User talk:Verdy P

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Please visit my main talk page on French Wikipedia fr:Discussion Utilisateur:verdy_p. Thanks. verdy_p 17:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Exact Gregorian date formulas

A few date templates are special and filled automatically by the MediaWiki software (they are referenced internally by templates below whose name start by CURRENT), using the current UTC date and time (in the Gregorian calendar) as set on the Wikipedia server:

  • {{CURRENTYEAR}}, current value: 2008, includes all four digits.
  • {{CURRENTMONTH}}, current value: 06, two digits (includes leading zero).
  • {{CURRENTDAY}}, current value: 11, two digits (includes leading zero).
  • {{CURRENTTIME}}, current value: 04:41, four digits (format: hh:mm).
  • {{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}, current value: "Jun", 3 letter abbr. for the current month.

From those values, we can compute the following:

  • {{CURRENTCENTURY}}, current value: 21, no extra leading zero.
  • {{CURRENTYEARCC}}, current value: 20, no extra leading zero.
  • {{CURRENTYEARYY}}, current value: 8, no extra leading zero.
  • {{IsLeapYear}}, current value: 1, no extra leading zero.
  • {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}, current value: "June".
  • {{CURRENTMONTHDAYS}}, current value: "30".
  • {{CURRENTJULIANDAY}}, current value: 2454628.7202662, no extra leading zero.
  • {{CURRENTWEEKDAY}}, current value: 3, no extra leading zero.
  • {{CURRENTWEEKDAYNAME}}, current value: "Thursday".
  • {{CURRENTWEEKDAYABBREV}}, current value: "Template:CURRENTWEEKDAYABBREV".
  • {{CURRENTISOYEAR}}, current value: 2008, no extra leading zero.
  • {{CURRENTHOUR}}, current value: 05, two digits (between 00 and 23).
  • {{CURRENTMINUTE}}, current value: 04:41, two digits (between 00 and 59).
  • {{CURRENTINTERNETTIME}}, current value: @261, three digits (between 000 and 999).

The Template:JULIANDAY is the base computing template that allows making various calendar computations. From this computed value, it is possible to get back to the date components, for example:

  • {{JULIANDAY.YEAR|{{CURRENTJULIANDAY}}}}, current value: 2008.
  • {{JULIANDAY.MONTH|{{CURRENTJULIANDAY}}}}, current value: 6.
  • {{JULIANDAY.DAY|{{CURRENTJULIANDAY}}}}, current value: 11.
  • {{JULIANDAY.HOUR|{{CURRENTJULIANDAY}}}}, current value: 05.
  • {{JULIANDAY.MINUTE|{{CURRENTJULIANDAY}}}}, current value: 17.
  • {{JULIANDAY.SECOND|{{CURRENTJULIANDAY}}}}, current value: 10.

These templates are optimized for speed but do not compromize exactitude of results. They work on the whole UTC calendar since 1 January -4800 UTC (4801 BC):

  • for all dates in the Gregorian calendar
  • in the proleptic Gregorian calendar in the Christian era before 1782 AD,
  • and applying the same proleptic rules for dates in the pre-Christian era (only the year counting uses the continuous UTC counting mode for years), i.e. using year 0 for 1 BC.

[edit] integer and floating point

Hi, Verdy. I'm the guy who got the whole Category:Date math thing going. I've been talking with some of the other guys, like zocky, and we'd like to suggest the possibility of making a distinction:

  • integer-based math (for ordinal dates)
  • floating-point math (for Julian dates)

Can we talk? --Uncle Ed 14:52, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Is there a distinction between both? Templates using Julian date only use integer arithmetic where appropriate, unless you use decimal values or time. You can't be really correct when computing dates without considering the arithmetic of years which is muchmore complex than what you think, and hasmany caveats.
Now that Juliandays are computed correctly (very simply in fact), most dates can be infered from them. I took lot of time to get the correct julian day calculations, that cover the whole Gregorian calendar and the whole proleptic calendar since epoch (4800 BC). The past templates before that were wrong in many dates, even in the non-proleptic Gregorian calendar since 1782.
I have documented the most complex algorithms (reverse from julian day) in the Julian day article (initially I rewrote wrote them in French Wikipedia, then I translated them back to English).
Due to the complexity of those algorithms, we should keep things simple but still correct, by using the now working and optimized templates.Do you see an error in the templates I made ?
My recent modifications today are handling now obvious calc bugs (results incorrect for some dates), and are generalizing the templates for wider use.
Sincerely, Philippe. verdy_p 15:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ordinal date

I reverted a recent change you made, please take a look at it's talk. — xaosflux Talk 00:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:JULIANDAY.JULIAN

Hello, could you please take a look at Template talk:JULIANDAY.JULIAN. Thanks. --5ko 12:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] TfD nomination of Template:CURRENTHOUR

Template:CURRENTHOUR has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. っ 03:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

It was not necessary to delete it. It was there for:
* completeness, and for allowing support on other versions of the MediaWiki software without a builtin implementation.
* documentation purpose, allowing to to link related templates that are not built into the software.
The server, when it implements the template natively uses its builtin implementation and the template itself is not used. So the presence of the template has a null cost on pages using it! The deletion did not improve performance of pages using it because they already use the builtin template when supported.
verdy_p 17:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
And please use my MAIN user talk page on French Wikipedia. I am rarely connected directly with my account on English Wikipedia, so I did not see your notice...
So remember this: fr:Discussion Utilisateur:verdy_p.

[edit] Minor edits

Please remember to mark your edits as minor when (and only when) they genuinely are minor edits (see Wikipedia:Minor edit). Marking a major change as a minor one (and vice versa) is considered poor etiquette. The rule of thumb is that only an edit that consists solely of spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a 'minor edit'. Thanks! You probably need to change your preferences. Edits summaries would be useful too. I don't for example understand your intentions behind your recent edits associated with Category:Culture of Oceania - I would have expected a discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion before this edit. (I will repost at French wikipedia as per your note on this page) --Golden Wattle talk 22:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Those are really minor edits, without much change (ordering the categories to solve red links, and to group together synonym categories according to naming conventions). This allows finding the related articles through those categories (along several orthogonal search axises).
All of them are in Samoa/Polynesia, and I have sorted some categories relate to culture.
verdy_p 22:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Regarding "Culture of Oceania", it was correct until I found that there was a second category named "Oceanian culture", so I had to merge them... verdy_p 22:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation but edit summaries would have been nice and almost certianly appropriate, particularly when it comes to merging categories.--Golden Wattle talk 22:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FA nomination for California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush article has been nominated for Featured article status. If you would like to comment on this nomination, please go here to leave your comment. To leave a comment on that page, click the [edit] link to the right of the title California Gold Rush.NorCalHistory 21:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Flemish' article, or 'Flemish' as disambiguation page + 'Flemish (terminology)'

Hi. A few months ago you did some drastic editing with respect to languages and dialects, in the article Flemish. Meanwhile the page has of course evolved further. You will see that I weeded out some inaccuracies, but maintained the concept that you had introduced. Last week however, I was in a mean discussion and edit war trying to preserve the article. There is now a proper proposal to move the article, and to make 'Flemish' a straightforward disambiguation page. Please, have a good look into the Talk:Flemish in general before stating your opinion in its 'Requested move' section. Kind regards.
[P.S.: Note that the older history of 'Flemish' is found as the history of for the moment a redirect page 'Flemish (terminology)': see here] — SomeHuman 20 Dec 2006 20:41-20:58 (UTC)

[edit] Sudden growth of ceb-wp

Hi there,

I am Bentong Isles, a minor editor here at en-wp. I am the bureaucrat and sole admin of ceb-wp. I appreciate your taking time to bring to our attention the sudden growth in our wp. We thought no one noticed ;)

Before the importation of the articles about the French communes, there were only three "regulars" to ceb-wp: Harvzs; Edgar Godin, a friend of mine who is the associate editor of Bisaya Magasin, the prime literary magazine in our language; and myself. Mr. Godin is an expert on Cebuano literature, being in the field for most of his life, but he always forget to log in before he adds his articles to ceb-wp, so that's why he is credited as an anonymous user. Harvzs is busy uploading translated stubs about Philippine towns. I am in charge of translating the interface and generally popularization efforts of ceb-wp.

The French commune articles were uploaded by myself. The first three thousand articles or so were uploaded using my own account name, then I realize that other users edits are being hidden by that, and they do not have the option of hiding my edits, so I created a bot to do the repetitive tasks for me. The articles are translated from Italian stubs.

I've checked with Wikimedia policies, and correct me if I am wrong, but there is no policy against importation of articles by bot, so I did myself and the ceb-wp community a favor by uploading the files. Ceb-wp does not have a policy on bots too, but during the last few weeks I've sent requests to bot users to have a request filed for their bots to be flagged as bots so as to hide their edits.

On the other hand, the sudden increase of the number of users can be partly attributed by my using the community of Cebuano wikipedians here on the English Wikipedia as base. User:Pinay09 and another Cebuano user whose name escape my memory of the moment are two of those who were originally active here on en-wp (they still are) but have shifted some of their resources to the "upliftment" of ceb-wp. Hopefully they'll stay.

As to the picture of Sheryn Regis which appeared as part of a featured article, I will check with Mark, the user who wrote that article in our wp. AFAIK, the same picture is used on the artists page here at en-wp. Mark is (acording to himself) the online p.r.o. for Regis.

Thanks! And merry Christmas!

--Bentong Isles 07:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It's User:Pinay06 and not 09. Sorry for the mistake. The other user is User:Emperork. --Bentong Isles 07:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] move

I have moved Setting up your browser for Indic scripts to User:Verdy P/vedic. Please move it to Wikibooks or the help: namespace as appropritae. -- RHaworth 10:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I wrote it there because it is referenced directly by the Telugu edition of Wikipedia, at top of its page (look at the message which says "if you can't read Telugu "click here"), and there's no way to change this reference because it is part of the installation of this Wiki (and not in a user-editable part)!
You should not have move it ! Please look at the Telugu Wikipedia! verdy_p 10:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I have reverted your immediate move and delete (the immediate delete was really unjustified!) You should have first checked the provided link. verdy_p 10:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Note: the text is minimal, it should relaly contain a link effectively to a more complete article, but until then, we need something with this title. So don't delete it! I can't speak Telugu, so I can't ask to Telugu Wikipedia admins to modify their installation. verdy_p 10:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
also I don't like that you move an article which is not for me, into my own namespace. I am not a Telugu Wikipedia admin. verdy_p 10:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want me to look at the Telegu Wikipedia, provide a link to it! The article was written by you, where else should I have moved it? -- RHaworth 10:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I have provided the link! Please read... verdy_p 11:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The link at the top of each page in the Telegu Wikipedia is: a) to te:వికీపీడియా:Setting up your browser for Indic scripts not to the English Wikipedia, b) it is in the వికీపీడియా: namespace not the (Main) namespace of the Telegu Wikipedia. So why do you claim that here it must be in the (Main) namespace? -- RHaworth 11:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Well it was just changed... I can ensure you that I have followed the link that was proposed there just one minute before I dropped the small note; that's exactly when I noted that it was created on the English Wikipedia.
So it's highly probably that the Telugu wiki has been updated to point to its own page (in English), instead of the page that was previously in the English Wikipedia. Look at the creation date: the page was just imported, with a notice asking to Telugu uysers to NOT translate it from English!
So now that the Telugu wiki was updated, you can delete the page on the english Wiki... I see no inconvenience... verdy_p 11:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Conclusion: I have NOT made anything wrong. Only admins on telugu have pointed the incorrect page. Look at the hostory of the Telugu page: the change is noted by someone else, which is an admin there! verdy_p 11:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Rand

Hi Verdy, I translated your function for the de:WP (see de:Vorlage:Zufallszahl) replacing the MOD function, as de:WP does not have it. I experience some problems in occasionally getting negative numbers witch seems to be a sign overflow to me. Are you aware of any such problems. Thanks --Farino 17:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware of this problem with the builtin (bogous) mod operator, and that's why I have also used Template:Mod that documents the various critical cases where mod is bogous. If you use Template:Mod, you won't get the sign error! verdy_p 04:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Note that negative overflows when computing the integer additions are expected within this template. This is not a bug. But overflows shuold disappear when computing the final modulo. Unfortunately, the mod operator does not respect the contract, and returns modulo values that may be negative and not of the same sign as its second operand. I've corrected your German adaptation: x mod y can return only values between -y+1 and y-1, but when it is negative, you can add y to get the correct value; if the result is positive adding y will overflow but taking the modulo y will substract y again so you'll get the mathematical modulo expected by this template. verdy_p 04:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Your help was much appreciated. It would have taken me months to sort this out. If I can ever help you with something in the de:WP let me know. --Farino 18:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image Height/Width only

Hey - I saw your comment on the main page discussion where you listed your template found here - but I have a few qs if you don't mind.

  • Is this usable on English Wikipedia?
  • Where do you say what the image is?

I appreciate any help you can give!--Daniel()Folsom T|C|U 22:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

You can copy it of course (this is permitted by the Wikipedia GFDL licence!). There's an English translation on Commons (named Template:ImageWidth).
Look at the links from this Wiki: fr:Modèle:LargeurImage, or commons:Template:ImageWidth.
It is currently used to display the Picture of the Day here fr:Wikipédia:Image du jour using coherent image sizes.
Note that you don't have to specify the image. The parameters are just the actual image sizes, and the template computes an image width for use within an Image link; you still have to create the image link separately, with the optional alignment parameter, thumb parameter, or description parameter... Look at examples in the French pictures of the day... which is formatted using fr:Modèle:ImageDuJour.
The effect of this template is to apply a maximum size constraint to the image so that it will fit within a symetric Saint-Andrew Cross (similar to the Swiss flag), whose minimum and maximum sizes are specified. In all cases, the returned image width will never be larger than the original image width (if the original image size is too small, it is kept unchanged, to avoid bad-looking growth with fuzy pixels, or visible squares. For scalable SVG images, instead of specifying the original image sizes you may specify any multiple of its natural sizes without problem. For bitmap images, the sizes specified should those of the original image, as seen in its description page...
verdy_p 04:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] EUMETSAT

Do you work there? --Ysangkok 21:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No.... Sorry... Not even for a member meteorological agency. What I included is public data (I cite the references found). verdy_p 04:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Ptolemy_sine_proof.svg (SVG file, nominally 460 × 460 pixels, file size: 2 KB)

Hi Thanks for doing this - clarity is considerably improved compared to my original diagram. Neil Parker (talk) 18:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] French phonology

I am not convinced that your changes to this article are an improvement. Please add references for the statements you've added. Joeldl (talk) 09:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me see if I can't take your edits one by one
  1. You said in an edit summary "There's ample enough references everywhere (just listen French records, TV, radio, music, cinema...)" but these are not references. These are what's called "primary sources" and we generally frown upon using them. In addition, for someone unfamiliar with the French language, they will not illustrate your point. You need secondary resources like linguistics books and articles. Dictionaries can work, though they can be oversimplistic in regards to phonetic attributes.
How can a printed book or article display the phonetic? Audio records are more convinceable than written articles, notably if they are written by non-native French speakers leaving in a non-French speaking country, and citing their own references about old French as spoken in the 19th century. verdy_p (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. You added "when this is differenciated, the back vowel is just made longer than the front one but positioned identically." Whether this is true or not it is uncited; you added it between a cited claim and its citation, making it seem as though this was cited.
  2. You added a paragraph about the distinctions between /e/ and /ɛ/. This information is already covered in the article.
No, it was not correctly covered.
Anyway there's another formatting problem: you need more text above the first table to avoid the blank area above (due to the infoboxes on the right. verdy_p (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. You added a paragraph about the distinction between /ə/, /œ/ and /ø/. The distinction between /œ/ and /ø/, as well as length allophony, are already covered. The claim that speakers can't see any distinction between schwa and /œ/ is uncited. Also, don't expect to find a reputible source arguing that "schwa is certainly the least understood phoneme by native speakers, because it has very variable realisations." Just because you can't explain the distribution of phones doesn't mean that native speakers don't understand a phoneme. In fact, it's more likely the opposite. The claim that the vowels in "le bœuf" /lə bœf/ or "demi-heure" /dəmjœʁ/ are pronounced identically or swapped is uncited.
I can claim that those three vowels are extremely frequently mixed, with /œ/ being realized either as /ə/ or /ø/. The only real difference betwen the schwa /ə/ and /œ/ is that the former can become completely mute in fast speech and often too in normal speech, or short in slow speech, when the later cannot be mute or abbreviated as it is in fact longer (and should occur only as /œ:/. verdy_p (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Everything else is formatting stuff, which I don't necessarily disagree with (though, really, putting quotes in the syntax of the table doesn't make any difference in its appearance so you needn't go out of your way to change that). My comment on the table wasn't on your choice, it was more on the awkward formatting. I'll fix it for you. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Which quotes? I see no added quote. verdy_p (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I was referring to quotation marks. So in the table if it said
align=center
and you put
align="center"
it makes no difference on the table. The only reason it seems like I'm undoing it is because I'm either making blind reverts or, as in my most recent edit, working from full reverts and adding information.
I've moved most of the information that you added to the proper sections. They have citation requests on them now. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, but these quotes are nearer from the XML and HTML syntax; it was not to make things less readable.
One of my formatting also wanted to merge table cells that make the same row into a single line, as it is certainly clearer like that to edit than a long vertical list of cells with few characters per line, which is needed only in case of complex formatting where all can't fit clearly on a single line where cell separation is not easy to see.
verdy_p (talk) 19:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
If you'd like, go ahead and edit the table with the quote marks and the items in a single line. I'll make an effort not to undo it. You're right about needing more text before the vowel table, I'll see if I can't figure something out. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I noticed you changed the example from ses to passé. I'm quite surprised of your claim that ses doesn't have a close-mid [e] (you said "open e" in your edit summary, but I believe you mean "close e" as this is how linguists refer to it). The example comes from Fougeron & Smith (1993) which was reprinted in 1999 presumably with no changes. The nice thing about ses was that it was a minimal pair with sait. Can you think of any other minimal pairs between the two? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
The comment was sent when I was correcting it. But it's true the "ses" is not a conclusive word (not even ces which is pronounced identically). It used to be prononced with a closed e (like 'é') but is now most frequently prononced with an open e (like 'è'), and ALWAYS as an open e when there's a liaison (''ses amis : [sɛ_za.mi] but ses parents [se pa.rɑ̃] or more frequently now [sɛ pa.rɑ̃] ...) Vor this reason, it's best to avoid it in examples and use more definitive words.verdy_p (talk) 20:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I like the table that you've included in regards to vowel length, but I have issue with your use of the stress marker and your claims about stress. As it stands right now, the article contradicts itself and your claims are unsourced. The source may be from 1968 but it's backed up in Anderson (1982) (this is discussed in the talk page). Labeling French words with stress markers is misleading as the stress is only there when the words are uttered in isolation. Otherwise the stress depends on the word's placement in a given phrase or utterance.
No contradiction, and I explained it in the last paragraph (which also explains that the phonological stress is most often marked by a phonetic distinctive tone). It also says something really important in French: stress is MUCH, MUCH less marked than in English, in fact it is most frequently marked by tonality. Anderson speaks about pure phonology (related to meaning), not much about the mapping between phonology and the actual phonetics (which varies a lot according ro regional accents).
I've tried to mix phonology and phonetics, but if you just speak about phonologic stress, you're missing the point that it does not necessarily means a phonetic stress. verdy_p (talk) 00:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, can you justify using the dot separator for syllables? It seems unnecessary to me and how you've put it may even be correct in cases with final [ʁ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
The dot is standard in IPA for marking syllabic breaks. There's no dot in phonetic, but dots exist in phonology, as they mark how the vocal speech is parsed by auditors. Syllable breaks are either dots (between syllables of the same word), or spaces (between words without liaison), but the connecting lower sign (between words with liaison) joins phonemes from two separate words that create a single phonetic syllable (but no true syllable) where a space would be otherwise written.
All French dictionnaries (Larousse, Robert, Littré, Académie française, as well as American ones) display the phonology using dots separators between phonetic syllables. They don't attempt to note the phonetic due to variable accents, even though they designate this notation as "phonetic". That's why it is given between [square brackets] and not /slashes/. verdy_p (talk) 00:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I've started a discussion at Talk:French phonology. We shouldn't be the only ones to discuss the issue of stress. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, but syllabic separation is part of phonology. You may omit it but this is just for simplified phonology. Syllable breaks play a big role in French, even if they are not most often not realized phonetically in normal speech.
That's why i wanted dots, spaces, and elision marks in the [phonologic] notation but not in the /phonetic/ notation that is NOT unique in French (also not unique in English) due to accents.
In /phonetic/ notation, pauses are marked only when they are realized, and the effective realization of all vowels and consonnants need to be specified, as well as the effective regional accents.
When you use the [phonologic] notation, there's no difference between the regional variants of French, because it is highly standardized (that's why it is prefered in dictionaries): it is generally the same between France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and Africa, even if the exact phonetic is different.
In rare cases, the French dictionnaries may exhibit several phonologies (for example with monsieur) but one is generally much more widely used and the other is "antic"; a homographic few words have two phonologies that are described in separate lemmas because they are not synonyms and not necessarily with the same grammatical nature (example: fils can be [fis] and phonetically /fiːs/ or /fis/ if non-final in sentence, meaning "son(s)" in singular or plural, or [fil] and phonetically /fiːl/ in isolation or /fil/ in non final position, meaning "thread(s)" in singular or plural; they should also be distinct phonetically). Here again, the phonology translates the actual meaning and differenciation effectively made in the vocal speech. verdy_p (talk) 00:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
You seem to be confused at times about the brackets vs slashes. Slashes are for phonemes. When you're talking about phones (including allophones) brackets are appropriate. Saying that [ʁ] has a wide range of realizations and then listing those with slashes is backwards (also, btw, the phrase "The French rhotic" is used deliberately in place of any symbols to be neutral. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Well this is the convention used in French books. May be it is reversed in English books... verdy_p (talk) 06:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
This is IPA usage. If you're just looking at dictionaries they might have an idiosyncratic system. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
In that case everything is reversed in the English article... and all the phonology notations given for words should be in slashes, not brackets where liaisons and syllable breaks or word separation in sentences makes little sense... Notably because the example words all have several phonetic realizations that depend on accent and context of use and also because the stress marks which are given for the phonology are not realized as stresses by most French speakers. So when you reverted these changes, you should have done it everywhere, not just the few locations that I had changed. verdy_p (talk) 06:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
There are a number of things I haven't undone or fixed because I'm waiting for you (or someone) to comment on the stress situation. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 08:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
What are you doing? These are fundamentally incorrect:
  • /mɛː.tʁ(ə)/ /ˈbʁaː.v(ə)/the schwa's presence is conditioned (so it shouldn't be in parentheses, the long vowel is a conditioned variant, and the syllable break is unnecessary (French doesn't contrast CVC.V with CV.CV)
Syllables are fundamental in French for its understanding, and correct pronunciation, adaptation of rythm, just like punctuation. The orthography is attempting to match the phonology (with lots of exceptions), but speaking about syllables at the phonetic level is absurd. it is necessarily at the phonologic level. verdy_p (talk) 00:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • /pwa.ˈɲɛ/, /ʒə fə.ˈʁe/ syllable break shouldn't be there, stress is not phonemic in French.
In that case there can be no stress mark at all at the phonetic level, because it is not marked or realized phonetically as stress but using tone or rythm (alternance of long or short vowels or inclusion of pauses), most of the time. This is highly variable across accents, but what is constant at the phonologic level is the position where it is marked after parsing the language at a syllabic level. It's imposible to predict in French *how* stress will be realized phonetically, or even if it will be realized, but it's just possible to predict *where* it will occur (because this conditions the mutual easier understanding between speakers and autditors of various regions, as they'll determine where words are separated. Note that the last non mute syllable is the most important in all French words, and that's why the accents present at end of words are given stronger importance in French sorting than accent differences at the begining of words). verdy_p (talk) 00:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • /ˈsœːʁ/ long vowels aren't phonemic in French.
Maybe it's not about slashes brackets. Maybe you don't understand some basic concepts in phonology like a phoneme, allophone, conditioned variant. Also see minimal pair, complementary distribution, and morphophonology — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Yo uare assuming things, the only disagreement we had was about the convention to use between /pho.no.lo.gic notation/ (where syllables make sense) and [PhoneticRealizations] (where the syllable breaks don't make sense, and even the separation of words, due to the many liaisons that French has): that's because most French books are reversing the slashes or brackets. But I've always said that dictionnaries DON'T display the actual phonetic of words, but concentrate on the phonology, and they note in this notation where the stress is present, where the conditional schwa (or optional phonems) is present between parenthese, and where each syllable is delimited.
And you're wrong at another point: there are contrasting CVC.V with CV.CV in French !!! Notably between radicals and prefixes/suffixes, or with the many compound/agglutinated words that French has (independantly of the reformed orthography that is removing the written hyphen, because it has never been marked vocally). And this gets even more complex when you see that French incorporates words or radicals coming from lots of languages (not just Latin and Greek, but also various Indo-European languages, Arabic, and now more frequently words borrowed from South and East Asian languages). This contrast between CVC.V and CV.CV is part of inderstanding and also conditions the orthography. It also reveals the actual meaning of words and dictionaries are separating *at least* the prefixes/radicals/suffixes, not just at the orthographic entry, but also in the phonetic notation to show how words or each part of the word can be separated (after this, there's free variation posible of tonality, pauses, lengths between the syllables, as long as the last non mute syllable remains marked distinctly, something that is different from the English phonologic stress which is also a phonetic stress. verdy_p (talk) 00:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
May be you think that syllable breaks should be part of morpho-phonology. However adding another layer on top of morphology is not productive in French: words have a single phonology, even if they have distinct phonetic realizations; and trying to create an inventory with multiple phonologies mapped from a top-level morphophonology just complicates things, as French will not recognize the lower-level morphology you create, but just the top-level.
You have to understand that French comes from a standardization and unification of lots of regional dialects, and is more recent in the history than English, the phonologic system adopted tries to simplify things and then the orthography was standardized from this systemic phonologic system. Even if regional differences are disappearing now, it remains that there's ample enough variation in actual pronunciation, and trying to match all of them distinctly at the phonologic level makes absolutely no sense.
So remember this: the phonology is normative in French, not the phonetic, and it's the same phonology that is used for giving the meaning of sentences (there is also other semantic information in the variations, that translate the intention or emotion of the speaker, but they are not written orthographically outside basic punctuation, but even the punctation is also largely normalized because French would be quite hard to read and understand without it). verdy_p (talk) 00:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Last note to you Ƶ§œš¹ directly: I do not appreciate your way of participating, when you are appropriating an article about a language you don't even know a bit, and when all you can do is just revert, i.e. destroy, abruptly contributions by others, without even finding any evidence that there's something wrong.
Things are certainly missing or may be explained, but your way of participating here is just destructive, and blocks all cooperation.
Unlike you, I have NOT deleted things made by others, I can improve what I create, others can modify what I do or improve it, but you systematic destruction (even if you are calling this "partial revert", in fact this is wrong you are reverting everything in several steps, forgetting to reinsert even the evident corrections that were made) is unacceptable.
I see that you are doing this for every article speaking about phonetics and phonology, even when they are trying to do something for the many languages you don't know. Your contribution is probably appreciate to help fixing the convention (i.e. technical), but don't remove things about languages you don't know. The English wikipedia is FULL of errors when it presents other languages than English, because it assumes too many things according to the English usage, and if others are doing like you, that cannot even verify what is written in the articles maintained in the other native editions of Wikipedias (where there are lots of others sources, but not restricted to English sources only), then the English Wikipedia will be counterproductive and will be still considered as a source of false information. verdy_p (talk) 01:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
French phonology will fundamentally discuss the phonetic attributes of sounds. I can see how the syllable breaks are notable for French because of the ways in which liaison affects the position of consonants. Liaison is a phonological process, meaning that somewhere between the mental construct of a word (given in slashes) and the actual sounds coming out of a speaker's mouth (given in brackets) a phonological process determines the position of consonants. This is my understanding of French phonology that I've gotten from reading about French. You apparantly disagree, so give me an example of a contrast between VC.V vs V.CV
You say "In that case there can be no stress mark at all at the phonetic level..." That's what I've been arguing for. Are we then in agreement?
I'd hardly call what I'm doing destructive. If my way of participating hasn't fostered cooperation, then we've been cooperating in spite of it. Look at how much of your edits I've moved and cleaned up. You've been here long enough to know that Wikipedia relies on sources, not on ethos. As such, you've cited nothing and referred only to dictionaries in the talk pages. the citation requests are there to give you or other editors a chance to cite. It shouldn't take too long to cite them. Maybe you should tell me how much time you need to cite. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that you're supposed to use English on talk pages, but here I'm going to make a brief exception. Verdy P, j'ai vu le résumé suivant d'une de vos modifications:

restoring the deleted note about the palatal nasal. Attested EVERYWHERE (printed or online dictionnaries, also French Wikipedia and Wikiktionary). You don't know French !!

Je crois qu'il est grand temps que vous vous pliiez à la règle du jeu quand un autre contributeur vous demande de justifier vos affirmations, en présentant vos sources. Sur la Wikipédia anglophone, nous tolérons assez mal les affirmations non-sourcées. Vous avez peut-être bien le français pour langue maternelle, mais cela ne vous rend pas pour autant omniscient. Il me semble en particulier que l'affirmation selon laquelle gn ne se prononcerait « encore » [ɲ] que « dans quelques régions » reflète assez mal la réalité. Peut-être ai-je tort là-dessus, mais seule une discussion fondée sur des sources scientifiques, et non sur votre qualité de francophone, le démontrera. En attendant, je vous invite à faire preuve d'un peu plus de respect envers un contributeur qui ne vous demande rien de plus que de faire votre devoir en tant que contributeur, et qui, soit dit en passant, a déjà fait énormément pour améliorer le contenu de la Wikipédia anglophone en matière de langues. Joeldl (talk) 03:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

J'ai mentionné les sources: n'importe quel site de news TV ou radio française, ou chanson française montrera à l'auditeur (peut-être pas au lecteur qui cherche encore des références bibliographiques anciennes qui discutent plus de la théorie que de la pratique de la langue) que "gn" n'est pratiquement plus prononcé en France de l'ancienne façon. Tout le monde ou presque prononce [nj], et c'est plutôt les exemples où on prononcerait encore [ɲ] qui sont presque impossibles à trouver et entendre (je me demande bien où on la prononce effectivement, un accent du Sud ? L'accent de Marseille n'est pas la norme la plus courante et tent aussi à s'effacer) ! Je veux bien admettre que cette ancienne prononciation existe encore (puisqu'elle a été attestée dans la littérature ancienne), cependant je ne pense pas qu'il faille laisser faire croire que c'est la prononciation par défaut. Il n'y a aucune différence audible entre "panier" (le nom), "nier" (le verbe), "Rénier" (famille princière de Monaco) d'une part et d'autre part "reigner" qui utiliserait soit-disant un [ɲ]. A la limite on peut seulement admettre une différence quand c'est en position finale suivie d'un e muet. Mais "gnou" ou "biniou" sont identiques. Quant à "gnome" ce n'est pas prononcé comme le digraphe mais comme deux consonnes rapprochées [gn] mais audibles distinctement (avec le [n] souvent affibli mais le [g] est toujours bien là et non fusionné) et pas comme [ɲ]. "les rognons" et "nous renions" sont aussi identiques, de même "rognait" et "reniait"...
Bref des références il y en a des miliers et sans limitation, elles sont innombrables, on n'a que l'embarras du choix. verdy_p (talk) 01:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Sin

Template:Sin has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. —Remember the dot (talk) 05:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)