Talk:Tahitian language

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The Tahitian language is featured in the famous Mutiny on the Bounty, where the I-charactre is supposed to compose a dictionary of the language. What must we beleive of this story? Was this dictionary actually written, and was the author's name really Roger Biam (or something like that, I don't clearly remember)? If so, I think it would be worth while, even desirable, to name that in the article. Caesarion 18:53, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the writers (Nordhoff & Hall) took the original crew list from the Bounty, wiped out one person and replaced him with the fictional Roger Byam. The dictionary must be equally fictional.--Tauʻolunga 00:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits by Tauʻolunga

[edit] Hawaiian is an English word with NO GLOTTAL STOP

I have corrected the article by changing "Hawai`ian" to "Hawaiian". This is an English word. It is not a Hawaiian word, not a Tahitian word, and for Tauolunga's information, it is not a Tongan word either. The glottal stop is not a letter of the English alphabet, and does not belong in standard English orthography. Consensus has been established on the wikipedia discussion page for Hawaiian Language that "Hawai`ian" is INCORRECT. Please pay attention, Mr. Tauolunga, instead of bull-headedly trying to force your own personal POV on everyone else. Agent X 03:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Denying Hawai`i is your POV, mister X, miss-writing my name yet another one. And by the way, this is the Tahitian page.

Looking on the discussion page of the Hawaiian language, not everybody agrees with you. However considering the already lengthy discussion of this topic I do not think anything will be gained by yet another addition, and as such I shall comply with the consensus. --Tauʻolunga 05:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

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The article is now formatted in such a way as to make it so that less of the words listed are readable (by me, at least, and I have a few Unicode fonts installed).

I think I will revert formatting if no one has any objections to make it easier to read. The Jade Knight 20:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

ANSWER: I have the same problem, but I do not think it wise to adapt the contents to the browser. Rather the browser should be adapted to the contents, as we all agree (I hope) that the accents are fundamental to the ortography of the language. Also remember that Tahitian is not the only language with this problem. Or do you want to reformat all Polynesian languages? Changing to a larger font size will help. But the main problem seems to me the use of italics. If we do away with them readibility will improve a lot. But then how do we distinguish Tahitian from English? --Tauʻolunga 04:57, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Using a colour may be an idea. Or is that non-wikipedian? --Tauʻolunga 06:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The only problem I have in reading the article is that whatever is used to represent the glottal stop appears as a box eg. HawaiBOXian and TauBOXolunga - I get the same problem on the Hawaiian Wikipedia. Luckily Māori does not have the glottal stop - except for one dialect. The macrons are fine on my system. There was a proposal recently to eliminate the macron from various articles dealing with Māori subjects on the English wikipedia. This was soundly defeated because the macron is now regarded as the standard way of writing the word Māori in NZ English. Put a proposal forward, and let the majority decide.Kahuroa 21:27, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There we have something, maybe that was Jade Knight's problem too?: you are using an old browser which has no ʻ modifier letter turned comma, unicode 0x02BB, which is the preferred one for the glottal, and therefore shows as a box. Old MS Windows systems still seem to have that problem. In that case I really would argue that you adapt rather than Wikipedia adapts. After all do we require that Greek, Russian, Japanese, etc etc are written in Latin letters because someone's computer cannot deal with them? --Tauʻolunga 00:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Nowhere did I ask for Wikipedia to adapt anything. It's not a major problem for me. My Windows system is not old. Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180.sp2...etc...etc isn't that archaic either. Kahuroa 18:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. I don't have any display problem when reading the article on the Hawaiian language, either. I think it's simply a problem with Tauʻolunga's formatting. The Jade Knight 02:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Then please tell me what exactly is your problem. Is it that box, is it the italics, is it something else? Because except for the italics (which never look nice except at large font sizes) I have no problems. --Tauʻolunga 06:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Jade Knight - just to clarify, I meant that I get the BOX instead of the glottal stop character when I am accessing the HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE WIKIPEDIA - I have no box when reading the Hawaiian language article on THIS wikipedia. ( I speak Māori and can understand other Polynesian languages which is why I visit the Haw. Wikipedia) Kahuroa 23:32, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Kahuroa, your problem is the glottal, no more. Same for Jade knight? Windows fonts are known for their still not having the proper glottal, which is unicode 0x02BB this one: ʻ ʻ ʻ ʻ (a box to you?), recommended by unicode and apparently eagerly used in Hawaiʻi. I reckon they all use Macintosh over there, which displays their ʻokina and also supports their months, weekdays, and so on. Elsewhere in Polynesia they are too stupid (like Tonga) or too lazy (elsewhere) to bother. The easiest way out is the apostrophe 0x0027 this one: ' ' ' ' not looking nice. And then having a wordprocessor making it into curly quotes 0x2018 this one: ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ (not a box to you?), but in Tonga always mixed up by 0x2019 this one: ’ ’ ’ ’. Then on the Hawaiʻi page there is a { {okina} } template. I have no idea how it works, ʻ ʻ ʻ ʻ but it shows as the proper 0x02BB on my computer. Does it perhaps appear as 0x2018 on yours? If so, then that will be the solution. --Tauʻolunga 06:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Stupid, lazy???? Stunned silence after reading that! Jade Knight asked:" think I will revert formatting if no one has any objections to make it easier to read. " I reply: PLEASE DO! Kahuroa 07:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I live in Tonga, have been living in Tahiti, so I know what I say, and will say it again it needed. Of course these words are personal opinion and will not come in the encyclopedia itself. Still you have not answered my question. If you can read that { {okina} } ʻ properly, then that is the way to go, and it is a solution we can be all happy with. --Tauʻolunga 22:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be working now—if this is because you're using the "Okina" symbol, that would probably be why. The Jade Knight 07:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Everybody happy then. I shall update other pages which I have edited in the same way. --Tauʻolunga 00:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)