used widely in linguistics.

However, since there is no standard transliteration, you will notice I have not reverted back your transcriptions. Just the text.

Let's move this debate to the bangla language discussion page and not to our private spaces. Mukerjee 13:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bangla citations

No problem. I actually stumbled on a paper of yours while looking for references, but it went over my head :). --ppm 01:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indian

Dear sameer, How can adding "indian" to tagore article can be called an attempt to make it biased? I have expressed my views in the talk page . Bharatveer 05:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Sameer,

It is certainly a fact.And as you said "enjoy" Bharatveer 06:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Thanks

Thank you for extending your helping hand. :) Auyon 12:23 10 July 2006

[edit] Santhals

Since you seem to be interested in Santals. Do you have any info on the Santali 'Ol-Chiki' script?(Netaji 12:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC))


[edit] Longyi and lungi

Thanks for clearing that up. That's what I'd heard: lungi from longyi and not the other way round as one Bengali once said to a mutual friend. Wagaung 17:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phalgun

Dear Sameer,

Bengali Language is derived from Purely from the Indian languages like Prakrit, Sanskrit and Pali. The word Phalgun is a Sanskrit word. All languages derived from India there are no pronunciation like ' FA ‘. Pa+Ha is PHA. You know we need to use lot of European words and Persian words. So to write a word with FA we also use that letter PHA. But when we speak an Indian word its pronunciation should be PHA. In Hindi, letter ' FA ' is like a DOT under PHA. Truth is always truth. Don't mislead people with a wrong pronunciation like Falgun. However I know you have good knowledge in Calendar keep it up.

I edited the article Phalguna. But not edited in Nepali or Bengali calendar.

Nepali and Bengali Calendar is purely depending up on Indian Calendar. I once again request you if you are the creator of article of Nepali and Bengali Calendar. Try to change it. Other wise it will lose the standard of Wikipedia or that will mislead entire Nepali / Bengali people.

Try to love language. Thanks and Best regards,

Jyothish Jothishkumart 05:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


Huh? I don't know what gave you this funny idea, but Bangla which I speak as a native language has many words prnounced "Fa" instead of "Pha". In Bangla, Falgun is pronounced as "FA"lgun, not "Pha"lgun. Please do not try to mislead native speakers of a language on how to pronounce it. Bengali calendar is the continuation of the traditional fasli son calendar, and while it is true that some of the month names match with Hindu calendar, the start and day count is different in Bangla calendar. This has been standardized by Bangla Academy. So, please do not try to mix up calendars and replace links to specific months. Thank you. --Ragib 06:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Rajib

Hi Rahib,

Don't take it as funny, if the people speaking with ' FA ' , the word may derived from languages like Persian or Europian. Bangali is belong it Indian languages. You know what is Phalguna or how the word came from ? This is purely a sanskrit word.

I have no other words to you. I just noted something. You can research and justify. All the best. Jothishkumart 06:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Bengali speaking people pronounces it as "Fa". Same goes for "F"ul (flower), "F"ol (fruit). Regardless of what the words originated from, these *are* pronounced with "F" rather than "Ph". Of course, unless you decide to say 150 million people in Bangladesh are being incorrect :). By the way, my signature is written with a "g", not a "j" or "h". --Ragib 07:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Rajib

I am just saying the pronunciation about that. For e.g. I think you are familiar with the word Schedule. How do you pronounce it? Now the people say SKEDULE. Because this is current version of US accent. All most all companies in the world are belonging to USA. What is the real? It is SHEDULE. Some time after a long time all most all people exclude from UK will pronounce like SKEDULE.

So what is the value of the real pronunciation? We can deviate or twist any thing as we like but truth is truth.

Try to research truth. That is the real research. Keep in touch. Lovingly, Jyothish.Jothishkumart 08:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ragib and I are speakers of Bengali, and I am a linguist, doing all of my research on the Bengali language. I don't mean to sound haughty here, but please (as Ragib says), don't try to teach me about my language. Any Bengali speaker will tell you that there is an [f] in their language. True, it is historically derived from the Sanskrit [ph], but that is irrelevant now after thousands of years of change. Whether this is an influence from Persian or Arabic or English is also irrelevant. If you were curious, it is not. The change from [ph] to [f] is quite common around the world. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make about "truth", when the truth is that the word is pronounced and spelled (on Wikipedia) as Falgun. And yes the calendars are all related by name, although the pronunciation has changed over the centuries. Note, for example, that while Sanskrit had a lamino-dental n in Phalguna, it has become an apico-alveolar n in basically all the Indic languages. We've all changed from Sanskrit... so do you think we are all "wrong" then? --SameerKhan 09:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Sameer / Rajib

In the article Phalguna, I created a sub article Phalguna in other calendars . But you edited that sub article with Falguna. But now I would like to avoid that sub article because some Indians may mislead by reading your Bengali pronunciation. Because that article only belong to Phalguna not Falguna. Please dont put Falguna in the article Phalguna. Best regards JyothishJothishkumart 10:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

That is linguistic purism like I've never seen before. --SameerKhan 17:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Languages

Hi There! Can you translate my name in what language you know please, and then post it Here. I would be very grateful if you do (if you know another language apart from English and the ones on my userpage please feel free to post it on) P.S. all th translations are in alpahbetical order so when you add one please put it in alpahbetical order according to the language. Thanks!!! Abdullah Geelah 15:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi

Please see the talk page of Hindi. Cygnus_hansa 18:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The troll.

I hope your message on my talk page wasnt meant to be sarcastic. I dont know if my comment on that talk page came out as condescending or offensive to you, but i certainly didnt mean that. That troll has been around for some time now. he used to vandalise article pages(not just that kannada page there are others too) and now he's settled down to vandalising talk pages.

Anyway, if you werent offended by my post on that talk page and your message on my talk wasnt meant to be sarcastic, pardon me. Peace! and cheers :) Sarvagnya 07:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Hi how are you? Nice to see you in West Bengal article. Trying to improve the article lately. Many stuffs have been borrowed from Bangladesh, as you can see ;)--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A request

Hi Sameer, If its not too much trouble, please comment here and here. Thanks.----Sarvagnya 17:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Commented. --SameerKhan 03:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise

Please ask Sarvagnya why he has a problem with calling the song Sanskritized Sashubhasa. I felt that wording was a good compromise (we get the Sanskrit, you get Sadhubhasa), and I don't see why both scripts can't be side by side.Bakaman Bakatalk 23:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I've commented on the Vande Mataram page. --SameerKhan 03:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bangla

I was wondering what your opinion is on the state of the Bengali language article. Is it somewhat close to Featured Article quality? I ask since I have near-zero knowledge on most aspects of the article, but still would like to help in some way if possible--ppm 05:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

You know, I don't know much about how FAs are chosen - maybe I'm just biased, but I think that the Bengali language article is fantastic as it is, and should have been considered before for FA status. I'll look through and see if I can find an area that needs significant work. --SameerKhan 09:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
In that case, we might consider just going for the FA and see what issues arise. Many an FA has been fixed on the fly by editors responding to peer concern during the nomination phase.--ppm 18:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to bug u again abt this, but what do u think abt this FA proposition?--ppm 17:45, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re Jana gana mana

Thanks for the excellent (and concrete ideas) on the Jana Gana Mana battle. I agree with what your saying. It's simple, yet lucid. Have a nice day. --Antorjal 00:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad people were able to compromise. --SameerKhan 09:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vande Mataram

I copied your revised section (w/ Bengali romanization) from the talk page onto the main article.Bakaman Bakatalk 22:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I noticed! Thanks. --SameerKhan 22:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seeking help and contribution

Dear Wikipedians,

We apreciate your valuable contribution in article named Wikipedia:Indic transliteration scheme on english WIkipedia.

We at Marathi Language wikipedia do not have enough expertise to update IPA related info in our article, specialy we have been unable to import/update IPA templates and do not know how to use IPA symbols.Please click here-this link- to provide help to update "IPA transliteration for Indic Languages" article for Marathi wikipedia

We seek and request for help in updating above mentioned article and would like to know relevant resources and refferences in respect of Devanagari and IPA .

Thanks and Regards

Mahitgar 16:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Languages or dialects?

Hi Sameer,

We meet again :). Can you please take a look at this and clarify. I feel that most of the 'languages' listed there are infact, dialects of Hindi or some other language. From that list I can only identify Tulu, Kodava, and maybe Kutchi and Sankethi as 'languages'. Can you please take a look at it and also the whole article if possible?

Thanks. Sarvagnya 01:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. Yes I was just looking at your comments on that article when this message popped up. Those are considered languages by most outside linguists, including the respected Ethnologue organization (included in the references). Many Indians, however, do not regard these languages as such, as their speakers tend to be bilingual in Hindi and tend to regard their languages as inferior. It's a sad situation! --SameerKhan 01:03, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Learning Bengali

Does Bengali have the same, uh, pronunciation as Hindi? Meaning, are অ, আ, ক, গ, চ... said the same as अ, आ, क, ग, च...? Such that, when buying this book, http://www.amazon.com/Yourself-Bengali-Complete-Language-Courses/dp/0071413685 should I purchase the CD as well? Thanks. And also, why is internet bengali so tiny lol Tuncrypt 21:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely get the CD as well, for two reasons.
  • One: for the most part, Bengali and Hindi share the same phonemic inventory, especially with the consonants - however, in some very important places, like in the vowels, they do not. One huge difference is the lack of a short-long vowel contrast in Bengali. So while in Hindi, अ and आ are mostly distinguished by vowel length and some minor quality differences, in Bengali, অ and আ are distinguished as two completely different vowel qualities {[ɔ] and [a], respectively), and there is no length difference. Also, many consonant clusters are written in both Hindi and Bengali but not pronounced in Bengali, so Lakshmi is written লক্ষ্মী lôkṣmī but pronounced lokkhi [lokkʰi]. Furthermore, there is vowel harmony and other phonological processes in Bengali (especially Standard Choltibhasha Bengali) that you will need the CD for as they are not all reflected in the spelling.
  • Two: I have the Teach Yourself book, and it is pretty good (I use it for tutoring Bengali, in fact), but it is useless without the CD. They use IPA symbols, but with no regard to how the IPA symbol is traditionally pronounced. So when they say [ɱ] they definitely do not mean a labiodental nasal!
Also, yah I know! I use Mozilla Firefox, and so I found that I just had to adjust the font settings for Bengali in my Options tab. Now the Bengali text is huge! --SameerKhan 05:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your message to Subuddhi on Jana Gana Mana Talk Page

Dear Sameer, as you know I am following the discussions on Jana Gana Mana very closely. I have also left a message to Subuddhi on his talk page about how he should keep cool and talk with references and citations. However I want to make a point to you. You are very quick to counter Subuddhi and earlier to Arya Rajya Maharashtra (for his incorrect allegations of vandalism). But you do not seem to convey similar messages to Sarvagnya. I do not think at this stage the debate on Jana Gana Mana is in any healthy situation. Sarvagnya is just digging old graves and pushing his POV about removing Hindi transliteration. I am practicing high restraint and trying to be reasonable always. But that does not mean that people keep on with their provokations. With all due respect to your contributions, I just mean to say that you should (possibly) be consistent in pointing out the mistakes of others.

Sorry if you will bad about my comment, but thats what I felt. Happy editing. thanks. --APandey 07:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

No, you're right that I have not really spoken out against Sarvagnya. But then again I don't think he's being as unreasonable as others - even if I don't agree with him all the time, he hasn't made any personal attacks or had "shouting matches". He has mostly asked questions and I have tried to answer them as well as I could without adding too much bias. His views and concerns are totally valid, and his questions are important to answer, in my opinion. This is unlike Subuddhi's comment, which looked more like a POV-filled personal attack. Regarding Arya Rajya Maharashtra, I stand by the comments I made in response to his assumption of vandalism, and although I know some of my comments can be applied to Sarvagnya as well, I just didn't want to repeat them as I know I have already repeated myself enough times on that page. I hope you understand I'm not just taking pity on Sarvagnya (even if I do sympathize with some of his views), I'm just reacting as I have seen fit so far. --SameerKhan 08:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
SammerKhan, I noticed you have now been dragged into the whole Marathi-Kannada dispute. On Jana Gana Mana, I merely see a parallel to the Vande Mataram dispute, in which certain users (you know which ones) unwilling to compromise. I dont see whats wrong with having Hindi and Bangla and ending it there. I'm sure by now you feel the same way as wellBakaman Bakatalk 01:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should just not continue the debate. Clearly arguing has changed nothing so far! --SameerKhan 10:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

By "we" if you mean (you, me, Bharatveer, Ragib and Antorjal) then we compromised a long time ago. By "we" if you mean the newbies that like to bicker, then there hasnt been a compromise.Bakaman Bakatalk 19:08, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Yah seriously! I think that we should just say "look we've had this debate before, and no new (relevant) information has been found, so let's just stick to the compromise we came to before." I'm on Wikipedia sporadically right now since I'm out of town, but when I get back home I'll see what the situation is like. --SameerKhan 06:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A small help needed

Hi, if you know about it and can help me with this, then it will be a great help. If I have to write say Parliament in Hindi on an English wikipedia article, what is the right way ? Sansad or Samsad ? I know that everyone in North India would write Sansad without exception and probably everyone in South India will write Samsad. Similarly I have seen sometimes people in South India write Ru where a Ri would be appropriate according to me (e.g. Rishi or Rushi). Without claiming who is right and who is wrong, I would like to understand what is the standard on wikipedia. If you know the correct answer or help me point the right references, it would be a great help. Thanks --Apandey 10:31, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

This all depends on the language in question. If you're trying to write as if the word is pronounced as in Sanskrit, you should use the r with a dot underneath for "ri"/"ru" (ṛ). If you are using our Wikipedia Romanization for Bengali, you would write "ri". For Hindi transliteration, you could write "ṛ" if you were trying to match the orthographic version, or "ri" if you're trying to match the actual pronunciation. The original Sanskrit sound was just an "r" sound, sort of like the "r"-sound in the American English pronunciation of the word "fur" - there is no vowel, the "r" serves as the syllable's nucleus without a vowel. In Sanskrit, the word "rishi" would have been pronounced ṛṣi [ɻʂi] sort of like American English "Hershey" without the "h". In later Indic and Dravidian languages, this "ṛ" was no longer pronounced as just an "r", but as "r" plus a vowel. In Bengali and Hindi, the vowel is "i". In Gujarati and Marathi it is "u". In Telugu it can be either "i" or "u". So once again, the Romanization of this sound will depend on whether you are transliterating the vowel symbol ("ṛ") or transcribing the pronunciation ("ri" or "ru").
Similarly, regarding the anusvara, if you're trying to transcribe Sanskrit, the standard is to use m with a dot underneath ("ṃ"), which sometimes comes out as just "m" in some fonts. This diacritic has changed in the different Indic and Dravidian languages (see anusvara) into many different sounds. If you're transliterating the spelling, just use "ṃ" or "m" - however, if you're transcribing the pronunciation of the language, you should actually find out how it is pronounced in that particular language.
Basically, there is no enforced standard on Wikipedia for all Indian languages. Many people try to stick to the IAST schemes (see IAST and National Library at Kolkata romanization), which would dictate that the Romanization of any Indian language would be the same, regardless of the actual pronunciation in the individual languages. Thus, the name of the Sanskrit language would be something like "Saṃskṛt-". However, for a number of languages (including Bengali), the tradition on Wikipedia has been to transcribe the name more phonetically, and not making reference to the spelling. If you follow this scheme, the name of the Sanskrit language can be very different depending on the language. Although all Indic and Dravidian languages will spell it something like "saṃskṛt-", it would be transcribed as "Sanskrit" for Hindi, "Sanskrut" for Gujarati/Marathi, "Shôngskrit" for Bengali, etc.
Personally, I don't see any benefit in forcing the IAST scheme on all Indian languages for English-language articles. It doesn't help anyone with understanding how words are actually pronounced in the different languages. Of course, the benefit is that cognates in different languages will look identical, so "Saṃsad" will be "Saṃsad" regardless of the language. Still, I would prefer to see "Sansad" for an article on Hindi (see Saṃsad/Sansad), "Shôngshod" for an article on Bengali (see Jātīya Saṃsad/Jatio Shôngshod), and so on. It seems that the Hindi articles on Wikipedia are not consistent - see if any Hindi-language Wikipedia administrators have a say on this - my guess is that they will tell you to stick to IAST, even if many articles are written in a more phonetic way. Anyhow, this is probably way more than you were asking for...! Sorry about that! --SameerKhan 11:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV - POV - ACCURACY

In September, you replaced the word "liberated" with the word "annexed" in reference to the manner in which a Portuguese colony came under the control of India (ref. Dadra_and_Nagar_Haveli). The reason given was that "annexed" is more NPOV. Shouldn't the choice of words be based on historical fact rather than political correctness? The Wikipedia article on annexed implies that coercion was involved. I am not familiar with this historical event but if we assume for the sake of argument that Portugal was not in favor of losing this colony and India took control of the region in question by force without the inhabitant's permission then "occupied" might be the more accurate choice of words. But if the inhabitants were in favor of this change in power then "liberated" might be the more accurate choice. And, finally, if India and Portugal worked out the transfer of power prior to the event then perhaps the phrase "mutually transferred to Indian control" or something along those lines. Just a thought ... what do you think? :-) JimScott 21:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that "liberated" can be considered a "historical fact" ever. I am aware that the word appears in history books all over the place, but my own POV would suggest that "liberated" always carries a lot of subjective baggage that could be avoided by using "politically correct" words - I don't have any problem with "political correctness" by the way, when it comes to things that are supposed to be unbiased and objective, like an encyclopedia. Now, maybe "annexed" is not the best choice according to Wikipedia (it sounds objective to me, but I'll stick with the Wikipedia policy), but we still should avoid terms like "liberated" or "conquered" whenever possible, and replace them with "united with", "annexed" (there must be cases where this is appropriate), "took control of", etc., and if necessary, include additional information about the people's attitudes towards the handover (if such information is available). I just don't think the attitudes should be precompiled in the word for the handover of power itself. Anyhow, change the word to whatever seems less POV - as long as we don't use loaded words, I'm quite happy. --SameerKhan 23:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the word absorbed is better. I would rather go with liberated (see Goa Inquisition) for the basis of my POV but absorbed seems to be the most NPOV word.Bakaman Bakatalk 04:26, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help Needed

Hi, I don't know much about phoneticts. Can you provide the corrects Pronunciation of Cooch Behar. The word is spelled cooch like koch and behar as in the state of bihar. I think you know bengali. I think you will not have much problem after seeing the bengali speeling. Thanks in advance. Amartyabag 16:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for providing the IPA of Cooch Behar.Amartyabag 14:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bengali language

I started an FA Drive. Thanks,--ppm 07:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP Bangladesh

Hi I noticed you werent a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh yet. I think you would make a great member of the project (seeing as the fact that you are one of the more prolific Bangla editors). Once you join you may want to look at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Bangladesh#Userboxto put on your userpage.Bakaman Bakatalk 06:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dravidian languages

Hi Sameer,Just noticed this edit by you. Well, nothing wrong with the edit, but just reminded me of something I've been wanting to ask you for some time now. Well, about Dravidian languages - I believe Caldwell gave the classification first("Grammar of Teloogoo lang" notwithstanding).

My question is, have you come across any theories that refute Caldwell's classification? The reason I ask is, I find it incredible that a person so very removed(by birth) from the cultures/languages he/she was studying can so very quickly learn dozens of languages so well as to even start classifying them. In other words, Caldwell classified Brahui also under D langs. That means he should have learnt Brahui in addition to the half a dozen other very commonly spoken D langs.

I find it incredible that a person can learn so many languages so well as to get down to classifying them linguistically. I am presuming that for someone to do such classifications, he/she would need to have an in depth knowledge of the language. Am I mistaken? Do linguists work differently? Sarvagnya 17:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No, a historical linguist does not need to learn the whole language in order to classify it. Normally, historical linguists look for specific information (since most of the language is irrelevant for classificatory purposes) - so this excludes most of the vocabulary (since lots of learned words - often the bulk of a language's vocabulary - can be borrowed entirely from an unrelated or distantly-related language), a lot of the more complex parts of the grammar, and many aspects of the phonetics (since these tend to be shared across languages that are geographically close to each other and not necessarily genetically close). The historical linguist will look at "core" vocabulary - like kinship terms, numbers, pronouns, and other items on the Swadesh list - as these are the least likely to be borrowed (there are of course exceptions, like the numbers in many Dravidian languages), some basic verb and noun morphology (case systems, conjugation, etc.), and so on. These are the least likely things to be borrowed, and thus the most likely things to be preserved from parent languages. Historical linguists are more like detectives than straight-out scientists, and within the linguistic community their work is highly scrutinized - so while some classifications like Greenberg's classification of African languages are highly agreed upon and confirmed with further data from several languages, others, including the controversial American language classification by the same man (Greenberg) are only accepted outside the linguistic community (by anthropologists, etc.), as many experts on individual American languages have proven Greenberg's data to be false. The classification of Dravidian languages is relatively uncontroversial in the linguistic community, although many non-linguist Indians take offense to it (I honestly do not understand this)... I don't know the data myself, but from a casual glance at the grammar and basic core vocabulary of Dravidian languages supports the claim that they are totally unrelated to Indo-European languages (except of course for the number terms in some languages). Anyhow, hope that helps. --SameerKhan 19:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I saw your reply yesterday itself but couldnt reply. Anyway, as for why some people take offence to the classification(I DO myself), my feeling(in my case) is that it has less to do with the classification itself as with the actual nomenclature. I certainly dont mind my language(Kannada) being put in the same club as other(drav)languages(infact, I couldnt care less), but I certainly dont want it to be called "Dravidian". "Dravidian" has distinctly "Tamil" connotations too and this grouping has only led to certain stereotypes being furthered. With the advent of a demented Periyar, the founder of the Tamilian Dravidian parties and his brand of Tamil nationalism, Dravidian almost became a dirty word. All this combined with the average north Indian's ignorance of anything 'non-north india' has only fueled the "South Indian = madarasi(sic)" stereotype.
I certainly dont have anything against Tamil or Tamilians and my ties with them goes further than many imagine, but I am also against this classification simply because, the way its been named. The naming has only fueled stereotypes and engendered concocted histories(read Dravidian parties and their ver of history that finds a contrast only in Hitler's interpretation of the 'Aryan race'). The DK and the host of political parties it engendered are probably the only ones(apart from Hitler) to have used the 'Aryan race' theory for political gain.
Infact, if you read Caldwell's book, even he admits that the term "Dravidian" does not fit the context and that he is using it 'reluctantly'. This, in short, is why I am against this classification. This is, for the most part, also the Kannadiga view. I am not sure what others'(who oppose the classification) views would be. Thanks again for explaining. Sarvagnya 16:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hoysala Empire

Hi. I was forwarded to you as someone who could help with the International Phonetic Alphabet rendering for the above mentioned article. Can you help?thanks.Dineshkannambadi 18:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you need? --SameerKhan 19:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
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