I apologize, Amir, for having come across as aggressive towards you to the point that you felt obliged to write, "you are pretty aggressive towards me for an unknown reason". Please believe me that this is neither my attitude nor my intention.
What I reacted against was a) the example of Arabic/Latin script mixing, and b) the questioning of Dr. Moshkriz' credentials (which seemed unfair to me). I, like you, also have many other important things to do, hence I'm rather direct in my communication (which is probably compounded by my being German).
I have received a reply from Dr. Erik Anonby who is an academic knowledgeable about Luri languages. I had forwarded the entire communication thread for him (after all, it's on the public langcom list), and he expressed his disappointment about these developments. He agrees with you that the current orthography is more difficult to read than the previously used one, yet insists that the language expressed by it is good Northern Luri and not another language. Hence, the problem is of an orthographic and not a linguistic nature.
Dr. Anonby is happy to give orthography development guidance to the lrc:wp editors, especially as he is currently publishing a book on orthography development in Luri languages - which unfortunately will only be available in six months time. I append the relevant parts of his message here below.
In the hope that lrc:wp can be revised orthographically so that it will be accessible to all N Luri readers without being shut down, and with best wishes,
Oliver
On 03-Feb-16 2:59 PM, Erik Anonby wrote:
[...] The language written in the N Luri Wikipedia is indeed N Luri, but the orthography is very different than one was there before, and less readable.
It’s true that there are some symbols and conventions which resemble Kurdish (like the way that all short vowels are written, and hamze is written on a small character at the beginning of words), but strictly speaking the orthography is not based on Kurdish either.
I have been working on orthographies of Iranian languages for some time now, and my personal opinion is that for readability’s sake, it should be as close to Persian as possible, but marking all linguistic differences from Persian, including a lot of short vowel diacritics. I am in the process of publishing a book on orthography of Bakhtiari, also in the Luri group and immediately to the south, where we test different conventions and weigh the options, and I hope that many of the principles there would be useful to the contributors. However, it will likely be about six months until it is released and I can’t share the manuscript right now. But it will be freely available online once it is released.
It’s a shame that the contributors maligned Dr Moshkriz based on the university where he worked. (As is turns out, Shiraz closed its PhD program in linguistics, so Moshkriz had to go elsewhere; I believe he is now based at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, where he is doing a postdoc). I don’t like to be part of such a negative online community. There are many good scholars working at the smaller universities of Iran, and in fact many good writers of Iran’s many languages that are not university scholars. We are all working together to facilitate the use of Iran’s linguistics heritage in written format, and we should help each other and consult each other respectfully rather than tearing good-intentioned works down with criticism directed at people (which is unfair), rather than ideas (which is fair).
Please communicate my disappointment, as written in these paragraphs, to the people concerned.
Also, I think that what people are calling “Central Luri” is indeed a type of Northern Luri (or in fact the same language), which is spoken in Luristan Province and some surrounding areas. But in my opinion, the issues facing us here are primarily orthographic rather than linguistic.
I am happy to communicate further about specific questions you might have.
[...]
On 03-Feb-16 2:54 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi,Amir, I would be really happy to have an academic knowledgeable about Luri to give his opinion.
It is distressing to learn that a Wiki may not be read because of the insistence of editors on a script that is not legible. I understand Oliver's argument however I doubt that Luri is unique to Wikipedia. If it is, we have a problem. How to deal with is unclear. When an academic that you trust provides us with some proper explanations, we can digest it, ask further questions if need be and then decide what to do.
I would be obliged if you make the necessary contacts.Thanks,GerardOn 3 February 2016 at 11:20, Amir Ladsgroup <ladsgroup@gmail.com> wrote:
That's very fond of Gerard :)Regarding my English, You could defend it without judging about my English.Regarding the homemade script: A huge proportion (almost all) of Lur people went to school and are educated but most of them no matter where they originated can't read this wiki which means we have a big problem, It's like using sign language script for English and saying look! without learning you can't read. There is another script for this language which is readable by anyone. So it's easy to see argument of homemade scripts is definitely wrong. It's interesting to me that admins of those Wikis admitted on originality of this script several times and they also mentioned that User:Mehramooz made up this script.
Regarding your analysis. Please also see this table. Biggest difference between the original script (script of the wiki right now) and the script being used by Lurish speakers is characters like "ڤ", "ئ", etc. For example "ئ" is already being used both in Persian and Arabic but not as often as this original script is using. Instead in the current script of Lurish (the proper script IMO) "ۆ" is being used (which is not a Persian character and it's solely a Kurdish one) and this character is more often. This example shows the proper script(TM) is not just Persian, in some cases it's closer to Kurdish. Or using "أ" instead of "ه" sometimes (and not all the times) to make the script more complicated, i.e. give it unnecessary precision which make it hard for ordinary readers. These examples are not easy to see for people who doesn't have a deep knowledge about Iranian languages. I can go on for a very long time and give you much more examples if you want.Last sentence refers to the thing I want to say here: I can convince you if you want to listen. I'm not trying to fulfill my nationalism, I believe in no borders. I'm only a wiki lover who tries to make Wikipedia readable for sever million more people. I received lots of complaints from Lur Wikipedians about this language, people who didn't know how to make a compliment to the language committee but they knew me as a cross-wiki contributor and they shared their concerns with me. I made some researches (by asking offline from Lur friends I knew which I'm happy to have a lot of them) and came to the same conclusion so I sent an email here. But you are pretty aggressive towards me for an unknown reason insisting on political part of Iranian languages. Frankly I have much more important things to do and I won't continue until langcom members think it's needed.
BesyOn Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 12:51 PM Oliver Stegen <oliver_stegen@sil.org> wrote:
Okay, I've had a look into this (I actually do read Arabic script).
1. No recently edited articles in lrc:wp which I looked at show *any* mixture of scripts; they are completely based on Arabic script, with language-specific modifications like necessary for any non-Arabic language, e.g. گ (as also used in Persian but not original in Arabic script). The example below is not comparable as it actually mixes two completely different scripts, namely Arabic and Latin. Faulting special characters in Northern Luri writing which deviate from Persian is like faulting Germanic languages for using different grapheme combination for the same sound, e.g. phonetic [u] is written oo in English, oe in Dutch, o in Norwegian and u in German, or for faulting German to add special characters like ä, ö, ü and ß instead of sticking to the original Latin alphabet.
2. Lurish languages are closely related to both Kurdish and Persian languages (with lexical cognate percentages between 60% and 85%), hence it is no wonder that to a Persian speaker, Luri languages look like they had been mixed with Kurdish.
3. Even an individual language like Northern Luri constitutes a dialect chain which means that any text written by a specific Northern Luri writer may not be recognised by another Northern Luri speaker as their particular speech variety.
4. After having received the contacts of Dr. Moshkriz from Dr. Anonby (the message makes clear that Dr. Moshkriz had taught at Iranshahr Uni but left it prior to May 2015), I communicated with Dr. Moshkriz himself - it usually is sufficient for a language committee member to vouchsafe for the existence of a verifying scholar without revealing private information about their sources.
[For information given under nos. 2 and 3 above, please refer to the 2003 article "Update on Luri: how many languages?" in JRAS, Series 3, 13(2), pages 171-197.]
My conclusion: The accusations against edits at lrc:wp cannot be upheld from a linguistic point of view.
In the hope that this matter can be laid to rest now,
Oliver
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Oliver Stegen, PhD
Linguistics Consultant, SIL Uganda-Tanzania
Email: Oliver_Stegen@sil.org
http://sil.academia.edu/OliverStegen
On 02-Feb-16 4:29 AM, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Damn these spellcheckers I meant "patriotist".I try to explain what I mean by giving you an example, Let's say I build a script that is English but uses Arabic script for second half of alphabet (N and afterwards) so my first sentence would be "Damن تheزe سپellcheckeرز I meaنت پaترiوتiست"Anyone who knows both Persian and English can read this (with some difficulties I guess) and they might even find it fun. But I can't use this script in English Wikipedia because it's original and not made for the language properly.Same situation applies here, Lurish speakers who doesn't know Kurdish language (which is virtually all of Lurish speakers) can't get meaning of this language both because of original script and vocabulary. I already showed it to several Lurish speakers in broad demography (so I get to see speakers of all variants of Lurish) no success at all.
Also I couldn't find any record of Dr. Moshkriz and it was claimed he teaches at Iranshahr university (a small university unlike Shiraz university which originally they claimed he is teaching)
Please tell if you have trouble understanding me.Best
On 02-Feb-16 10:39 AM, Oliver Stegen wrote:
ad 1 - I didn't make fun of anyone's English. I reacted to the proposal to put Mogoeilor on moderation due to his imperfect English. I actually defended all non-English participants in this communication, asking not to restrict their communication just because their English took a bit more effort to understand.
ad 2 - I'm glad to hear of your support for lrc:wp.
ad 3 - I'm not familiar with the language situation in Iran (which is why I contacted Dr. Erik Anonby). However, I know something about orthography development (it's actually part of my job as a linguistics consultant for minority languages in East Africa). As long as there is no standard (and there doesn't seem to be for Northern Luri), all scripts are "homemade" in some sense of the word. And no script, whether "pure" or "mixed" (both of which are acceptable in orthography development), will be readable without teaching, explaining and literacy activities.
I'll inform you of Dr. Anonby's reply once I've made contact.On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 1:45 AM Amir Ladsgroup <ladsgroup@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey,1- Making fun of my English (which is not perfect I admit) is a little bit unethical. Don't you think? I expected higher standards from this mailing list2- Situation of Iranian languages is a political issue, I definitely agree but not this case. I was actually asked by the same person who started this discussion in fa.wp who speaks Lurish. Is it okay for to make this Wiki again with proper script? and I said, why not? that would be awesome. I'm not like these crazy protagonists that think the only language in Iran is Persian and other ones are its dialects. I definitely in favor of re-launching this wiki with proper scripts that are readable by Lur people. Not a handful number of people.3- I think originality of this script is implicitly mentioned in email of the professor, quoting: "There are some quirky orthographic things [...] off of words, but many fewer issues than a lot of the other homemade scripts I’ve seen used for Luri."My attention came to word "homemade". Have you explained to him what "originality" means in context of Wikipedia? I must explain to you: This script is readable if the person knows Kurdish because the extra letters came from ckb language but Kurdish and Lurish are two different languages with different speakers with different ethnically backgrounds. please explain the situation properly to him and ask if a normal Lur who was educated in Iran, can read this script or not.
BestIn May 2015, I had contacted Erik Anonby, a Canadian linguist with specialty in Iranian languages, and he actually verified the contents of lrc:wp (then still in the incubator). It was him who also provided contact for Mehdi Moshkriz who is now maligned by fa:wp editors. [Btw, I do not find Amir Ladsgroup's English much better than Mogoeilor's.]
I actually assume that this is a predominantly political issue, and I would caution against allowing fa:wp editors to interfere in lrc:wp issues - especially when we already have independent verification from a bona fide Canadian (i.e. non-Persian!) scholar. I append his reply fyi.
-------------------------------------------------------------
from Erik Anonby's reply (May 2015):
"I know Bakhtiari and Southern Luri a lot better than Northern Luri – most of my knowledge of N Luri is lexicon and phonology rather than whole texts.
But from looking at several articles, it looks well-enough written to me. There are some quirky orthographic things (like splitting the –e “is” / direct object suffix) off of words, but many fewer issues than a lot of the other homemade scripts I’ve seen used for Luri.
The author is also using Khorramabadi dialect, which is the central dialect but heavily influenced by Persian and not typical of the language as a whole. He could still use this dialect but with a bit of accommodation to the language as a whole; for example, it’s a bit of a shame he doesn’t use Luri verb prefixes like present/continuous i- (which is used pretty much everywhere other than in Khorramabad) rather than Khorramabadi mi- (which is from Persian).
Two scholars who could verify the content (naturalness, spelling, etc.) better than me are:
Sekandar Amanollahi (retired; I don’t have his contact info)
Mehdi Moshkriz (at Iranshahr University until recently; his email is [...])
Mehdi is very nice and could probably put you in touch with many other Luri scholars, too, to check the articles."
On 31-Jan-16 9:02 PM, MF-Warburg wrote:
It's very embarrassing for us if that is true.
Is it possible that the language used is not Northern Lurish, but at least correct Central L.?
Do we have any other contacts in the linguistic world who could help verify it?I agree that the wiki ought to be closed if it's not in a real language.
Am 30.01.2016 02:46 schrieb "Amir Ladsgroup" <ladsgroup@gmail.com>:
Hey,Several days ago a discussion has been started in Persian Wikipedia regarding Northern[1] Luri wikipedia (lrc.wikimedia.org).If I want to give you a summary of the discussion. Mostly they say script is unreadable (it's greatly different than Persian script) and also they noted that vocabulary is tried to be away of Persian (and close to Kuridsh) in a bad way and thus it's un-understandable for people who talk this variant of Luri (As it was mentioned this Luri is being spoken in Khoramabbad and Broujerd, two big cities of Iran). We can confirm that we showed this wiki to several people who speak Luri and in either Khoramabad or Boroujerd. None of them could understand most of content of this wiki. We also provided a big table at the discussion in Persian Wikipedia and compared several words in the wiki to what they actually speak in Northern Luri.
I found this in which User:Mogoeilor told you that Gholamreza Mehramooz (User:Mehramooz) is a university professor with PhD and interestingly when we asked about the script in that wiki User:Mogoeilor (the same person) told us the script is made up by a User:Mehramooz because he has MSc in linguistics (edit) . More interestingly in his blog he says he has a MSc in translation studies (published about a year and half ago) You can verify the blog in his user page.
[1]: Also an interesting conversation happened in this wiki in Persian. It seems they changed named of the wiki from Northern Luri to Minjaii Luri "Minjaii" is a word in Luri that in English means "Centeral Luri"
Best
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