Talk:List of common phrases in various languages

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This article was nominated for deletion on August 31, 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Archive 1 (Sep 2005-Aug 2006)

[edit] Nomination for Deletion

I have nominated this page for deletion again. The discussion can be found here. All are welcome to contribute, especially if you wish to vote my way. ;) AEuSoes1 02:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

All right, the consensus among those who voted to keep the page was that it's got potential for comparative purposes. Therefore, we ought to make as such. I'm taking out references to tourism, grouping languages by family rather than purely alphabetically, and in the coming weeks we really need to have a solid list of the phrases that will be our "common phrases" list. It should be a list that is very discrete, that is no language in the article should have any other phrases and any language without all the phrases will be considered incomplete. These phrases will not have tourism in mind. AEuSoes1 05:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes

All right, I've removed Pennsylvania German language since according to its article is is mutually intelligible with low german dialects and differs mostly in phonology and a few vocabulary items (i.e. it is German); Germanic Scots since it's arguably a dialect of English; Nigerian Pidgin English since Pidgins aren't good for comparisons, Esperanto since it is a constructed language, and Visayan since that is a language family not a language. Now I'm going to remove all the autonomes and "English" since those definitely aren't common phrases. AEuSoes1 07:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments, and further suggestions

I don't quite agree with the removals. My reason is that the distinction between separate dialects and separate languages is a somewhat fuzzy one, and I think that the Wikipedia reader with not so much linguistic experience should be given the chance to appreciate the difference between the differences :-). (I once heard some linguist in a Swedish science broadcast programme define the difference thus: "A language is a dialect with its own flag and army".) Retaining some cases generally classified as different dialects of one language, or disputed, would be an advantage also when it comes to the politically hot cases. (Serbian, Croatian, or dialects of Serbocroatian, e.g.? What is the relation of Hindi and Urdu - and why? Between (south Slavic) Macedonian and Bulgarian? Between (Greek) Macedonian and Greek? Karelian and Finnish? Moldavian and Romanian?) If we explicitly agree that we in interesting cases may also include some dialects of the same language, then we could avoid some unneccessary edit wars on such issues, I hope.

I also would like to know if you would approve of some further merging of (generally recognised or tentative) language groups. I would very much like to group the indoeuropean languages together; to structure some other groups a little more; and to place Korean close to the Japanese group, together with a note that the question whether the languages are related is disputed.

Finally, I do not like the American heading. Recognised relatively large groups, like Algonqin, may get more examples if people continue to contribute, and should not be slumped together with (seemingly) completely unrelated languages. Also, as yet there are no Inuitic languages represented; but if both Asiatic and American Inuit languages are contributed, they should self-evidently not be separated. I suggest that only more or less recognised groups are grouped, and isolates left isolated.

What is the general opinion about these suggestions? JoergenB 16:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

You've been given an incomplete analysis of the language-dialect distinction. While there are extreme examples between Štovakian languages that are mutually intelligible and Chinese dialects that are not, mutual intelligibility is a huge determiner. If one wants to compare the dialects of a language, there are various pages where one can put such a comparison.

I chose not to put all the indo-european languages together partly because using phrases for comparison is dubious enough across languages, but with language families as diverse as they are in Indo-European, it's almost worthless.

If we put Japanese with Korean, we might as well lump together all southeast asian languages. The idea that they are related more than areally isn't commonly accepted and so is certainly not clearly presentable in such a cursory glance at comparison. AEuSoes1 19:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Changes

@Aeusoes1: I like what you did to the article today; grouping the languages into language families is a neat idea and also helps splitting up the article later. I have some questions: You wrote you removed some languages. May I ask which ones and why? Also, I would split the Caucasian group into Northeast Caucasian and South Caucasian (or better: "Caucasian, Northeast" and "Caucasian, South"), as their genetic relatedness is disputed. And you sorted the Amerindian languages together with the language isolates — I don't think that's a good idea, especially since for Nahuatl and O'odham we'd have a Uto-Aztecan category. But in general: Good work! — N-true 14:05, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, me stupid! I should've read first, what you wrote above... that answers many questions. However, I disagree with the removing of Esperanto. I would prefer having a language family "Constructed languages" for the ones that are important enough to have a Wikipedia entry on their own. — N-true 14:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Constructed languages has its own page right now. Conlangs don't fit with the newfound purpose of this page, comparative purposes, because they don't have a natural genetic relationship with other languages. Quite honestly, I grouped the American languages with the isolates because there are so many American language families, but we can easily make an American category, that's probably what I should've done. AEuSoes1 05:18, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Now, AEuSoes1, why did you remove "Hello" and "Good-bye" from all the languages? Those are in my opinion two of the most important phrases to know! I strongly disagree with this change and am tempted to revert your deletions. >:( — N-true 14:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Part of the reason is because in many languages (such as English) hello and goodbye are single words, which would make them not phrases. In languages where they are more phrase-like, they are idiomatic and differ among even languages in the same family (Estonian's goodbye translates as "have a good time" while Hungarian's is "to see you again"). Such phrases vary according to custom and culture, not the languages themselves. Hello and Goodbye were more important when this page was designed for tourists but since that is inappropriate per WP:NOT this page is to become a language comparison introduction that differs from the ground covered in swadesh lists.

I was really hoping that people would start talking about what some good phrases to include would be. Quite honestly, the most appropriate phrases I see on the page right now are the "do you speak English?" (formation of a general question) and "where is the bathroom?" (location question). Phrases that indicate various tenses and moods and any syntactic peculiarities might also be appropriate. AEuSoes1 21:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll wait a little bit before reverting your revert to see if this turns into a heated debate (which would be made worse by arevert war). AEuSoes1 21:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I see your point, but that's not the purpose of this site. The page title is still "List of common phrases in various languages", not "List of grammatical pecularities of English translated into various natural languages". The article would only be helpfull for language comparison if each phrase was glossed interlinearilly. But it isn't and I don't think it will be... — N-true 03:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Like I said. Hello and goodbye aren't phrases and are all around bad for comparative purposes. You didn't oppose my change to the article's lead and if you don't want this page to be used for comparative purposes then you're at odds with the consensus of those who voted to keep this page in the last AFD.

And, just so you know, glossing each phrase is exactly what I intend this page to do eventually. AEuSoes1 03:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Angry

I am angry with all of the changes Aeusoes1 has made. I haven't been to this page in a while, but now that I have returned, I see that he has turned it into an ugly page that was nothing like what it was before. He has removed languages, stripped phrases off, etc.

While a phrase may not fit exactly with other "common" phrases, it is not up to you to judge whether or not it is common. "Good morning", "hello", "welcome", are all possibly "common phrases" (and hello and welcome may be single words but they are also "phrases" in the sense used here). Of course it is alright to excercicse some judgement, like if someone adds "Where are the beer cannisters?" because that is not common obviously.

Aeusoes1 has also been very pushy on this talkpage and has not been very accepting of criticism. In his last post here, he says, and I quote "...what I intend this page to do eventually", as if it Belongs To Him.

He needs to stop what he is doing. Being Bold is good, but he has made many edits to a very popular article, including things which he should've expected to very controversial and potentially unpopular. Just because he "got a mandate" from a AfD vote to make the article conform to a certain purpose does not mean it is his right to decide that that is in fact the purpose the page serves. AfD votes have simple results. The outcome of them is not "Keep as a page for X but not as a page for Y". It is "Keep", or "Delete", or "Transwiki", or whatever.

In addition to comparative purposes, this page can be useful for giving people a tiny sample of these languages. The phrases he has so inconsiderately removed are just as good for this as the ones he has left behind.

And worst of all, he deleted languages. He has got to go.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.251.68.181 (talk) 05:58, October 15, 2006.

There are a number of ways in which I can address your concerns. I'll go in order that you put them.

I understand your anger and I expected my changes to displease some. This is why I moved slowly and took off phrases one by one. This way, if people were displeased it would show up in the talk page. I also lined out my intent for the page before I even organized the languages by family. So far, the only dispute that has arisen from this was with N-true over hello and goodbye and once I presented my points, it was dropped.

Actually, I'm not sure why nobody really reacted. Not even an "Okay", "good idea" or the like for really anything you did, with a couple of exceptions. It could be that this page is just less popular than it once was. But I do know that many of the people who have contributed to this article in the past would object to your butchering of it.
It certainly is not only up to me, but no one else has stepped up to the plate in making important mass changes to this article. For example (if you look above), the suggestion was made almost a year ago that languages should be organized by language family and people agreed but nobody did it. So I did it. After I decided that some phrases had to go, I waited for people to suggest better ones that could be used for comparative purposes, but I haven't heard a peep from anyone. Here, I'll start a very overt section (see below).

"After I decided that some phrases had to go, I waited for people to suggest better ones that could be used for comparative purposes, but I haven't heard a peep from anyone." Here again you're acting like you own the page. Whether or not some phrases go is not something that you should've "decided". Rather, it should've been an idea you had, and then floated before the community. The reason nobody protested may be precisely because you did it so slowly -- people who were checking the page routinely did not notice that the good stuff was slowly slipping away. Had you removed heaps of languages and phrases at the same time, i.e. the version to which I reverted edited with one edit to the currentversion, there would've been more of an outrage. Yes, the old page did have its setback, but it certainly did not need you to come in and ruin it by removing everything. And silence is not approval, especially on a page like this. If you're working on, say, Ajo, Arizona, then silence could definitely be interpreted as approval, but this is not Ajo, Arizona and the silence of the community is not tantamount to approval.
Since I'm the only one who's working on the page like this, it does seem very much like I'm trying to own it. However, I'm working with the only consensus that I could find: the comments associated with the keep votes in the last AfD. I don't consider this a personal mandate, but one for all to take part in. Since I've explained what I intend for this page to do well in advance of my actually doing it, there's plenty of time for discussion but you're the first person to dispute all of what I've been doing and I've cautiously interpreted the silence as approval.

Again, it seems like all that matters is your interpretation of what the article should be. It's not your personal mandate, apparently -- it's what you think everyone should do! It is this attitude, in addition to your dominance in the recent edit history, that makes it seem like you think you own the page.
As for me being pushy in the talk page, I don't really see it. I've taken suggestions from N-true and JoergenB. Being articulate with one's points of arguments is not pushy. If I am accidentally pushy then I apologize. I think I get it from my father.

No, being articulate is not equivalent to being pushy, but it is anti-Wiki to not search for a compromise when somebody disputes your changes, but rather to fight with arguments about why your changes are good. Certainly, there are some times that we should defend our changes, but we really should choose our battles -- is it really that big of a deal if somebody wants the infobox to be red instead of yellow, or wants the article to say "He eventually gave up" instead of "He finally gave in"?. And many of the things you have argued (often successfully due to the seeming apathy of other interested parties) are not battles I would've chosen.
I don't know if you've read the AfD discussion, but if you have then you should know that there was quite a bit of discussion about the purpose of the page. AfDs are not just simple keeps and deletes, especially in borderline cases. In the case for this page it was no consensus which is a default keep. Those who voted for keep commonly mentioned that this page is good for comparative purposes. No one has disputed this interpretation that I layed out over a month ago.

Well, again, a no consensus is really tantamount to approval of the continued existence of the page. It isn't even a command that the page change to become "more encyclopaedic" -- it's just essentially a decision to keep the article until potential relist on AfD. And not so many people said "The page as it is now sucks, but maybe if Aeusoes1 goes in and changes things up a bit, it will be useful for comparative purposes". And just because people mentioned that it could be useful for comparative purposes does not mean that we should suddenly change the page to be specifically designed for comparison only -- this page can (or at least it could) serve other purposes, the interests of which you have hurt greatly by removing phrases and languages.
I've explained my deletion of languages on the grounds of inclusion appropriateness above. In my phrase removal process, some languages that had very incomplete lists suddenly had none, so I took them out. This happened with Turkish and, within a few days, someone came along and added Turkish again with more phrases, improving the section.

Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:18, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

But really, you had no right to remove so many phrases and as a result, remove whole languages. There were a couple of posts here that were generally negative towards what you had done, but nobody directly challenged your action, and so apparently you felt that it was popular. --24.251.68.181 10:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Your hypothesis that my slowness somehow slipped under the radar just doesn't hold water when you consider how quickly N-true noticed the changes that he/she opposed or on theoretical grounds considering that editors have the option of comparing versions and seeing the exact changes. Where are these hordes of people who disagree with my changes? Am I so intimidating that the only people willing to talk to me are "apathetic" about it all in the first place?

You've accused me twice of trying to own this page. I understand that you're angry, but you need to remain civil and refrain from personal attacks. I will not dignify further accusations with a response.

As for the AfD, people didn't just "mention" that it could be good for comparative purposes, they argued as such to justify their keep votes. To me, that is very compelling.

You say that silence is not approval, but would you have said anything if you agreed with my edits? People are more likely to start a talk page section if they want something to change rather than stay the same. This is also why the AfD discussion is so important. It's not just the only consensus we have to work with regarding this page, but even if we started a discussion right now in this talk page we wouldn't get a response like that in 7 months' worth of time.

What do other people think? Am I out of line? Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I'm being any less civil than are you. Yes, editors do have the option of comparing versions and seeing exact changes, but if it changes slowly enough, they will not notice that something has happened. N-true was watching the page more closely than most, and so he noticed your destructive edits.

I don't see how it's a personal attack to say you're trying to own this page. Given the quotes I've provided from you, it's not difficult to believe. One of them: "After I decided that some phrases had to go, I waited for people to suggest better ones that could be used for comparative purposes, but I haven't heard a peep from anyone." So nobody had the option to contradict your decision that some phrases had to go, apparently, but only to suggest better ones? Again, as I noted before, this quote makes you sound like you own the page. I would've said in your situation "After I decided it would probably be best if some phrases were removed, so I asked some of the frequent contributors to the page what they thought of me removing some of the less common phrases."

Regardless of what people said, you are still ignoring the fact that this page can (or at least could) be used for encyclopaedic purposes beyond comparative. And having the phrase for "How are your sheep?" in one language and "What are you doing for dinner tonight?" in another can still be useful for comparison of the two. Not direct comparison of the differences between exact translations, but the phrases still give information about their languages which can be contrasted. If Language 1 says /krplaq tunqiuptrlnmanmi tsblkna mrkli/ and language 2 says /kaoa oeoepi iomea eaiano tueiaiae/, we can deduce from this that the two have very different phonologies. Phrases can be useful for comparison even if they're not translations of the same thing. (I would exclude those particular phrases anyhow though because they're certainly not "common", at least not internationally, although they might be in some cultures)

You said that my non-silence is non-approval. It does not logically follow, as you seem to think, that silence is approval. That's like saying that a non-mammal is a non-seal, so a mammal must be a seal. --24.251.68.181 02:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Comparisons to mammals don't apply. Answer the question. Would you have said anything if you agreed with what I was doing? Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

And why don't they? Can you not understand it or something? And perhaps I would've said something. But then, it's not really relevant, since I didn't agree with what you were doing. There's no way to know what would've happened. We can merely guess. --24.251.68.181 22:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The title of this section is Angry. As such we've gotten an explicit account of your emotional response to my edits. However, considering that this section is about me rather than the article itself, I see it as increasingly off-topic. Please read WP:CIV, WP:AGF, WP:BOLD and take a look at this which shows that I cut the article down by nearly 40% in 4 days (hardly slow enough to go "under the radar" as you mentioned earlier). If you're still not satisfied, then I'm sorry but unless someone else has something to contribute to this discussion, I'm done with it. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New phrases

Per the anon user above, I'm looking like quite the deletionist here. Are there any phrases that might be good for comparative purposes or to show unique aspects of a language/family's unique syntax and/or morphology? I've kept "where is the bathroom?" "do you speak English?" and added "what's your name?" I also like "I'm sorry". Any other ideas? Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:18, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Not an answer to Aeusoes1's question, but here are some general points I want to make about this article:

Fixed set of phrases. The leading section says that 10 to 15 phrases are given in all major world languages. Editors will think they are free to add any 10-15 phrases for each language, and not a given set of phrases, which is the only way this list can be useful for comparative purposes. I think the set of phrases in the English section should limit the range of phrases in the other languages.

"Interesting." It is not clear what "certain interesting minor languages" means. I believe all languages, major or minor, are interesting.

Politeness. In many languages (English is a notable exception) there is a difference between two ways of speaking, plain and polite (sometimes others too). I think we should choose the way of speaking that is most probable to be used by an adult speaking to another adult in a situation that is most probable to occur, given the meaning of the phrase. It is strange to see the French question "Comment tu t'appeles?" in the plain mode, when normally an adult who really wanted to ask someone's name would normally pick the polite way.

"Phrase." The definition of phrase does indeed say that it must contain two or more words, but in the particular case of this article we have to consider the frequent situation where a single word in English translates into a phrase in another language. And the same can happen the other way round. As such, we shouldn't remove a phrase just because it is not a phrase in a certain language. On the other hand I agree that "Hello" and "Cheers" are of very limited use in comparing languages. 03:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that it's possible that we could tweak the sentences in each language/family so that it consistantly demonstrates, say, the way in which questions are asked or negation is applied without it having to be a literal translation of whatever we put in English. Right now, politeness is only being used in attempts to translate phrases (how do you say "what's your name?" well there are two ways..."). It should be used as part of the comparative process so that we can compare the ways in which languages use formality. For example, French uses second parson plural conjugation, Spanish uses third person singular, etc (for more, see T-V distinction).

As for phrases, I think that certain morphologically complex words (conjugated verbs, adjectives with certain grammatical cases, etc) are still appropriate because they can be useful for comparative purposes even if they are not technically "phrases." Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I noticed just now that the phrase "where do you come from" has been entered in a few (but not all) the languages. Is this a good phrase or should I remove it? Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References or sources

I don't know if one can require references or sources to prove the "statements" in a list like this. All sections are just simple translations. If I remember correctly, common basic knowledge does not require citing sources. To support this, the last paragraph here says that articles may even rely entirely on primary sources if the information is easily verifiable by any reasonable adult without specialist knowledge.

The special case of this list is that the translation of the phrase set in a given language is only common knowledge to a speaker of that language, so that not any reasonable adult can verify it. Even so, I believe that the {{unreferenced}} template should be removed. — AdiJapan ☎ 03:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the fact that one needs to know these languages means that there needs to be references. I believe it was Angr who mentioned that a cursory glance at the languages he knew showed inaccuracies. However, I do agree that we don't need, necessarily, to have strict sourcing. For example, just today I changed Lezgi's "My name is..." example so that it didn't have a specific name. Lezgi sources don't have such a blanked example, but I was able to alter it slightly.

Another possibility, instead of sources, is to have a speaker (preferably a native one) to verify the phrases. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irish Gaelic

I have ammended the transcription to better reflect irish as spoken. The original did not have enough diacratics. Irish has an extemely robust phonemic distinction between palatal/ised and velar/ised consonants, almost to the point of symmetry in traditional speech, and this was missing.

The Gentium font was used in Word before been migrated to Wiki. This may lead to portrayal difficulties; if so, I will use the wiki font console when re-entering.

Finally, the transcription must needs-be artifical. Due to sandhi, in normal speech, the samples would sound slightly different as palatised lax l and palatal fortis l would merge in close proximity —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.134.221.136 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Formal vs Informal

I must say, I don't like the double-translating of phrases with a formal/informal distinction. I think that we should have only one translation and do the one that is most likely to be said. What do other people think? Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if we should be so strict about this. The purpose of this list is to allow comparison between languages, and the fact that a language has different ways of expression (polite/plain, formal/informal, masculine/feminine) is useful in such a comparison. As they say, Wikipedia is not a printed book, so we shouldn't be concerned about the article getting too long. We can split it if necessary.

But I agree that if one expression is chosen among several, then it should be the one that is most likely to be heard. I said it before when I noticed the wrong choice (corrected in the meantime) of the plain version of "what's your name" in French instead of the polite form. — AdiJapan ☎ 00:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seriously?

Are we seriously saying that the point of this list is to make phonetic, morphological, and syntactic comparisons between languages? If so, this is probably the worst set of words/phrases we could choose. This is a great list for someone who just wants to get a super mini feel for the language, but it's not at all an appropriate comparison of languages - these words are very likely to be borrowed (e.g. the words "bathroom", "WC", and "toilet" have been borrowed all around the world, often not totally assimilating to the borrowing language's sound pattern system), analyzed in very different ways (e.g. "sorry" can be "forgive me" or "my apologies" or "i am saddened", etc.), culturally inappropriate (e.g. "cheers" doesn't have a translation in many cultures, especially ones without a long history of drinking alcohol), etc. These are all taught in even the most introductory of historical linguistics classes to be the last words/phrases you should look at when comparing languages for phonetics, morphology, or syntax. If we wanted to do that, we should have controlled sets of phrases that are not likely to be borrowed around the world (borrowings tend to have weird phonological patterns, often against the normal patterns of the borrowing language), phrases that are not likely to be highly structurally variable (avoid the often-idiomatic "what's your name"), or culturally-specific concepts. Either that, or let's stop fooling ourselves into thinking that that's what this list is appropriate for. --SameerKhan 05:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

No, we're not making phonetic comparisons. We are attempting morphological and syntactic comparisons but I completely agree that most of the phrases, especially with the fact that there is no prose explaining them, are completely inadequate at the job at hand. Part of the problem with your suggestion is that there are no phrases that aren't borrowed or can't be borrowed. I've taken out obviously bad ones but so far, nobody's really given any suggestions, much less good ones, for good ones. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course there are no phrases that are not borrowed in every language (my semantic/syntactic scope is a little off I think, but you know what I mean), but that's not the point. We should at least try not to stick to the phrases that are most likely to be borrowed - i.e., cultural/sociolinguistic-relevant phrases like "sorry". Using sentences that are not likely to have idiomatic phrasing or vocabulary, say something more like "My friend is talking with that man" or "I don't drink water in the morning" (obviously I'm not thinking these through perfectly) would be better. It's unlikely that languages would borrow the entire phrase, or that the structure of the sentence in different languages would be drastically different (obviously there will be significant differences, but nothing like, say, the word for "sorry", which can be a verb, a noun, an adjective, a clause, or whatever, depending on the language). More importantly, we would have to have a set of at least two or three sentences where small parameters are changed so people can see the morphology or syntax, by noticing the differences. So we could have "My friend is talking with that man" next to "My friend was talking with that man" or "Your friend was talking with that man" or "My friends were talking with that man", or whatever. Maybe as linguists, you and I can see more structure than the average reader, even when it isn't made explicit, but my guess is that most people can't see the things this page is meant to show, given the sentences provided. Personally, I don't think we have the resources right now to go through and change ALL the sentences in ALL the languages. I just think we should change the statement about what the article's purpose is, for now, at least. I wasn't too involved with the discussion about what sentences should be taken out, when that discussion happened, but it seems more like there wasn't much time to discuss what stayed in and what didn't. Not my business. But still, I think we should be more honest about what the article can actually show - otherwise it just looks like we don't know anything about linguistics at all. --SameerKhan 07:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. Or you completely agree with me. This article is seriously lacking and I'm not sure exactly what you want to change the statement of the article's purpose to but I was hoping that the new outlined purpose would inspire editors to contribute in a new direction towards the stated purpose. Unfortunately, the hordes of editors who have contributed to this page over the last five years seem to be largely unwilling to do anything but tweak translations, adjust IPA, and not contribute to meaningful discussions here in the talk page. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old English Vowels

The vowels used in the phonetic key in this article don't seem to correspond with those in the Old English article. Shouldn't there be some degree of symmetry between these articles? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.38.120.91 (talk • contribs).

Thanks for the heads up. I've made an attempt at fixing it but I probably messed up a little. Any experts can certainly make further fixes. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disappointed with changes

I'm quite disappointed with the look of this page and how it's been stripped of its content, but I guess that's not important. At the very least, the greetings and the words for yes or no would be there as these are common phrases. A phrase is not necessarily a sentence and can be a single word. Furthermore, the nature of greetings is of comparative anthrolinguistic interest. "Just how do French and Filipino people greet each other?" How do they differ? From my years of experience as a language geek, AEuSoes1, phrase books were among the first I've consulted to make comparisons.

Furthermore, I should point out that Microsoft Encarta has an interactive language module where the following phrases are given in oodles of word languages: Greeting (and this ranges from hello, good-day, peace, love, how are you, etc.), Yes, No, Thank You, My name is...., the name of the language, goodbye, the numbers from 1-10, and a proverb. To top it all, you can even select two or more particular languages and compare what you heard. Clearly, this was encyclopedic enough for Encarta's encyclopedia editors. I hope the other phrases will be restored. Thanks. --Chris S. 04:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

ooh, does encarta really do that? That'd be a great source! Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 10:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Encarta is really set up like that. Would you like a screen cap? --Chris S. 04:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure, why not. I believe you, but I'd like to see the layout. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Here are the screencaps (click to enlarge):

Image:Encarta2.jpg Image:Encarta3.jpg

So, I would like to see at the very least: Greetings, Yes, No, Thank you, Goodbye, plus whatever is on the page right now. I don't think we need numbers, proverbs, and names of the languages (which are on the language pages themselves). What thinkest thou? --Chris S. 05:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the point of this page. Yes, No, and the other phrases were removed, not because they're unencyclopedic (they most certainly can be), but because they are not useful for comparison of language syntax and morphology. That's what this page is (or at least getting to be) about now. It's good to know that encarta has this sort of thing since it solidifies the encyclopediaty of this page. If you could check encarta for the phrases that are here and make sure that they're accurate, that would be great. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Just what is the point of this page? It's common phrases. Comparison is just one thing that this page can be used for. I am sure there are other reasons. Wouldn't a page tailored to your view be something titled like, say, List of cognates in other languages or something? When given a survey of brief examples from various languages, one would expect quite possibly in an encyclopedia what Encarta has given. And those are the kinds of things that should be in this article. --Chris S. 06:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying that we should find phrases that are cognate in various languages, especially across language family boundaries. These phrases should illustrate the syntactic and morphological peculiarities of the languages and language families. Check the AFD discussion linked at the top of the page and see the discussions on language comparison. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought illustrating syntactic and morphological pecularities and what have you is up to the individual language pages themselves? --Chris S. 15:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and this page is to compare them. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This article, however, is about common phrases and not about comparing syntactic and morphological peculiarities. At present, there appear to be a maximum of four basic phrases. It seems to be an arbitrary choice. Why stop at those four? Why exactly did you feel it necessary to strip the other words? --Chris S. 22:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This page used to be really useful . . .

. . . for looking up basic greetings in various languages. I just wanted to sign off 'Thank you' in Russian to a Russian person on a forum I was posting in, and had to delve back about 500 edits to find 'спасибо'. Could we have 'hello', 'thank you', and suchlike restored to this page, or if there isn't room here, for such a list of basic greetings and pleasantries put on the various individual language pages? - thanks, MPF 00:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

For translations, check Wiktionary. Wikipedia is not the sole repository for all information on the internet and this page is no longer designed to simply translate useful phrases. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; didn't know about the wiktionary option - MPF 01:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Will somebody tell me...

..what on earth happened to Icelandic here?? What is the point of deleting phrases just to put them back after a while in a way not so good as it was before? Ciacchi 14:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

We moved it to the Germanic section and took off some phrases that weren't really phrases and some phrases that aren't good for linguistic comparison. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to check out 'http://www.travlang.com/languages/' for a desent list of languages and phrases (some sound files too) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.64.74.42 (talk) 21:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] To Aeusoes1

Please read all of your comments above, many of which contradict your earlier assertions that you are open to input from others, and review WP:OWN.

Let's make a list of the people who have expressed dissatisfaction with your horrible nasty changes:

Myself (you blew me off)
Christopher Sundita (you so arrogantly told him he "misunderstand[s] the point of this page")
Sameer Khan (you told him what "we" are attempting to do, forgetting to explain that "we" = you)
MPF (you told him that this page is "no longer designed" to be useful)
Ciacchi (you told him that "we" got rid of stuff because "we" didn't appreciate it)

Also, keep in mind, you are the bloke who nominated this bloody page for deletion in the first place. That is probably the biggest strike against any notion of you deserving any smidgeon of ownership here. The jig is up. This is Wiki. The power lies with the people, and you are not the people. --24.251.68.181 22:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, I'm assuming you'll want some stupid RULES JUSTIFICATION for why we should keep this page cool and suh-WEEEEEEEET rather than boring and dumb as you propose. Well, first of all, before AfD turned into Rules-Lawyering-Я-US, there was this vote which showed that the majority of people really liked this page, as it was. Second of all, and perhaps most importantly, WP:IAR (and if you try to rule up on me, then, see WP:DICK and WP:CONSENSUS). Thank you. --24.251.68.181 22:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Although I dislike your wording, I must agree. The current state, in which it was mostly brought by Aeusoes1, is unbearably senseless, compared to the original site. Both might not (have )be(en) too suitable for an encyclopaedia, but at least it used to be useful. Now the article has merely become Aeusoes1's playground and could as well be deleted. Maybe that's what he intended from the beginning... If you ask me, I'd rather restored the old version from before Aeusoes1 took everything over and declared it his own battlefield. — N-true 00:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, let's go ahead and restore it then. The consensus is pretty clear that the page should be more than what it is. --Chris S. 00:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how it's senseless or that the consensus is clear. I'd like to think that I

Started a discussion in regards to some of your criticisms but ended the initial topic since you had said what you wanted to say and we were getting nowhere by butting heads
Said "we" because I meant "we."

I did nominate this page for deletion and when it was decided to keep it, I noticed a way to improve it in a direction appropriate for Wikipedia. Since I'm not claiming ownership, I don't see how two people's disagreeing revokes me from editing and since I've said all along that the AFd's consensus is the driving force behind my opinions and direction in editing.

I admit that the article is pretty crappy right now but I believe that this is because I haven't had any help! I was under the impression that people would suggest better/new phrases, debate why any that I deleted were useful, discuss issues of formality and gender, etc. I would do more myself but I've been trying to get consensus on those things and am getting very little accomplished with my attempts at starting discussions. I'd like to think that I've remained civil, but it's pretty difficult when you're giving personal attacks. This doesn't mean that a 4-month revert is in order. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as consensus is concerned, I may be wrong but I myself have not seen any supportive comments about the current state of the article (if you're out there, then submit your input). The article used to be Good Thing™ but now it's not. And many others have expressed concerns along those lines. About the phrases, I've suggested phrases from the Encarta example (which Encarta felt to be encyclopedic) but for some reason you weren't satisfied with it. --Chris S. 02:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Chris. Looking back I see that I neglected to continue our earlier conversation. This "some reason" (which I actually stated) is because this page is moving towards linguistic comparison. I agree that the present phrases are pretty arbitrary and that this page needs some serious help.

Here's what I'll do, in the next few days/weeks I'll try to improve a language or two(probably Spanish and English, since I know those languages) and include both the list and prose (the latter of which is the main reason why this page is in a horrible condition). I certainly won't be able to do the whole article in the same way, though, since I know very little about the other languages. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aeusoes1 (talk • contribs) 03:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

Fair enough; I'm looking forward to what you have in store and we'll take it from there. And I do apologize if I came off as rather confrontational. I have neither the desire, energy nor the time to engage in an edit war right now. --Chris S. 01:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Straw poll

Let's just see who likes the old version and who doesn't. If the majority really does like the old version better, it seems most likely to opt for a merge (I would be willing to undertake that task) so as not to remove the various new languages, phrases, and improvements.

[edit] Old Version -- pre-Aeusoes1

This revision

24.251.68.181 07:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC) (I have a username with thousands of edits, however I have chosen not to use it on this page. I'm sure at least one of the participants in this discussion knows who I am.)
The old version was indeed growing. But I think one should define a predefined set of phrases that get translated into all languages. Ordering them by language family is quite neat, although an alphabetical order isn't too wrong either. No one would use those phrases for comparative purposes anyway. — N-true 14:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
...

[edit] New Version -- post-Aeusoes1

(currentversion)

So I guess this is the Aeusoes1 bash page, eh? Heh. Well, I think the old version of the article was completely unencyclopediac. It could be moved to Wikitravel and make more sense since it seems to be a traveler's list of phrases. I actually rather like Aeusoes1's (and SameerKhan's, to be honest) intent for improving this article. As a linguistic comparison page, the traveler's phrases sucked, IMO. I came to the page today and saw the "where is the bathroom?" phrase and almost laughed. I thought, "What is that doing here?" So here's to removing traveler's phrases and moving to a more lingustics-oriented setup for this article—including using phrases that are less apt to use (relatively recent) loan-words. I'm sorry if that spoils the Aeusoes1 bash-party, but that's how I feel. :) RobertM525 09:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The old version was far too touristy for an encyclopedia. Its alphabetical ordering made it easier to find a language, but the present ordering by families seems more logical if you want to compare related languages. On the other hand I agree that the present choice of phrases/sentences is still bad -- as far as I understand they are actually left-overs from the old version. I would very much like to see what sentences Encarta chose, can anyone copy the English set here or give us a link in case they're online? Thanks. — AdiJapan ☎ 10:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
While I agree that this page has problems, reverting back, especially that far back, is not the way to improve it. I suggest we look forward in expanding and adding phrases. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic trabslitteration

Since the arabic phrases lacks a translitteration, i'll provide one. I do not know how to put it into the article.

أين الحمّام؟ [ʔajn alħamˈmaːm] Ain al-Hamâm
ما اسمك؟ [ˈma smuk]  Mâ ismuk?
لا أعرف [laː ˈʕarifu] La' ´arifu
لا أفهم [laː ˈʔafham] La' 'afham

All these is masculine form. 87.51.211.84 13:53, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

IPA counts as transliteration. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nomination for an Idea

How about adding phrases that will produce positive energy between people. Phrases such as "Goodmorning sweetie/honey/my love/ my wife etc. And how about the all not so common "I love you" and/or "I love you daddy/mommy/grandma etc. That's what I came here looking for! I came here to find the translations for "peace to you brothers and sisters" in as many languages as I can find so I can place them on a website I have. Many people nowadays use wiki to help them write essays and the like. And many more folks spend hours learning about something they never knew about, and are greatful to have found out. But instead I find out how to ask for the bathroom. That is needed information, don't get me wrong. But you may need to make a compliment as well as ask for stuff like an idiot American lost somewhere not in America. I would be happy to add my contribution less anyone would have a fit and write a ten thousand word description against it. Is it only guy geeks sounding like school girls out there adding to wiki, or are there reasoning men with reasoningly seasoned ideas?(EFS) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.25.95.55 (talk • contribs).

Requests on my part to start a discussion on the addition of phrases haven't really gotten very far. I'm not too keen on some of those phrases you've just mentioned but "I love you" might actually be good for linguistic comparison. Keep in mind, though, that wiktionary is the place to look for translations. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The phrases nominated above ("Good morning my love" etc.) are really bad for linguistic comparison. They are highly culture-specific, they tend to be idiomatic in different languages, and they will have way too much variation ("what kind of love? familial affection? romantic? platonic?" "what kind of grandma - maternal? paternal?") given the vagueness of the English translation. Straightforward sentences like "I drank tea today", "That man broke the window", or "The queen wants to speak with me" may be uninteresting and not very useful if you're traveling (note that this is not a travel guide), but they're very good for linguistic comparison, as they limit all sorts of social and other factors so we can really compare what's going on in each language. --SameerKhan 08:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

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