Talk:Deletionpedia

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Yavapai

Hey, can you tell me where the photos in the Croatian Yavapai article came from, so I could use them in the English article? Cheers! Murderbike 18:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! Does that user speak English? My Croatian level is set at zero. Murderbike 22:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Bosniaks and Slavic peoples

Hello Ivan. Just so you know, that 77.78 guy is a disruptive troll and sockpuppeteer. Discussion with him will provide no results, only more of the same crap that he has been filling the talk pages of Slavic peoples and Bosniaks with. Regards, BalkanFever 12:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh I see. Thanks for the notice. Now it appears to me that they would be most satisfied if evidence pointed to Bosniaks as direct descendants of Ottoman Turks, or even better - Arabs themselves. It's very sad to see how much religion an war can distort one's reasoning. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Čakavian

Ivan, I am very sorry. I appear to have made a mistake on my own behalf regarding Chakavian. At the precise second of writing, it stands as I last reverted it; I don't know if you are in the process of reverting it back but don't worry, as I had planned to rewrite my own revision anyhow. What is important is that I communicate the message which I'd originally wished to emphasise.

When I stated that Chakavian is only spoken by Croats, I was only referring to that what a number of Croatian editors have themselves said in the past. I never tagged their statements demanding a citation and I know that one would be hard pressed to find one anyhow as its nature is "proving the negative." I simply took their word for it as a gentleman. Now you seem to know more about it than I do; I'm more inclined to believe you when you state that there are non-Croat exponents of the dialect. Any why not? With a minor percentage of Croatia's population declaring regional affiliation as ethnic identity (most notable, a notable population within Istria); there are bound to be speakers from other named ethnicities.

But I notice that in addition to my statement, it did state further down the paragraph that Chakavian speakers are all recorded as ethnic Croat. It isn't really the point I was trying to get across.

Firstly, I realise now that neither Croatian Kajkavian nor Chakavian are confined to Croatia, as both dialects are spoken by populations who migrated to remote areas, and in turn developed separately in territories where the surrounding population has either spoken a non-Savic language, or a distantly related Slavic language (thus not threatning its distinct identity).

The reason I take issue with "Chakavian is a dialect of Croatian" is for another technical reason: standard languages (in this case, Croatian) are themselves only dialects, or stylised compilations of variant forms which were in existence long before the concept of a standard language ever emerged. So to state that "X is a dialect of Y" is to say that one dialect is a dialect of another dialect. Dialects by nature pertain to regional variations (ie. non-standard) except when addressing the standard form, but even then, its standard status is not what is being taken into consideration given that it is being referred to as a dialect.

Sadly, the ugly face of politics pretrudes everywhere. I only wish to reduce it or minimalise it all together. For instance, take Greek. There is possibly as much variation among the speakers of Greek as there is from one South Slavic extreme (eg. Slovene) to the other (eg. Bulgarian, depending which way you go). Because speakers of all related dialects identity soley as Greek, just about any Hellenic dialect can be said to be a dialect of Greek even though the dialects of Greek Macedonia are completely unintelligible to the dialects of Cyprus, and the islands such as Crete. Cyprus is another country but its Hellenic population identifies as Greek and standard Greek is its national language.

With the South Slavic people and languages, it is more complicated. Our situation closer resembles Central and Western Europe whereby Germanic and Romance dialects and populations smoothly run into each other and along the fringes, there is perpetual disagreement among local nationalists as to whether ones region belongs to the country it is in (eg. Piedmont as viewed by Italians), another bordering region (eg. Piedmont as viewed by the French), or should it and adjacent areas stand independent of all predatory countries who surround it? (eg. Piedmont as traditionally viewed from within).

Never the less, here is what I wish to state about Chakavian (this is what we already know and do not dispute). The same may be said of Kajkavian, but I'll focus on Chakavian here:

• 1. The hub of Chakavian is contained within Croatia (ie. Chakavian's position in relation to adjacent dialects) though it has been carried out of Croatia and continues to be spoken in remote countries.
• 2. As Croatian is treated as a language in its own right distinct from the Bosnian and Serbian even though all were based on Shtokavian when it came to standardising Serbo-Croat, it must also be realised that any non-Shtokavian form must also be treated as a different language rather than dialect. Otherwise, it misleads unfamiliar observers into thinking that the Chakavian is closer to Standard Croatian than Standard Bosnian and Serbian, which it definitely is not. Then along the same lines, one will certainly take Kajkavian to be closer to Croatian than it is to Slovenian which is even more absurd given Slovenia's small size and own Kajkavian basis. The suggestion that Kajkavian is closer to the vernacular of Dubrovnik than Ljubljana is not held by anyone.
• 3. Perhaps a note should be made that the Chakavian dialect is also the speech form for other ethnic communities who declare their language as they do their ethnic group. Given the dialect chain, this is acceptable. Likewise it works two ways, ethnic Croats may call their local dialect Croatian everywhere they live. This in turn encompasses the local dialects of Croats in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Vojvodina and Kosovo, as well as Romania (ie. for the last two, I refer to the Torlak dialect).

You see, Ivan, in multi-ethnic scenarios where-by various nationalities are used by individuals of the same linguistic background, it is inconsiderate and disenfranchising to speak of a dialect as being the property of one language named after a distinct ethnic group. I know it is complicated, but all I ask you is: how do we go about rewriting the passage to explain everything I mentioned and everything else that needs to be mentioned? (such as where I may be in part mistaken). I'll be glad to hear your views and for us to construct the passage together with one mind rather than two opponents. Evlekis (talk) 16:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Several points:

• It's absurd to claim that Chakavian is "Croatian-only" in a sense "spoken and has been spoken/written only by people who declare(d) themselves as ethnically/culturally Croats". Ethnolinguistic grouping makes sense for isolated tribes of Papua New Guinea and Amazonia, not for Slavic languages who all both 1) form one big dialect continuum at their regionally confined areas and 2) have been over the centuries subject to major population exchanges, unfavourable political regimes that have forbidden or manipulated language names' for various purposes, or nationalist awakening movements during which people in their lifetime changed their political affiliations, sometimes even several times (I've read about one old Macedonian who had surnames in -ski, -čki and -ovski ^_^). Most of the material of what is nowadays classified as medieval literary Chakavian is never called "Chakavian" by it's authors (regional names were prevalent, which are nowadays of course completely anachronistic).
• The partitioning to standard/nonstandard language (the former being a particular dialect with proscribed orthography/orthoepy/grammar/lexis) is completely orthonal to the partitioning to dialects. Hence, the word Croatian can mean two things 1) codified Western Neo-Shtokavian as a basis of Croatian standard language 2) in it's broader sense, the common "speech" of people who declare themselves as Croats in all it's glorious regional varieties. This latter form of speech is then dialectally decomposed, and there's where you get to the division point of Croatian with three major dialects of Chakavian, Kajkavian and Shtokavian. Hence no confusion, no self-defying illogical statements that "X is a dialect of a dialect". The same is valid for Greek dialects (all of New and Ancient Greek), as long you keep the division strict.
• I imagine that, what Croats that you mention had in mind when they said that "Chakavian is Croatian-only dialect", is that, given the dispute on "ethnic affiliation" that usually surrounds Neo-Shtokavian, there's no such on Chakavian; it has always been and is in it's absolute predominance used by Croats, both spoken as a vernacular or in it's written form as a literary language. At the same time, it exclusively belongs to the Croatian cultural heritage, and is in it's contemporary forms predominantly used by Croats and inhabitants of Croatia.
• it must also be realised that any non-Shtokavian form must also be treated as a different language rather than dialect. Otherwise, it misleads unfamiliar observers into thinking that the Chakavian is closer to Standard Croatian than Standard Bosnian and Serbian, which it definitely is not. - No, it's absurd to treat Chakavian and Kajkavian as "different languages" which they are certainly not. They're dialects in both the dialectology sense (where everything is a dialect) and standardological sense (where every dialect/regional variety is substandard). What's their position to standard Bosniak/Serbian is largely irrelevent, because they bare no affiliation to them (neither linguistic/genetic, nor regional). Again, I fail to see how some innocent reader might get confused that the Chakavian is closer to Standard Croatian than Standard Bosnian and Serbian, as the differences/similarities amongst those three have been abundantly explained in both separate articles (Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) and the introductory paragraph of articles dedicated to individual languages. Chakavian and Kajkavian have not been recognized as "separate languages" by any of the world's Slavic dialectal handbook that I know of, or by relevant standard-language-granting institutions (namely SIL/ISO 639-3). It would be misleading to both treat them as such, and to separate them from Shtokavian literary heritage, as all three dialects where "standard" in certain points of time, and equally contribute to Croatian literary heritage (there are even lots of instances of medieval works where all three dialects freely permeate each other, for the writer's purpose of trying to extend it's readership as far as possible).
• I agree on the third point as long as it's substantiated with citations, and it's made clear that it's just the name that those groups use. And may I remind you that the Croatian standard language is the official minority language in all countries that you mention (except for Bosnian and Herzegovina, where Bosniak/Croatian/Serbian are all equal by the constitution), and not some Slavic dialect that just happens to be called Croatian because their speakers happen to be ethnic Croats. The difference is subtle but important. Languages are indeed mostly named after ethnic groups (except for godly creations like Sanskrit ^_^), but that doesn't mean that ethnic groups own that language or the particular dialect in question. I can see the problem that the statement that "Chakavian is a Croatian-only dialect" can be interpreted as a nationalist claim, but would rather see the "Croatian" component refined in the connotations of it's historical significance and national literary heritage, which is much more important, than to see it cut down to "it's only Croatian in the sense of geographical distribution". --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You raise some very interesting points. First let me start by reminding you that since you had probably logged off the other evening when we first exchanged messages, I took the liberty of making an ammendment to my own edit which is how Chakavian stands at the minute. On principle however, given the points you made, and the message which I am trying to get across, it is fair to say that the introduction could be expanded to cover all the information. This is an encyclopaedia after all, and it is our duty to inform on this occasion. I agree with you that it requires far more than just a geographical association with Croatia, though it doesn't hurt to remind readers that as it is a link along a wider continuum that it is wholly within Croatia's borders, so long as we also explain its cultural significance with the name of a Croatian entity (people and territory); particularly when referring to the old dialect once used as a standard. Now you stated that nobody has ever considered it a separate language. Indeed they have not. Then again, nobody to analyse Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian classes them as separate languages in what they decrie to constitute "language". The only exception is those with politically based aspirations, and even they would sooner or later have to consider the position of Kajkavian and Chakavian, because it is more than just the word for "what" which is different in their domains. With Kajkavian, you can really see how the grammar and traditional vocabulary, as well as phonetical habits slowly "Slovenian-ise" to coin the term. But then again, as Slovene, Croatian and Serbian are all Western South-Slavic languages, you may find that some may scientifically see Slovene as forming a part of the same language. Personally, I don't, but then my conception of language (a term which at the best of times is not rigidly defined) doesn't always square with that of others. I'm just saying that for a speaker of Kajkavian to consider his own speech closer to the Neo-Shtokavian standard than Slovene is ridiculous. If all he does is use the word "kaj" in place of "što" but uses the rest of the vocabulary of Standard Croatian, then he is not truely speaking Kajkavian, and as you know, the Croatian neologisms (ie. those coined fro 1967 onwards) cannot truely apply to dialectal forms. Anyhow, it is not right to state that Chakavian, whilst having its importance in the Croatian cultural word, does (in your own words): bare no affiliation to them (neither linguistic/genetic, nor regional). "Them" being Serbs and Bosniaks. Well that is wrong for a start. Even extinct languages of Poland bare linguistic and genetic affiliation to modern-day Serbs and Croats simply for being Slavic. As for "regional", well, Chakavian territory is not in Serbia, I'll grant you that; but it is within a patch where Serbs live, and have lived for generations, and where they too are modern-day exponents of the speech form. But you already knew. If Serbian or Bosnian extremists had wanted to consider Chakavian territory as their unredeemed land as every nation does to some other region, it's their choice. Now if I can turn your attention to the Croats from outside Croatia; as you rightly say, they use Standard Croatian as an official language where possible. Indeed. But they also consider their own speech forms to be a "form of Croatian", even in Burgenland where it has developed independently for centuries. And why not? If they identify as "Croat" and have never switched language, only altered their own language (and language changes with time by nature), surely it is all right for them to call it Croatian; as with Greek (not Ancient, but Modern), many variations exist but only one Greek nation, not split into the tribal groups who fought against each other some millennia back; it means that there may linguistcly be five or six different Hellenic languages, but all forms of Greek. And ethnic Croats also consider their spoken language Croatian when they speak Torlakian, in Kosovo and in Caras-Severin of Romania. All that, even though Torlakian is closer to Bulgarian than Standard Croatian; but it is his language, as he is an exponent, and forms a part of its matrix: without him and his Croatian brethern, the language wouldn't be as it was and that would have a knock-on effect on other local Slavic people. And if that works one way, it works the other for other Slavic users of Chakavian. This is why the article needs to state the following (exemplary): Chakavian is a dialect of the Croatian language; the old dialect is an instrumental feature of traditional Croatian identity for XXX reasons. Although Chakavian is spoken entirely on present-day Croatian territory, it still forms a part of the South Slavic dialect continuum, and as such, other Slavic nations live there and are native speakers of Chakavian bla-bla-blah. Of course, if we look from a Pro-Serbian viewpoint; its writers too will say (as on Swedish Wikipedia) that "Serbian is spoken in all former Yugosla republics, and has three dialects (totally discarding that these might also be someone elses dialects), which are Shto-Kaj-and Cha-kavian bla bla blah." But you know that their own internal variations (eg. Vojvodina, Sandzak, Presevo Valley) are also the speech forms for Bosniaks, Croats, Bulgarians and others. So to say on the "Croatian language" page that Chakavian is Croatian is fine, but on the "Chakavian" page; whilst Croatian has the right to dominate, we need to mention its significance to other language groups. Evlekis (talk) 20:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Evlekis, thanks for your comments :) I think that you're still confusing language as a "standard language", and language as a "collection of dialects" (which could be quite extremely divergent in phonetics/accentology/lexis, as they are along the territory of Croatia or Slovenia). As I said, Croatian or Serbian in phrases Croatian dialects and Serbian dialects almost always refer to geographical designations, not ethnic (then they'd probably be worded as Croat dialects and Serb dialects). Again, beside geography, an important ingredient is the cultural/literary significance, as is the case with Chakavian/Kajkavian which are not incorporated into Serbian/Bosniak literary heritage (not even by the most hardline nationalists ^_^). I highly doubt that Torlakian-speaking Croats would, when speaking of their language as Croatian, refer nto something other than literary Croatian they should be exposed to in schooling/media. Unless there are dialectology books that corroborate the classification of Torlakian as Croatian or Chakvian as Serbian (real books, not some pan-Serbian nationalist pamphlets such as Slovo o srpskom jeziku ;), I don't think it should be pushed in the text as it would be clearly misleading.

Kajkavian (sub)dialects (in Croatian they're narječje, and their subdialects are dijalekti = "dialects" ^_^) do indeed share many similarities with Slovenian dialects, but it would be wrong and misleading to emphasize or insinuate in any way that the centuries of fine literature written in Kajkavian, from Habdelić to Krleža, are somehow "less Croatian" just because they're not Neo-Shtokavian (the basis of standard Croatian today).

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by neologisms coined from 1967 onwards (they're for the most part coined and actively used prior to Yugoslavias, but later where banned by commies/Serbs under the mask of being too "Ustasha"). Croatian linguists have centuries-long tradition of language purism, and many of their Slavic-roots coinages or native Croatian words have been adopted in Serbian/Bosniak (sažetak, posuda, prevoj (< prijevoj) etc.). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello again. I'll answer everything in reverse. About 1967, yes there was indeed a reintroduction of traditonal vocabulary entering the Croatian linguistic scene; many were in turn incorporated into the Croato-Serbian dictionaries as well: so much so that even "I" often, whilst talking with Serbs, choose some of those words as I prefer them for their Slavic roots. At the same time, certain words were coined. I refer to those for concepts which did not exist before the mid-ninteenth century when standard languages were emerging and plans were in place to unite Croats and Serbs as a Pan-Slavic linguistic entity. I doubt that you'll find texts containing Zrakoplov, Zračna Luka, Brzoglas, or others before the 1960's; then, I may be wrong, but there were definitely some terms which were coined from fresh. Historically, Serbs and other Slavs too have a history of not only using Slavic-root words, but the very same words as all other Slavic nations. Take the word nation, and you'll find a common form of narod (on birth) in all Slavic tongues, yet the concept of a nation dates back to about the 12th century, long after our ancestors settled where they are. Some centuries later, international came to mean among nations, and all Slavic peoples adopted međunarodno or its nearest equivalent (eg. Polish: Międzynarodowe, Ukranian Latinic: Mizhnarodne etc). This is clear evidence of both some form of mutual cooperation, and a yearning to "keep things Slavic" even though the related words had shifted phonologically. Then again, there is a centuries long tradition to borrow and hundreds of common Slavic words were not Slavic to begin: we borrowed from Iranian and from Old German, not to mention later in history when we'd come to take words from those who subjugated us: Venetians, Austrians, Hungarians, Ottomans etc. One common example is book (Knjiga) said to have been from Turkish, Older Turkish, reflecting a time that the Ancient Slavs crossed paths with Turkic tribes. Many years later, as Serbs would borrow books from a biblioteka, the Croatian equivalent knjižnica would take this non-Slavic root as its Pan-Slavic alternative. Such is life. Meanwhile, even modern Serbian (not Serbo-Croat) dictionaries list many of these pre-1967 Croatian words for much the same reason. If one had them, so did the other. These include glazba (still used as an adjective in glazbena agencija on the backs of Serbian folk CDs), plus zemljopis, sveučilište, and others. The names of the months of the year bare the same Serbian names when referring to their place in the Orthodox calendar. It is said that the Orthodox nations adopted januar, februar etc. when switching back to the common calendar. I know that Macedonian calendars still double-list the names, giving the tenth month as "oktomvri", but around the 14th, it is the 1st of listopad. The only Catholic exception is Slovene (which uses the conventional names), and the Orthodox exceptions are Belarussian and Ukranian (which use Slavic names). That's enough information for you here because I've gone way off-topic. I'm just saying that whilst usage may be different, many of our words exist in some form in all our modern languages. You can find a good corpus when entering these words into search engines. The ban on Ustasha suspected words was the work of a Communist assembly with some influence by doubtful Serbs. Not fair to class Serbs and Commies as two partners in crime! Anyhow, back to our original point. I've thought. I am now more inclined to agree with you than I had been previously. I believe that most Serbs from Croatia class their language "Croatian" and it probably works the same the other way. I see what you mean about "Croatian dialects" being geographical and "Dialects of the Croats" as being more ethnic. So fair enough, we'll present it exactly as it had been. If I may request one concession. Do you agree that it needs to be mentioned on the page that Chakavian & Kajkavian are also used as natural dialects for all Slavic ethnicities living on the lands? We'll otehrwise totally agree on their Croatian relevance. Evlekis (talk) 21:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree, the dialect spoken by Croats and all the other ethnicities living on the territory where Chakavian is spoken. It would be interesting to find the real numbers of speakers by ethnicity, but I presume that information would be extremely difficult to dig out.

zračna luka and zračno pristanište - enforced after the 90s, dunno when they were coined. Some people colloquially use zračna luka synonymously with aerodrom, but technically they mean different things. It was calqued out of well-established internationalisms (airport, aéroport, Flughafen etc.). But than again, in Yugoslavia you always had JAT's airplanes labeled with "jugoslovenski aerotransport" and never jugoslavenski aertoransport, so this is where this "separatism" probably originates ^_^.

Unsuccessful neologism brzoglas was coined sometime in the first decade of 20th century by Croatian linguist in the very same paper in which the modern word brzojav was coined, this latter one today being much more common than internationalism telegram. How one came to be successful and the other one not - that's the matter of sociolinguistics (or politics). zrakoplov was coined sometime in the 1880s judging from the earliest records in books.google.com and corpora search [1].

Common Slavic *narodъ originally meant "people" and "related people, of the same kin" (kin = *rodъ). In OCS it still meant "tribe, crowd, multitude, people". It was quite natural to overload it with the 19th century conception of the nation once the nationalist movements arose in Slavic lands. In Yugoslavia there was this distinction between narod and narodnost (=euphemism for ethnic minorities), but today, narod usually has ethnical connotations, esp. in phrases hrvatski narod and srpski narod. The modern concept of a "nation" is very different in multicultural West and the Balkans, otherwise we wouldn't have the subtle distinctions such as Serb and Serbian, Croat and Croatian. Elsewhere they just speak of being "American", "French", "German", whatever the ethnic origins ^_^. As for the međunarodni and similar calques - this are the result of centuries of the dominance of Latin in higher cultural life. Take for example the word utjecaj < calque of Late Latin influentia (whence also English influence). Calquing has been for centuries the most natural activity to coin new words based on Slavic roots. Slavic languages are mostly compatible in nominal morphology, so words would either spread unchanged or adapted, or the calques would be modeled after the calques in other Slavic languages. It was more like a "diffusion" than a "mutual coordination".

knjiga < CS *kъniga is not from Turkish but from an unknown Turkic source *kūinig, whence it amazingly came from Old Chinese küen (“‘scroll’”), kuin (“‘to roll up; a scroll; a book’”), where it was borrowed from some steppe language, originally tracing to Summero-Akkadian source kunukku "seal, tablet, certificate". There was no cuneiform (Latin cuneus 'wedge' itself also probably from the same source) writing in China, so the semantics of "book" arise. The same word spread all across Eurasia (Korean, Armenian, Uyghur etc.), so it's probably one of the most important words in the history of writing, and it would be insane to dump it just because it was mediated by Turkic tribe 1500+ years ago ^_^. Germanic borrowings are also numerous (from Gothic and OHG) in culturally significant spheres, and to some lesser extent also Iranian borrowings (early Slavic studies did terrible mistakes by assigning every CS word with /x/ (voiceless velar fricative) to some "unknown Iranian source", but we know today at least 2-3 different ways by which /x/ could arise phonologically predictable so these are much less present than people used to think. Indeed, the same "Iranian prejudice" is still present today in Slavists such Gołąb).

Serbian dictionaries can list zemljopis, sveučilište, glazba and other predominantly-Croatian words as "Serbian", no one can forbid them to do so. Serbian lexicographical tradition has from Karadžić's time the tradition of "all-inclusion" of everything actually used, while the Croatian is more inclined towards norming what should be used. For example, Anić's big Croatian dictionary has been severely criticized for including some Turkisms/Serbianisms that are both today marked as substandard, and haven't been in active use for a very long time. As for the native Slavic month names - they are really beautiful words and the Slavic nations that dumped them in favour of Latin ones under the influence of Orthodox Church did a terrible thing IMHO. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

en-2

Your English is much better than en-2. Even if your proffesion is linguist ;) Zenanarh (talk) 08:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps ;) But I understand Babel boxen more like a "I tend to converse in intermediate English, and would prefer you to do the same". --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Dalmatian language

How well are you familiar with it? Do you have some literacy about it? Is it well classified in Wiki (Western Romance?). I had a little conversation with Evlekis. Take a look please. I think its classification is a little bit bias (Italo-Dalmatian?). Zenanarh (talk) 13:50, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunatelly very little. General IE linguistics doesn't care much about Vulgar Latin progeny, since their common ancestor is so well documented. Moreover, I'm on holidays ATM and have no access to relevantly citable scholarly literature, for at least a month since now. I can promise you more help in the autumn however.

As for the classification, from my experience 99.9% of those WP language infoboxes simply mirror Ethnologue hierarchy, which itself does classify Dalmatian inside "Italo-Dalmatian" group [2]. If some notable scholars have voiced the opinion of Dalmatian more related to some other Romance branches, it should be noted in the article though. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Karadzic's "trial"

Karadzic comes from an anti-communist background. The regime would hardly give him a fair trial, and it doesn't matter how many authors regurgitate this so-called "evidence". --81.77.120.190 (talk) 14:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Petar Skok

Hi, I noticed that you removed the {{notability}} tag from the Petar Skok article earlier without really fixing the problem. While saying that he wrote the first real dictionary of Croatian etymology is an assertion of notability (and thus enough to save it from speedy deletion, you need to prove his notability as an academic in reliable sources. I understand that there is or was once a Petar Skok etymological conference- perhaps information relating to those conferences would be useful in doing this. I hope this can be of help! —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for detailing the purpose of that template ^_^ Actually there were 6 of those conferences held so far in his honour (last one in 2006) - I'll seek to expand the article more so that it becomes a bit more obvious that he is not "just another linguist" ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Glad to be of help! —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

South Slavic languages

Zdravo Ivan. You asked on the talk page for translations of the subdialectal terms, and I have done most of them. Would you be able to do the rest? You just need to convert the adjectives into nouns (i.e. place names); I couldn't find the names of the ones that I left out. Also, could you please cite some sources for the classification section? As I said, your explanation made sense, but I believe references are needed for passages containing "never" or "could have". Regards, BalkanFever^{not a fan? say so!} 11:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll look into it. What I added can all be found in the Matasović's book I added to to references section. He cites several works published in the 70s and 80s that proposed Proto-South-Slavic and Proto-Serbo-Croatian isoglosses, and lists some later research that proved all of them false. I'll look to expand it into separate section but it might get a bit "technical". I'd be very surprised to see that today someone still advocates South Slavic forming a "genetic node" (as opposed to being a geographical grouping), or draws some clear-cut lines among its dialect on some arbitrary "ethno-cultural" grounds.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:26, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough. Basically you can just copy Matasović's citations and add them after the passage they support, or even just use him as the inline reference. And technical should be fine :). BalkanFever^{not a fan? say so!} 11:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Re:See alsoes

"Flooding" articles with See also sections?! The articles didn't have a See also section so I added them, and I may add it was a lot of work. All the wikilinks are relevant and are certainly linked to the person in question. I've undertaken the task of standardizing the Ragusans articles and added the correct WikiProjects. I may have made many edits, but that's because I worked on a lot of articles. I must say I do not like your tone, please point out where I breached policy.--DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 13:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Um... NO

These writers are Ragusan/Croatian, ergo Dalmatian, and the article History of Dalmatia provides a perspective as to the wider context of these people's lives. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 16:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Asim Peco

Ivan, Thank you for your edits on this article. There's a lot written about Dr. Peco but it's in Serbian or Croatian, and my translation skills are poor. Any assistance in expanding the page is appreciated. Cheers, --Rosiestep (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Silesian language

Dear Ivan, You accused me User:84.205.177.180 of Vandalism in the topics related to Silesia. Please read my own corrections to these articles and the ones of LUCPOL. While he made much more contributions and is much more value to the site than I am, in this case he is only seeking implementing his own arbitrary views as official wikipedia doctrine. And this, not my attempts at stopping him, should be stopped. My corrections in general were not to banish the mention of Silesian as a separate language from wikipedia, but to assure that the fact that (Upper) Silesian language is considered a polish dialect will be mentioned as well. Thus my corrections were "a language, usually considered a polish dialect", "a language or dialect" etc. LUCPOL, on the other hand, is banning almost any mentions of Silesian being considered a polish dialect. Both stances should be represented in wikipedia, not just one. But LUCPOL does not accept that, for obvious reasons: he wants Silesian independance (check his page), and, thus, wants to ban any mention of links between Poles and Silesians. It's not me who should be warned, but him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.205.177.180 (talk) 18:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Answer: [3]. The most important arguments are in point 2 and 3. LUCPOL (talk) 19:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Insults in edit sumaries, POV

Please mind WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and WP:AGF. I am not a troll nor a banned user. Please do not push your POV using ad homminem attacks against other editors! 78.30.150.253 (talk) 12:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No, you're just one of the billion clones of User:PaxEquilibrium. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not PaxEquilibrium. You are wrong. 78.30.150.253 (talk) 12:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Zadar article

I have explained my main problems about the section "recent history". I feel that the article is one sided, and needs to be reviewed/discussed. I will ask other editors to participate too. 78.30.150.253 (talk) 13:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Nasalism

Hi again Ivan. I wanted to ask you: what is the best way to represent nasalism in Slavic? Apparently the Solun-Voden dialect retains OCS nasal vowels, but I'm not sure how to express this other than with н or м in brackets: ръ(н)ка, че(н)до, but that doesn't seem "correct". BalkanFever 11:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no (semi-)official orthography for writing those, or people are just using Bulgarian/Macedonian spellings but pronounce them differently? Is just back nasal vowel preserved (ѫ, ǫ), or also front nasal ѧ (ę) (I can't see this latter one anywhere)? Maybe it would be best to just transcribe them in Latin (dǫga, sǫbota..), or just use OCS symbol ѫ for illustrative purposes (even if people don't use it anymore).. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I think both are (it's in the history of the article, it was recently removed) but I don't know if the choice of orthography "ръ(н)ка" (hand) is meant to show that it is pronounced like rǫka. It may just be that the schwa (ъ) is nasalised, while the original back nasal was lost. This dialect is apparently the closest to that of Cyril and Methodius (assuming there is anyone left that speaks it) so it probably retains the ǫ. BalkanFever 11:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I've read that nasal vowels have been retained in some Bulgarian, Macedonian and Slovenian dialects, so this is probably it. Nasalization article claims that tilde is used to indicate nasalisation, so it might be good to use combining tilde < ̃> just like <ʲ> is used for to indicate palatalization.. If there is no (semi-)official orthography, one needs to improvize --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

That's great, thanks! BalkanFever 12:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Sveta Gera

Sveta Gera/Trdinov vrh is new name of that article according to the international court consisting of the judges: User:Eleassar, User:Prevalis and User:Yerpo [4]. See "False renaming" section [5]. Zenanarh (talk) 12:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Silesian

Hi! I just want to know, why you say my edit is POV? I give sources in the article. Do you know anything about this issue with the Silesian? I give sources which are neutral in German language (my nativ language) and not in Polish. It can't be more neutral than in a different language.--85.233.18.149 (talk) 09:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

"Polish" in the Infobox? Of course, but in brackets, to be neutral! Why I substituting "Silesian language" with "Silesian" throughout the article or putting quotation marks on "Silesian language"? Because you can't call it neither language nor dialect when you want to be neutral. "The whole issue with Poles considering the Silesian Polish dialect..." - Wait a moment! Not Poles consider it as a dialect! Vast majority of linguists consider it as a dialect, the EU consider it as a dialect (No Silesian in the list of the languages in the EU)[6], the encyclopedia Britannica [7] consider it as a dialect.

And the sentence "It is used for a long time, because the Silesians in Poland are taught in Polish schools and they know only the Polish way of writing." is wrong (or have you a neutral source for it?) The reason why Silesian is used by the vast majority of the speakers with the Polish alphabet, is because there never have been a standard Silesian alphabet. All this discussions about language or dialect are new. In the past nobody (even not the speakers) think that Silesian is something different than a dialect (today it's different) (or have you old sources where it is something else written?). Just a minority consider Silesian as a language. About the sources: Der Spiegel you can buy or wait till next year (the articles from the beginning to 2007 are online). Because of the German legal basis, the articles from this year could not be online. I think I can write a few sentences without having problems, but they are in German language.--84.142.115.77 (talk) 14:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm replying you here cause you seem to be changing IP addresses.

What brackets? You've put Silesian genetically under Polish, which is nonsense. Dialect used for Silesian did not "descend" from the dialect used for standard Polish. They're both equally "old", and their last common ancestor would be some proto-Leichitic dialect.

I'm tending to agree with you with using just Silesian throughout the article, as it seems the most NPOV formulation.

Whether "vast majority of linguists" considers it a dialect is disputable. It has ISO 639-3 code alphabet, and has been endorsed as a separate language by several notable institution. Linguists don't really decide where's the border between the language and a dialect. Multiple standard languages can be based on essentially the same dialect (cf. Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian; Hindi & Urdu), and multiple gentically diverse dialect can belong to the "same" language (usually on territorial basis, and the national consciousness of its speakers). I've read in some comparative Slavic books how some, esp. Polish linguists, often consider Kashubian or Slovincian "Polish dialects", which they're certainly not. That EU lists hardly proves anything, e.g. it doesn't list Basque which is certinly not a "Spanish dialect", not even Indo-European language. Britannica's opinion is the opinion of the person they hired to write the article.

That sentence certainly represents a fact, that can be interpreted in two ways: either as a pro or contra Silesian (to what extent is standard Polish alphabet deficient for writing Silesian? or the Silesian alphabet is just "invented" to make Silesian and Polish appear differently?). Neutral formulation should be made.

I can read some German. Could you please cite that few sentences from Der Spiegel on the silesian article talk page, where this discussion should actually be made? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

udara

Hi,

Wondering if you could help me. Is there a Croatian word something like udara, meaning something like "to strike"? The closest I can find is ùdarati "to beat".

Thanks, kwami (talk) 20:49, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

ȕdār m - "hit, strike, impact etc.", gen. sg. ȕdāra, gen. pl. ȕdārā. ùdariti/ùdarati (perfective/imperfective) "to strike, hit, beat, attack etc.". If you need help lemmatizing Croatian words, or are looking for inflected forms, you can use free Croatian Morphological Lexicon online, just login with proba/proba. Output format is a bit retarded, but what what can one do.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

3RR

You should know I have reported your WP:3RR violation at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. You may wish to go there and make your case. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 14:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Fun fun, let's see how for WP's collective intelligence (or stupidity? it's all relative) goes. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

October 2008

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 hours in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for violating the three-revert rule. Please be more careful to discuss controversial changes or seek dispute resolution rather than engaging in an edit war. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below. seicer | talk | contribs 03:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Ivan Štambuk (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

I wasn't the one "making controversial changes", I simply reverted the template in question to the state before "controversial changes" were made by two of the other users, on whose fallaciousness I thoroughly argumented on the talk page. User who reported me for "violating" this rule is the one making controversial changes, ignoring any kind of discussion and accusing me of pushing "original research", which is absurd as anyone can see that he is the one ignoring the discussion, having no specialist knowledge on the issues I've raised, and abusing this policy to get me off that talkpage

Decline reason:

You do appear to have violated the 3-revert rule at Template:Slavic diachronic. That rule is binding on all of us, whether you were wrong or right about the content of the edits. When your block expires, try some of the suggestions at the dispute resolution page as a better solution than edit-warring. — FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 11:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

I have reset your block back to 24 hours for your blatant block evasion by editing without being logged in from 161.53.74.66. The IP address has also been blocked for 24 hours. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 13:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

That was very generous of you. I probably would have extended it to a week, myself.  :) -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:26, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

So basically according this absolute and all-binding rule, anyone can make any kind of edits, regardless of how wrong or controversial they are, and even though they have been refuted, disputed and considered contentious on the talk page discussions, the changes can still stand committed, and any action of reverting them even though the discussion is still pending can be subject to 3RR which could then get the disputor blocked by simply reverting to the original state of affairs until the consensus is reached. Consequently, single editor, no matter how correct and veracious his points are, can't possibly stand ground in that situation, against >2 editors or even a single editor that is "reverting" by means of re-editing. Unbelievable.

Sysops, instead of protecting the mechanism of consensus-reaching, then act like robots, following literally the absolute Policy, regardless how pointless its application appears. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess you haven't read WP:3RR or WP:DISPUTE yet? They answer all of those questions, and explain how to cope with unpleasant disputes in useful ways. Edit-warring is useless, of course, because the other person can keep reverting just as long as you can. That's why it's against the rules for everyone. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't hurt to read over Wikipedia:Tag team and its related essays, such as Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing either. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 16:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I've read it, and it basically supports everything I said on policy being defect. I was just reverting to the original state of affairs before the contentious changes were made [and are being made right now, a Bulgarian nationalist having joined the bandwagon claiming that Macedonian is a Bulgarian spin-off, and Serbo-Croatian, a term invented in the middle 19th century, being extended to the 10th century C.E. Even the Vienna Literary Agreement that "knowledgable" Russian is blabing about in its 2 pages didn't have a single mention of the name of the "common language", and was non-binding to any signing side. And I've just raid in George Shevelov's article in "Slavonic languages" monography that emigre Transcarpathian Rusyn is genetically Slovak dialect with Ukrainian cultural adstratum, so his claim "genetically Rusyn lang it's absolutly East slavic language, but with big west influence," looks even more funny]. So again, I revert those new additions, they re-add it, and I still get blocked? That policy is flawed, or at least it's interpretation in scenarios such as this.

Are you insinuating that I am the one doing "civil POV pushing" of OR or "tag teaming"? I can cite handbooks on comparative linguistics of IE and Slavic languages that refute 5-6 major problems of the scheme these dudes are imaginatively creating. I don't see anyone of you objecting to their "hive mind". They've just opened a bottle of champaigne on the talk page, celebrating their newly-reached "consensus". Why don't you ask some sysop linguist that has some knowledge of IE linguistics, what does he think on OESl. being dated to <10th century, on Old Novgorod dialect "descending" from it, on the existence of "Knaanic language" or "Serbo-Croatian" being spoken in the 10th century? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

No, I am not trying to say that you are tag teaming or civilly POV pushing. I linked to those essays because they have some good advice on how to deal with those sorts of situations, which seem very similar to the one you are in, as you describe it. I'd like you to notice, though, nowhere in those essays does it say that an acceptable course of action is to break WP:3RR and then edit anonymously when you are blocked for it. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 16:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I "broke" the sacred rule by using the undo button [instead of succesively re-editing the article and by it reverting it to the old scheme, like User:Hexagon1 and his fellow have been doing], and then "abused" the block by leaving constructive comments on the talk pages. I barely have time and interest to "fight" against some gang of POV partisans who abuse defective policies while disinterested sysops stand still in the background, blindly following the rules and noticing that something "could" be wrong, or even leave ridiculing comments on the talk pages [like the one on the "generous" 24 hour re-block of yours.]. Hopefully, there are other wikiprojects where free time&energy can be wasted more constructively ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It was generous. You were blocked for 3RR, then turned right around and used your IP address to circumvent the block. That usually warrants a lengthier block than 24 hours, but I am hoping that you'll learn from this and become a more constructive editor who can use dispute resolution in the future. seicer | talk | contribs 17:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It seems that you don't really have a grasp of the three-revert rule, since you displayed a misunderstanding of information contained in the first paragraph of the policy. I'll try to paraphrase it for you; reverts are not defined by the mechanism by which they were performed:

"A revert is any action...whether or not the edits involve the same material...that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part."

It also says quite clearly in the policy that editors can be blocked for edit warring even when no 3RR violation has occurred, if an administrator deems it necessary:

"Administrators may still block disruptive editors for edit warring who do not violate the rule."

If someone else has broken 3RR or engaged in edit warring, report it to WP:AN3 or WP:ANI rather than taking matters into your own hands. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 17:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

A lengthier block for using IP address to add constructive comments? I can't believe what you're saying. IP trolls that leave highly-insultive comments get shorter than that for 3 continuous reportings [at least the one I reported did]. If you guys indeed fail to see problems in the correspondence of {{Slavic diachronic}}'s edit history vs. the discussion as it goes on chronologically on the talk page, we have nothing to discuss about. User:Hexagon1 did just 3 controversial (IMHO) edits, and User:Tat1642 did 2, in the same 24-hour interval, I reverted all of them [as there was still discussion ongoing, but both of them think that they're absolutely right and ignore everything what had written to object, as being "original research" or simply "wrong"]. I got reported and then blocked for "edit-warring". Can you comprehend that line of thought? Two editors can make less then the number of edits required to violate 3RR, one editor cannot; ergo, he gets blocked even though he was just enforcing the non-disputed version. Having a policy that is detrimental to any outnumbered editor is a one-way ticket to banish the minority (i.e. experts, which are always a minority as opposed to POV pushers and "experts") from this project, and highly demotivating once he comes to see their existence in action. I have no attention of rejoining the collective champaigne celebration on "consesus" on the talk page, only to see the same collective ... reoccurring. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

You have read the relevant policies, right? They explain very clearly why edit-warring is disruptive, and what to do instead of edit-warring to avoid having inappropriate edits become part of the encyclopedia. One reason that edit-warring is so strongly against the rules is because it doesn't work. There are things that do work. We do those things instead. The problems you point out have already been solved. We have linked you to pages that clearly explain the solution. But we can't make you read those pages; that's up to you. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:30, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel like talking to a machine. If you see my reversal of contentious changes, made by editors whose knowledge on the subject and ultimate motivation is very suspicious, before consensus is reached and disputed newly-proclaimed genetic nodes are elaborated on the talk-page as "edit-warring", and their's not, than you're seriously deluded. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel like I'm talking to a machine, too. The content of your edits isn't relevant; all that's relevant is what you do to get them into the article. I've given you all the information you need to get your desired edits into the article. But if you won't even look at it, then how else can I help? I guess I can't. Good luck to you. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 11:45, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Come back

[8] Difficulties appear with sometimes but do not surrender. Conflicts in Wikipedia one should treat calmly (relax). Come back, please :) LUCPOL (talk) 08:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

With so much ignorant nationalists around, it becomes very hard to engage in a constructive discussion that will end in a consensus reflecting the scholarly communis opinio. If you couple it with actions conducted by the local sheriffs, slavishingly literal interpretators of the Policy who apparently care more on the procedural anomalies than on the veracity of the end-result of the discussion that takes place, you'll see how it becomes immensely difficult for any sane and reasonable person to "push" the POV that is the actual state of affairs [i.e. maintained by most of the scholars], and which dispels the very myths that are in the heart of narrow-minded worldview conceived by the disruptors. You should take care of the {{Slavic diachronic}} adding it to watchlist, as I presume that it is just a matter of time before some Polish nationalist implants another "genetic node" in the hierarchy, implying that your beloved Silesian has "branched" from the Polish some X years ago ^_^ BTW, did you know that in lots of the Slavic historical handbooks the claims of Polish linguists of Proto-Slavic Urheimat being in the "Polish lands", or all Leichitic dialects being "dialects of Polish", including Polabian or Slovincian [that have some 1000 years old isoglosses that separate them from the dialect ancestral to modern Polish, like the preservation of weak jers or free Proto-Slavic accent] are often ridiculed? :-) But not on WP, here the mob rules, and the mob are the usual ppl who have some insane POV to push. Of course, any sane person upon clicking in the aforementioned template on the e.g. "Old East Slavic" which the scheme dates <9th century (i.e. still in Late Proto-Slavic period :) will be redirected to the article saying "Old East Slavic...was a vernacular literary language used from the 10th to the 14th centuries by East Slavs in Kievan Rus'...", which would then get him thinking that there is something seriously wrong with it, possibly lots of other things to, esp. seeing that the person who put in that scheme OESl dating it to <=9th century was a Russian and that the article on OESl. claims that the term "Old Russian" for OESl. is highly contentious anachronism (modern books avoid it completely), and according to this imaginative scheme the division 10th-14th century was onto "Ruthenian" and OESl, which is ridiculous :) Not to mention Old Novogord dialect being more archaic than the one it "descends" from :) Same goes for the Macedonian "branching" from Bulgarian, and Croatian and Serbian "branching" from some alleged "Serbo-Croatian" in the 19th century (Bartol Kašić, when he wrote the first grammar of Croatian in 1604, apparently had no idea that his mother tongue dialect Čakavian and Štokavian he was describing were the "same language", but according to the "expert" of South Slavic dialectology, User:Hexagon1, claiming otherwise would be "nationalism", "politics" or "original research" :). These three appear mutually supportive for their silly theories to the extent that no-one defies other one's preposterous claims, so I can imagine that Polish POV partisan putting Silesian "node" in the 20th century would be open-handedly welcomed as long as he tries not to mess their own inventions. So you better watch out ;) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)