User talk:Peter Isotalo/Archive 1

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[edit] merge?

Hello Peter, you let a note on Talk:Balkan Slavic Future tenses, maybe you can merge it? Bonaparte talk 18:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you know more about Bulgarian grammar than I do. Merging is not difficult. You just move the material from Balkan Slavic Future tenses and then make a redirect.
Peter Isotalo 13:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Infobox Biography

Template:Infobox Biography has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Infobox Biography. Thank you. DreamGuy 07:22, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bulgarian vocabulary and Bulgarian lexis

I have unprotected Bulgarian vocabulary and will be closing the AFD nomination for Bulgarian lexis. My reasons for so doing are outlined at Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard#User:VMORO, User:Peter Isotalo, Bulgarian lexis, and Bulgarian vocabulary. I did not perform sufficient due diligence before protecting Bulgarian vocabulary and nominating Bulgarian lexis for AFD. Had I done the proper due diligence, I would not have undertaken either of these actions.

I agree with you that there is a strong case to be made for having the article at Bulgarian vocabulary. However, in retrospect I do not feel that a strong enough case for consensus has been made to permit me to use my admin access to enforce such a decision. I encourage you to seek broader consensus at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) or Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). If enough folks agree with you, then I would feel justified in using admin access to enforce this particular naming convention.

All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 15:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise on DCV and an apology

In recent days I have grown disgusted with Deeceevoice's comments and actions. As a result, I am withdrawing my support of her. That said, Justforasecond has behaved very poorly throughout this entire affair but more so in recent days, placing comments on DCV's talk page merely to stir up trouble. As such, I am proposing that both DCV and JFAS be placed on personal attack parole for a year at [1] Perhaps this is a compromise that a majority of the parties involved could agree to. Please check it out and see what you think. In addition, as a side note to this I am apologizing for my use of "lynching" to describe this RfAr. Best, --Alabamaboy 20:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFA/William M. Connolley 2

You participated in the first RFA so you may be interested in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/William M. Connolley 2. (SEWilco 07:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Jamtska

The article has been significantly expanded so you might want to check into that. The infobox was also restored a while ago, so you might want to check that up too.

Regards Fred-Chess 19:02, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English to Norwegian, Arabic, Dutch, French, Italian translation

I'm new to this so I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this question and if not I appologize.

We are writimg a short book for some friends from a variety of countries and we would like at the least the end page to be multi-lingual. Could you tell me how "The End" translates into Norwegian, Arabic, Dutch, French,and Italian. Also the phrase "Farewell but not good bye, see you soon" into the same languages.

Thanks for any help.

[edit] redesigned template.

Please review Template talk:Jewish language#redesign. Thanks for your time. Tomertalk 17:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portuguese?

Hi, Peter! I've just reverted an edit of yours. Hope you'll be convinced. Tell me, your Babel table doesn't say anything about Portuguese. How come are you editing it? Velho 19:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Because I'm a language nerd and because I don't limit myself to writing about languages that I can actually speak.
Peter Isotalo 19:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 :-) Velho 19:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello!

Hi Peter, see talk on Bulgarian language and your comment, please. Regards, Bomac 21:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stoed and glottal stop

Hi, I'm writing this in connection with your latest changes in the Danish language article. Stoed HAS generally been described as a glottal stop in the past (you can find such statements in many many places), and now it's still a common opinion that it CAN be a glottal stop in its emphatic form and in some dialects (Sjaelland). I'll quote to you Nina Groennums latest "fonetik og fonologi", s.215.

I sin stærkeste form, fx ved emfase, er stødet et komplet glottislukke; i sin svageste form blot en let ændret svingningsform, en svag ændring i stemmekvaliteten.

Is this localized to Sjælland and/or other dialects, or is it present in rigsdansk as well?
Peter Isotalo 10:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Like I said - it is: 1. "strong" / emphatic pronunciation in rigsdansk, and 2. the neutral pronunciation in Sjaelland dialects.

The citation by Groennum I gave you is about the standard language, not about Sjaelland. I can post the entire page if you doubt it. And traditionally, stoed has been described as a pure glottal stop (see for example: Fischer-Jørgensen 1989, "Phonetic analysis of the stoed in central Danish" s. 6, s. 54). Svend Smith disproved that already in the 40s, but the idea has persisted, and even in the 1990s you can find the equation stoed = glottal stop in some linguistic literature.

[edit] Please...

Would you please vote at my Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Fred chessplayer? Even if you vote Oppose, I'd still be interested in your opinion.... / Fred-Chess 16:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

You should know that RfA campaigning is generally frowned upon. --Ghirla | talk 17:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
And yet so many people do it (and seem to even get elected). Either way, I don't participate in RfAs unless I feel very strongly about a candidate.
Peter Isotalo 22:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

The message was to hopefully tell people why they will get the "new messages" when they log on though you do have a point, I have removed the message from the semi-automated bot. Thanks Tawker 23:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Difficulty of learning Latin

Personal anecdotes may not count as evidence, but let me tell you this: I learned spoken Venetian at home as the mother language; then spoken and written Portuguese at school and by reading Disney's comics, starting at about 5; then Italian at about the age of 10, just by reading Italian children magazines; and Spanish a few years later, just by reading Popular Mechanics. When I was 15 I tried to learn French by reading too, but got nowhere; I had to fetch a grammar book, memorize the main tenses of etre, avoir, aller, and from then on reading was enough. Meanwhile I learned the basic of English grammar and vocabulary in high school, so when I got to college I was able to learn real English just by reading, too. (At 25 I tried to learn German, and after three months of study from a good self-study book, half an hour a day, I was barely starting to understand ordinary texts. But then I broke off with the girlfriend who had lent me the book, and had to return it; so that was the end of my German.)

Now: you would think that knowing five Romance languages (plus attending Latin mass for several years as a kid) would give me a good start at reading Latin; but in fact I was never able to make much sense of Latin texts, even with the help of a dictionary and grammar book. And I trust that many other people have had similar experiences.

The point is that when learning any language there is a fairly well-defined "ignition point", beyond which one can disoense with formal classes, and continue learning just by reading ordinary text. In the case of Italian, knowing Venetian already placed me beyond that point; Portuguese did the same for Spanish; but for French I had to learn the auxiliary verbs first, and for German I would have needed another couple of months of formal study.

For Latin, it is fairly obvious to me that any Romance speaker will have to learn the declension (case/number/gender) tables of nouns and adjectives by heart (or at least the most important cases of all declension classes), PLUS the Latin verbal inflections, plus the peculiar Latin constructions for adverbs, comparisons, etc., before one gets to the ignition point. Only then will the knowledge of Romance help (chiefly with the vocabulary).
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 12:50, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA, penetrability and Swedish middle names

Continuing our discussion from the Gaddafi talk page, I do think penetrability is an issue here. The article starts with a nearly unpronouceable name taken from the Arabic, says how the name is spelled and pronouced in English and then proceeds to give the Arabic script for the name. The intro is already more cluttered than it should be, and to have IPA hieroglyphics and other symbols would be too much, and would tend to put off all but the most persistent readers.

I also have in mind the Nelson Mandela article, where you recently added the IPA transcriptions. Nobody in English needs to know how to pronounce either Nelson or Mandela. His middle name is hardly ever used and does not warrant, in my view, the distraction of the hieroglyphics in the intro.

Talking of middle names, I see you removed them from Olof Palme because they are not used in Sweden. For consistency, what about Dag Hammarskjöld and Bernt Carlsson?Phase1 13:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I still feel that a transcription of his last name wouldn't be that incomprehensible in IPA, but I'll let you and others more active in the article to decide on that one. I'm going to make an attempt at making a decent recording of his name to hold us over until a native speaker can do a proper one.
I agree with you about Mandela. I reduced it to the middle name. And I moved the middle names of Hammarskjöld and Carlsson. I encourage you to do the same if you feel like helping out. Basically all Swedish names that aren't in the title shouldn't really be bolded, since they are pretty much never used. If you look up Göran Persson in NE, for example, they don't even list Hans.
Peter Isotalo 14:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Moving the middle names to the post-surname position is not the answer: these are English articles, lest we forget, and your revisions now make them look a bit peculiar. I would suggest either reinserting emboldened middle names or else deleting them – but only if you are 100% sure they serve no purpose in Sweden.
Thanks for fixing the Mandela hieroglyphics.Phase1 18:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I'll discuss the issue at the SWnb.
I'm absolutely positive about it. Swedish middle names only make themselves known in official records, in automatically generated snailmail and (occasionally) in school and university roll calls. Other than that, unless people are actually addressed with at least one of their middle names, they're simply a kind of traditional formality. And, like I mentioned, even encyclopedias tend to ignore them or write them in italics after the title or something like it. They're not like middle names in Anglo-Saxon countries or Russian patronymics.
Peter Isotalo 19:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] multilingualist

I've just seen how many differnt languages you speak and I must say I'm utterly amazed. One day I want to be able to speak as many languages as you do. As for now I can just speak German, English and French. good show! how did you learn all those languages?

The list is mildly deceiving. I only speak Swedish and English really well. The German and Russian are of a decent level , but still not all that hot. Most of it I've learned in various elementary or high school courses. The Russian is semi-native but rusty.
Peter Isotalo 18:02, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lenin's name in Russian

I posted the (nearly) same thing on the Lenin talk page: Why is the Russian unbolded? The difference between и and и is enough to be confusing, especially to people who don't know the alphabet very well (the difference between т and т would get even more confusing). It was much simpler, at least for me, unitalicized. Is this a Wikipedia policy? Linka 00:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help with IPA?

Hi, I've recently begun familiarizing myself with the International Phonetic Alphabet and adding IPA tags to articles that need help with pronunciation. However I'm a relative newbie at this stuff and I suspect I may be doing it all wrong. Can you help me, or tell me where I can find help, at checking the IPA format on the following articles?

Thanks! --Ryan Delaney talk 18:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, don't write out redundant IPA like that for "Chuck". Everyone knows how to pronounce it, so go easy on the lead space there. Secondly, you should always write the pronunciation in the native language of the person. So for Emelianenko and Topalov, you should go by Russian, not English pronunciation. How people pronounce it in English can be quite arbitrary and dependant on their dialect and their knowledge of foreign languages. We want to avoid UK/US/AU/NZ/etc.-messes in the lead if we're not even describing the names of people who speak other languages on a daily basis and getting prescriptive about uncertantites is not really our thang as an encyclopedia. If the lead is quite crowded, I would generally recommend settling for just the last name.
Peter Isotalo 11:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. In each case I have tried to mimic the native pronunciation as I have heard it as closely as possible, but as I do not speak Bulgarian, Russian, Indian etc I haven't been able to reproduce the proper IPA format perfectly. Julius Caesar is an interesting case, because "Julius" is reproduced almost the same way in IPA, but the pronunciation in Latin in much different from how it is pronounced commonly in English. --Ryan Delaney talk 15:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I see your point. I guess even a slightly off transcription might be a good way of grabbing people's attention so they can correct.
I would not recommend assigning an IPA to long-dead people like Caesar. The rough pronunciation of Classical Latin is known, but it's so sketchy and so irrelevant by now that it's questionable whether it should be stated. After all, Latin has many acceptable variants in pronunciation these days, all depending on the native language of the speaker.
By the way, you seem to use [ɹ] instead of [r] consistently. You know that the first symbol is the standard English (UK and US) pronunciation of /r/, and that it's rather uncommon in other languages, right? Unless describing the pronunciation of an English-speaking person, I would recommend always using [r].
Peter Isotalo 18:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
OK thanks. The documentation on this stuff seems to be designed more as a reference for experts, but it's difficult to find any materials for beginners, so I am depending on charts without knowing the subtleties involved. As for Julius Caesar, it's a content question, but I think that including the original Latin pronunciation is something that adds to the article. I decided to add it because my project here is to add IPA pronunciation guides for commonly mispronounced names and historically Julius Caesar is perhaps the worst, where the common pronunciation deviates in practially every sound from the "correct" Latin pronunciation. If other editors on the talk page think it should be removed I will defer to their judgment. Thanks again for your help. --Ryan Delaney talk 19:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Peer review/List of people believed to have epilepsy

I wasn't aware that space was a problem here, however I apologise if I have wasted your time. I am only following the suggested procedure in Wikipedia:Featured list candidates. If you read the article, you will find it is not a bare list. There is a set of criteria that form the basis of the requested peer review. You may wish to express your views on Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates.

Your comments have been useful: they indicate (to me at least) that the title is not giving a good impression and fails to accurately define the inclusion criteria for the list.--Colin°Talk 12:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I did not know that the recommendation was to list it at PR, so it's obviously not your fault. I do think it's a pretty bad recommendation, though. My aversion is based in part on the fact that I'm not not a fan of the line between articles and lists being slowly but surely being blurred. I believe it will most likely lead to both categories of contents being neither.
Peter Isotalo 13:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
So that you may know: the current list was split out of the main article, both for reasons of length and because there was some vigorous debate about what was suitable for inclusion that was swamping the Talk:Epilepsy. -ikkyu2 (talk) 18:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drive for Swedish quality articles

Hello. This is in regards to the upcoming Wikipedia improvements Wikipedia:Pushing to 1.0 and Wikipedia:Stable versions, which have the intentions to provide stable versions of articles suitable for prints or publishing.

I've noticed you have written several articles about Swedish matters. If you feel some of these are decent enough to deserve recognition, you are encouraged to nominate them at Wikipedia:Swedish Wikipedians' notice board/Swedish quality articles. In the end, our articles should be comparable to what is expected from the Encyclopedia Britannica. If it currently isn't, but you feel you have spent a considerable amount of time on it, you are still encouraged to nominate it, so that your work will be recognized and others can continue to improve on it. Don't be shy! :-)

Fred-Chess 11:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swedish retroflexes

Hi Peter,

I'm sorting the languages in retroflex lateral approximant, and am only assuming that Swedish is apical postalveolar, rather than subapical or something else entirely. If I've guessed incorrectly, could you correct? This is something that should probably be done to all the retroflex articles eventually. Thanks. kwami 08:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watching this page

Aha, you're back? Cool, good to see you. Been getting my e-mails, about sv.wiki and stuff? Bishonen | ノート 11:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC).

I did my footnote thang at the FAC, but I tried to be as specific as possible and I avoided actually saying "there are too many footnotes". I don't feel I deserve anyone hollering "BUT THEY'RE REQUIRED, GOSHDARNIT!" this time. And some minor copyediting. Other than the objections, the article is excellent.
On a personal note, you should consider dragging your wikiholic carcass to the nearest cinema to see Capote and/or Walk the line.
Peter Isotalo 17:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Object? Over that? Fine. Bishonen | ノート 18:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
It's supposed to get people working on it or at least notice it. Like they'd pay attention if it was just another support with a long "but..."
Peter Isotalo 20:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Watch the POV

I reverted your recent edit of National Democrats (Sweden). Calling them neo-Nazi when they clearly don't have a Nazi party ideology is not accurate. The current wording is very reasonable and makes a decent representation of both how the party perceives itself and how they're viewed by non-sympathizers in Sweden.

Peter Isotalo 17:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I made that change based on what I've read in other articles, such as the Sweden Democrats. I can't read Swedish and haven't read the party's platform, so I'm sure you know more about the party's ideology than I. Nonetheless, I understand the party and its history well enough to recommend that the term "nationalist" be changed to "extreme-right" to accurately describe the SD on the politcal spectrum and to distinguish it from moderate nationalist parties such as the Canadian Action Party. It is important to note that the National Democrats is formed of extremists or "traditionalists" who were expelled from the less-radical Sweden Democrats.
WGee 03:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I've dealt personally with National Democrats on several occasions and I've tried to read a good deal of their own material. I was present at their assault on the pride parade 2003 and I've mouthed off and asked them to leave when they were passing out propaganda for the last EU-election in my neighborhood, and my impression of them is that they're moderately fanatic and extremely rude. But I feel that simply explaining that the party is mainly nationalist but often (justly) accused of being racist is more than enough for people to figure out for themselves where they are on the left-right scale. After all, nationalism is not kosher in Swedish mainstream politics; only minority parties like SD, ND and insignificant minority groups within the major parties dabble in it. I'm not going to revert you, but I will support the removal of "extreme right" if anyone else complains about it. I don't feel it's worth having a conflict over.
Peter Isotalo 09:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
OK. But I now have a reputable source that labels the ND as extreme right-wing (neo-Nazi in particular), so do you still passively oppose the use of the term? Also, there are several other things in the article that should be sourced, if you have time. Without sources, the neutrality and factual accuracy of the will inevitably be disputed. ---WGee
Yes, I oppose it, because it's very obvious that ND isn't neo-Nazi unless you want them to be. It's not a matter of finding sources that believe they're neo-Nazi either. They have to actually live up to the name in terms of ideology and agenda. So far they're just fairly average and obnoxious nationalists with plenty of racist undertones in their propaganda. We have neo-Nazi parties in Sweden, but ND isn't one of them.
Peter Isotalo 10:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, but the party isn't labelled neo-Nazi in the article anymore (since it doesn't pledge allegiance to the Nazi Party), it's labelled extreme right-wing (by international standards). And it actually is a matter of finding reputable sources that label the party extreme right-wing; that's essentially what Wikipedia is about. You may not feel that the ND's platform is extremist, but what matters is that reputable academic organizations do. ---WGee 19:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Hello Peter. I was looking threw your profile and I saw you were from Sweden. I am also of Swedish decent. If you like to chat later that would be fun. Take care.

-Mateas (XGustaX 21:39, 24 March 2006 (UTC))

Well, why not? But where?
Peter Isotalo 11:06, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


Do you have MSN or another Messenger service? (XGustaX 00:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Thanks

Just a note to thank you for the subtle <grin> reality check. I've removed the article from my Watch list. This editor seems beyond my powers of persuasion (not to mention WP:NOR or WP:Consensus). I really hope others will be able to make some progress without blocks and user RfCs. (Also posting this to Van Helsing's talk page). AvB ÷ talk 16:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I understand. Just don't talk to him if you get too frustrated. There's plenty of other editors to handle the problem if something arises.
Peter Isotalo 17:17, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference to Swedish speakers

Hi Peter. A user questioned the reference of Swedish speakers mentioned in Swedish language. You can see the last entry of my talk page. I looked briefly at the Ethnologue webpage but their numbers are from 1986 as far as I could tell. Can you add the reference so I can update List of languages by number of native speakers? Thanks.

Fred-Chess 01:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] links on dab pages

Re: Russian, please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) for information on what links to make on a disambiguation page. May I suggest a better use of your time and expertise might be going thorough this list of ambiguous links and updating them so they directly reference their intended page? Thanks! Ewlyahoocom 09:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Your edits do not improve the dabpage and your interpretation of the guidelines is too rigid. Denying the dabpages just one measly link that isn't to the disambiguated pages is ridiculously strict. I'm reverting you and if you want this kind of super-strict enforcement I want you to get clear consensus for it at the guideline page.
Peter Isotalo 10:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
The clear consensus you seek can be found at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Individual entries which states "Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link. Including more than one link can confuse the reader..." Unless you're suggesting that somehow this page should be different, but I don't see where you're making that argument. Ewlyahoocom 13:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I feel that you're engaging in rules lawyering which has no purpose other than to abide by the rules. Your changes aren't making the dabpages better, just more conformist.
Peter Isotalo 11:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Torlakian

Could you please explain why you moved Torlakian dialect to Torlakian without notice and discussion, and against the rules? As an experienced editor, you should be aware about the process, namely WP:RM. Duja 15:49, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Chinese pronunciation

Yes, I have heard your recordings of Chinese pronunciations. I really appreciate your enthusiasm of engaging in making pronunciation recordings in various languages. Several months ago, as I saw in the category of "Chinese pronunciation" in the Wikimedia Commons, almost all the Chinese pronunciation recordings were made by non-native speakers. I was amazed by the fact that even non-native speakers were so highly motivated. This inspired me, as a native speaker, to contribute more.

I think you should concentrate more on making pronunciation recordings in your mother tounge. Native speakers always makes the most accurate pronunciation. But meanwhile, please feel free to help making a few more recordings for Chinese if you have time. It seems that I am the only native Chinese speaker who is making recordings. The effort of one person is not enough. Your help would be appreciated. If you pronunce some words wrong, I could try to correct it.

I find your "我家里有一只猫儿" (Pinyin: Wǒ jiālǐ yǒu yīzhì māor, literally means "There is a cat at my home.") pretty interesting. :-) I know that you are trying to imitate the Beijing accent. I have tried to imitate Beijing accent too, but my accent doesn't sound Beijing at all. Now, I realize that there are plenty of sound that I can't make. A good example is the "rolling r" sound in the

Russian name of the Soviet Union

. Just can't make it...That is why I said that it is most preferrable to have native speakers making the recordings in their own native languages.

Again, thanks for your effort. Let's collaborate together. - Audioman 01:04, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you got the samples confused. The sentence is actually "我吃了我的猫" [2]. I didn't attempt to rhoticize the "猫", even if it sounds like a good idea now that you mention it. I love those Beijing "儿"s...
Well, if you feel like taking over, I'm sure that Everlong will be delighted. I had promised to help him with sound samples for his Chinese course over at Wikibooks. Do you think you could start making re-recordings of the files I've already done?
Peter Isotalo 13:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greetings: V for Vendetta

The V for Vendetta article, which you had previously peer reviewed has undergone significant changes. We believe that the article is at a much higher quality now, than it was when it was last reviewed. I have seen your name in multiple reviews (including the Star Wars films) and thought it would be great to get a second round of opinions from you. Does the article address all the issues from before? (The V trivia has been integrated into the text, in the same way as it has been in the article on the original graphic novel, as well the Differences with the graphic novel has been shortened a fair bit). Are there any new issues that you have noticed? New advice would be much much appreciated. --P-Chan 01:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bangladesh

Hi, the number of source cited has gone down by 13. Would you kindly now take another look? Thanks--ppm 01:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FYI

Hey Peter,

Just wanted to let you know that I've finally gotten around to making a Reqested Move for the Caucasus page. See Talk:Caucasus (geographic region). Cheers. —Khoikhoi 04:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ben oil

Hi, Peter! I discovered a wonderful article on Ben oil. I'd love to adapt the content to WP. Ben oil is wonderful stuff. There's one problem... the article's in Swedish, which I don't speak or read. Any chance you'd be willing to take a look, translate it as appropriate and add the content to the article? Waitak 13:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply to your question on Standard Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation

Hi, Peter! With respect to your question on standard Brazilian pronunciation that appeared in the Portuguese language discussion page in January 2006, here are my two cents:

The notion that all Brazilian dialects have equal social prestige is clearly misleading. The closest equivalent we have in Brazil to General American (i.e, the perceived "accentless" pronunciation used on TV newscasts) is nowadays the educated middle-class speech of the city of São Paulo ("paulistano" ). The dialects that diverge the most from this "General Brazilian" standard and have accordingly lower national prestige are Northeastern Brazilian Portuguese (which would be the Brazilian sociolinguistic equivalent of Southern American English) and the substandard caipira dialect of the south-central countryside (including most of the State of São Paulo excluding the capital city). The dialect of the city of Rio de Janeiro ("carioca") is in turn a special case in the sense that (a) it used to be the prestige dialect in Brazil back when Rio was still the nation's capital, and (b) it is still the dialect most often heard in the theatre, movies and TV soap operas/talk shows, basically because most Brazilian actors/pop singers still tend to be from Rio. "Carioca" Portuguese also bears the mark of being in many ways closer to European Portuguese pronunciation due to heavy Portuguese immigration in the area. As of today, I would say "carioca" could not be equated with "General Brazilian" (in the American English sense of the term) since it is not perceived nationally as an "accentless" dialect (quite the contrary, Brazilians from other states are quick to point out to someone from Rio that he/she has a "carioca accent"). However, because of its cultural and historical influence, "carioca" is still a high-prestige dialect, although not quite as influential perhaps as "paulistano". Using a rough comparison, one could say that the sociolinguistic position of "carioca" within the class of Brazilian Portuguese dialects could be perhaps described as being similar to the position of certain U.S. Northeastern accents within American English.

PS: Just to support my statement that educated "paulistano" is now the dominant "neutral" accent of TV news, it suffices to say that the 2 most influential Brazilian TV news anchors in recent times (William Bonner and Boris Casoy) are both originally from the city of São Paulo. A third influential anchor, Carlos Nascimento, was born in the São Paulo state countryside, but speaks with a paulistano rather than a "caipira" accent, as does day-time Jornal Hoje's anchor, Evaristo Costa (also born in the São Paulo state countryside). Mbruno 21:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oops

You should probably check your last changes to pornography. I was adding the r to former, but conflicted with you. The diff engine reconciled the changes (perhaps badly). I reverted my edit, but things may still be wrong. --GraemeL (talk) 16:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reuben Sturman

Why is it SO impotant to label this person as "Jewish-American" in his bio header? Thanks --Tom 14:14, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Because it's every bit as relevant as the fact that he was American and I can only see that it adds to the article. If it weren't for the notion of a very strong Jewish identity when reading about Sturman, I wouldn't be insisting on it. And being Jewish is no more a label than being American, and I don't se you protesting the latter. Why are you so determined to have it removed?
Peter Isotalo 14:32, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
ok, I added Jewish-American back to the article...Cheers, --Tom 17:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help request

In Bulgarian wikipedia we have a big discussion about name transliteration of the Södertälje in bulgarian. One solution to the problem could be a media file (*.ogg) in commons, made by a native speaker. Could it be possible for you to make such a media. Since I have seen that you are professional in linguistics, if there are slight variations of the prononciation of Södertälje, please stress to them. This could end a year polemic. The same problem could arise with Norrtälje too. Thank you in advance. BloodIce 01:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I recorded one just now and inserted it at Södertälje. Someone beat me to it at the Bulgarian article, but failed to use the correct format (sv-name of file.ogg). It's by a native speaker, but with a kinda Östergötland accent. People who aren't from Stockholm never agree, but I'd consider this recording to be closer to what would be considered non-standard Swedish than my own pronunciation. Either way, my pronunciation is closer to Swedish as it is mostly spoken on TV and radio. But I'll let someone else decide which file to keep.
Peter Isotalo 15:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Tack så mycket, Peter! I think we need the both variants of pronunciation. Our problem is mainly in thes second half of the word - "tälje". I personally prefer the "stockholmska", but I am slightly prejudiced. BloodIce 12:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Det var så lite så, BloodIce.
The Stockholm accents are generally considered the most neutral-sounding of the Swedish (regional) dialects, but your idea sounds like a very reasonable solution. Please don't hesitate to give me a holler if you need more help with pronunciations.
Peter Isotalo 13:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caron

There is an ongoing dispute on the talk page of this article. It has been suggested that editors with interest in linguistics would provide better insight into the problem. Would you mind voting on that page? (Please, ignore the fact that the person who asked you already voted.) 85.70.5.66 19:05, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] She Net Ben oil article translation

The Rosetta Barnstar
For stepping up to the plate and translating a Swedish article on Ben oil so that the material could be added to the English WP article. Waitak 13:35, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much, Waitak.
Peter Isotalo 10:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] discussion on < ref >

The reason that would be a better place or, better yet, m:Talk:Cite.php, is because those are the pages where general discussions are being held on the improvements to the <ref> and other cite support codeing is being discussed. The discussion there on the support necessary for the <ref>, <references >, etc. code is where the change can be made - the template just implements the code. --Trödel 15:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inline audio link pop-ups

What it would look like to hover over an audio link
What it would look like to hover over an audio link

As you're one of the people who commented about formatting/clutter on the {{audio}} template, I'm wondering what you think of my proposal for a javascript popup instead. I fixed the "clicking on the icon goes to the image page" problem a while ago, but there is still the "overloaded interface"/"too many click targets" problem, and I'm proposing we use javascript to hide the extra links until you hover over it. You can try out the mock-up yourself by adding this to your User:Peter Isotalo/monobook.js:

document.write('<scr' + 'ipt type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Omegatron/monobook.js/audiopops.js'
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></scr' 
             + 'ipt>');

This would be a site-wide change, so everyone would see it, and it safely falls back to the current design with several links on browsers without javascript. I would be happy with any kind of support, suggestions, or criticism; right now I feel like I'm talking to a wall. — Omegatron 18:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Telugu vowel chart

Just a note to remind you to look for a vowel chart for Telugu, if you have the time. Thanks in advance. =) IceKarmaॐ 16:26, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Old Prussic

Hej, Peter!

I'm new to the Wikipedia, and I've found it rather interesting to read both articles and comments you've written (even if I think that you oversimplify the question of dialect usage a bit). I found a minor misclassification in a discussion contribution of yours, explaining the relations between 'Germanic' and 'Scandinavian' languages. Incidently, you enumerate 'Prussic' (you would mean and do link to 'Old Prussic') among the east Germanic languages. (I'm sure this was a pure mistake; as you know, it is classified as an extinct Baltic language, not germanic.) Now, I don't know what is comme il faut in this situation; I am of course not editing a 'Discussing' item of another author; but your exposition apart from the mistake is both didactic and rather informative. If it is OK to edit old discussion items 'of lasting value', like yours in Talk:Swedish_language#Critique, I suppose you might want to do this. JoergenB 20:14, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind in the least that you point out errors in statements I've made in previous discussions, but in this case I'd say it's a rather minor detail. Generally, I'd say that discusssions that old really don't matter much. I'm going to change it nevertheless since I don't want to confuse any future readers and if you see any factual errors in my posts, you're quite welcomed to change them as long as they don't obviously misrepresent the original message of the post. Mind you, this is my own opinion, and I don't want to speak for other users in this matter since altering the posts of others is generally frowned upon.
Peter Isotalo 19:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed it is a rather minor detail. Thanks for the clarification, in any case. 130.237.198.137 11:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion discussion invitation

I have nominated this page for deletion again. The discussion can be found here. Since you were involved in the previous VfD, I'm sure you could contribute important points to the debate and I invite you to become involved and vote. AEuSoes1 03:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Audio-IPA-nohelp

Hi, the {{Audio-IPA-nohelp}} template now includes a link to info files pages. If you edited articles to switch to {{Audio-IPA}}, please change them back to reduce clutter. Thank you. --Kjoonlee 04:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)