FWIW, fur.wikipedia has some of the same problems.

Oh, and many thanks to Brion for creating os.wikipedia last night!

Mark

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 20:44:24 +0000, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:

I think most or all of the issues mentionned below are just configuration matters. I'm forwarding this to the Wikitech-l list to make sure people see it who will be able to both diagnose and fix the problems. -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: V. Ivanov amikeco@gmail.com Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 21:06:10 +0300 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ossetic wiki is on. Help about bugs To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org

Dear friends,

Thank you all for your support. Today, the last day of February, the Ossetic Wikipedia has been started. See it at http://os.wikipedia.org/ -- it's already very beautiful :)

Several things that disturb me about it:

• Interwiki links to os:articles do not work. The interwiki links from

other language Wikipedias to the Ossetic one do not appear as interwikies, but as a part of the article text. See, e. g., http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B... The same thing is about the Chuvash (cv) Wikipedia, which is not really new. What's the reason and how can it be fixed?

• The {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} thing does not work on the Main Page (shows

-1), I had to change it manually to "26", or it would be too ridiculous to start advertising it. :)

• Usual links to Wikimedia other projects (according to .:Ajvol:. who

helped me about the Main Page design) does not work correctly. He had to use full URLs.

Grateful beforehand, Slavik IVANOV (Amikeco)

-- Esperu cxiam! _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

"Insert Ossetic Wiki Here"... such beautiful prose.

Mark

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:32:15 +0300, V. Ivanov amikeco@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:52:19 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:

...

Oh, and many thanks to Brion for creating os.wikipedia last night!

Yes! And for the first article: his was the first design of the Main Page! :) We'll be proud of it, for it's a good start.

Sl.

-- Esperu cxiam! _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

I have an idea: Let's just make a zh-whatever: for all the different things relating to Chinese that people want. They can mix Cantonese with Wu with Mandarin, some romanized, some using characters, they can add classical chinese, even jiaguwenzi (tortoise shell ancient characters), as well as zhuyin fuhao, and dungan (ie sichuan mandarin writtne in cyrillic basically), and we can also mix in English and Russian and Portuguese and Korean.

So what do you think?

Mark

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:03:08 +0000, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

abc_root wrote:

...

I would like to request a new Wikipedia for classical Chinese or kanbun( 漢文/文言文) which is the standard form of Chinese for about two thousand years and was used throughout East Asia as the formal form of writing. Its importance in East Asia is like that of Latin in Europe. Now that Wikipedias are running or being started for many of the languages in East Asia, it seems that the language which is the backbone of these languages should also have a place.

So would this be created before or after a Cantonese wikipedia?

• d.

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Oh, don't be serious on that remark. I think it is sacrastic. Read the threads on the request for Wikipedia in Chinese dialects (regional speeches) and you will understand why I think so.

Felix Wan

On Mon, February 28, 2005 6:52 pm, abc_root said:

You mean you want to have all these in the same wikipedia? That would not be useful because very few people can read all these.

--- Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com $B$+$i$N%a%C%;!<%8!'(B

...

I have an idea: Let's just make a zh-whatever: for all the different things relating to Chinese that people want. They can mix Cantonese with Wu with Mandarin, some romanized, some using characters, they can add classical chinese, even jiaguwenzi (tortoise shell ancient characters), as well as zhuyin fuhao, and dungan (ie sichuan mandarin writtne in cyrillic basically), and we can also mix in English and Russian and Portuguese and Korean.

So what do you think?

Mark

On Tue, March 1, 2005 12:54 pm, Mark Williamson said:

Indeed: Such a Wikipedia would be chaos.

It does mirror the proposal from Meta however of a Wikipedia where Cantonese and Mandarin and English, in characters and in romanisation (any romanisation of your choosing, no specific one) are all mixed together in one Wikipedia... except even MORE confusing!

Mark

OK, now I get your point. You mean that Classical Chinese interpreted by Chinese should not be mixed with kanbun (Classical Chinese interpreted by Japanese) and other versions of Classical Chinese, don't you?

I am not sure about that. My impression is that there was only one written tradition. However, because most people are not fluent enough in it, actual writings in it could differ. Do we have similar problems with the Latin Wikipedia?

However, I have seen the different dialects of English coexist in en: and the two scripts of Chinese coexists in zh:, I think if there is a will, there is a way. Say, we may collaborate to set a phonetic transliteration guideline which everyone should follow.

I want to ask abc_root how many supporters do you expect to find for that project. I know some enthusiasts from a Classical Chinese forum and I can ask them if they are interested in the project. We can test out the idea at Meta or Wikicities and see how compatible are the modern Chinese and modern Japanese perception of Classical Chinese.

I am not for splitting the existing zh:. I am just excited by new ideas and enjoy the diversity of Wikipedia.

Felix Wan

I hope in the kanbun wikipedia simplified Chinese(China) does not appear. Obviously those deviate a lot from the normal characters and only spoil the beauty of kanbun.

As for phonetic transliteration, I personally prefer not to create any new words from transliteration using kanji. (I'll live with those that are in common use.) The ancient people did this because they did not think of creating an alphabet and that caused a lot of confusion in trancribing foreign words when speakers of different languages follow their own pronunciation. But now we have quite a few choices of alphabets to use and there is no need to do that again. If someone still prefers to do that, I can only suggest he note down the original word, too.

For the procedure of starting a new wikipedia, I'm still not very sure and hope to hear suggestions from you guys.

--- Felix Wan felixwiki@earthsphere.org からのメッセージ：

On Tue, March 1, 2005 12:54 pm, Mark Williamson said:

...

Indeed: Such a Wikipedia would be chaos.

It does mirror the proposal from Meta however of a Wikipedia where Cantonese and Mandarin and English, in characters and in

romanisation

...

(any romanisation of your choosing, no specific one) are all mixed together in one Wikipedia... except even MORE confusing!

Mark

OK, now I get your point. You mean that Classical Chinese interpreted by Chinese should not be mixed with kanbun (Classical Chinese interpreted by Japanese) and other versions of Classical Chinese, don't you?

I am not sure about that. My impression is that there was only one written tradition. However, because most people are not fluent enough in it, actual writings in it could differ. Do we have similar problems with the Latin Wikipedia?

However, I have seen the different dialects of English coexist in en: and the two scripts of Chinese coexists in zh:, I think if there is a will, there is a way. Say, we may collaborate to set a phonetic transliteration guideline which everyone should follow.

I want to ask abc_root how many supporters do you expect to find for that project. I know some enthusiasts from a Classical Chinese forum and I can ask them if they are interested in the project. We can test out the idea at Meta or Wikicities and see how compatible are the modern Chinese and modern Japanese perception of Classical Chinese.

I am not for splitting the existing zh:. I am just excited by new ideas and enjoy the diversity of Wikipedia.

Felix Wan

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On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:30:23 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:

[snip]

Moreover, there is something that these projects detract from, which needs help - namely wikisource. For every Latinist trying to figure out how to write about the java programming language, there is one less latinist to work on creating a wikisource version of latin texts, and so on. It seems to me if there is all this energy for languages that exist as source text, then there should be some way of making wikisource a more attractive outlet for people's energy.

Part of the appeal of original composition is that the contributor need not worry about copyrights. Obviously the original source texts (i.e. manuscripts) are public domain, but published editions are copyrighted.

This is usually due to new material (commentary, footnotes, etc.) but there may also be alterations or regularization performed on the source text, so I don't think one can trust that even that is unencumbered, unless you get your hands on a fully public-domain version. (Which, it should go without saying, does not mean something grabbed from any old place on the Internet.) I suspect this is easy for well-known texts (e.g. Cicero, Virgil), but finding unencumbered versions of more obscure classical authors might require some digging.

Steve

Stirling Newberry wrote:

On Mar 2, 2005, at 8:42 AM, Stephen Forrest wrote:

...

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:30:23 -0500, Stirling Newberry wrote

...

Moreover, there is something that these projects detract from, which needs help - namely wikisource. For every Latinist trying to figure out how to write about the java programming language, there is one less latinist to work on creating a wikisource version of latin texts, and so on. It seems to me if there is all this energy for languages that exist as source text, then there should be some way of making wikisource a more attractive outlet for people's energy.

Part of the appeal of original composition is that the contributor need not worry about copyrights. Obviously the original source texts (i.e. manuscripts) are public domain, but published editions are copyrighted.

This is usually due to new material (commentary, footnotes, etc.) but there may also be alterations or regularization performed on the source text, so I don't think one can trust that even that is unencumbered, unless you get your hands on a fully public-domain version. (Which, it should go without saying, does not mean something grabbed from any old place on the Internet.) I suspect this is easy for well-known texts (e.g. Cicero, Virgil), but finding unencumbered versions of more obscure classical authors might require some digging.

Id est "work".

I'm not disparaging original writing in old languages, merely noting that there seems to be a great deal more enthusiasm for it, and therefore if we want to direct more of that energy to forms that benefit readers more, then something needs to be done to make that work more attractive to people who can do it. I must admit that I am guilty - as a classicist, I haven't put any time in on wikisource in latin or koine, even though I keep telling myself I should.

Caton has been doing a tremendous job of including the French version of many of these old texts on Wikisource. Stephen's interpretation of copyright law is far too restrictive and impractical. A copyright notice on a new edition of a classic is only copyright to the extent that it can be copyright. No publisher is going to go through the new edition to identify which details are copyright and which not. Common sense needs to prevail. The new commentaries and footnotes are indeed protected, but the minor variations that Stephen suggests are not copyrightable. A totally new translation could be copyright, but nobody is suggesting that we include those . . . unless some enthusiastic Wikisourceror wants to create a new translation himself and contribute it under GFDL.

Stirling, please don't suggest that people might need to work. It scares them away. :-)

I think that many more of these old texts are available than Stephen would have us believe. A lot of them are in back shelves of second hand bookstores where few people ever look. Many dealers would be glad to get rid of them, and there is some support for keeping them inches away from the garbage pail. If that doesn't work, there's also ebay and Abebooks. In other words, there are very few that cannot be easily found.

I agree too that we don't just want a lot of trained monkeys copying things from the internet. If someone has already done the work and put it on a reasonably stable site it is probably best left alone unless we intend to add value to the work. Adding something that no other site has is worth a lot more, but that involves an even more tedious kind of work: scanning and proofreading.

I prefer not to get into the arguments about whether we should have Wikipedias in obscure dead languages. I tend to take a whatever-turns-you-on attitude. The value in these old languages is in their original texts, and not in some supposed reincarnation that will see discussions of 21st century issues in languages where nobody maintains a conversation. The world is not well served by putting new vinegar in old wine bottles.

Ec

In addition there was the old practice in Japanese of writing a neologism descriptively in Chinese characters, and writing the pronunciation (usually from English or French) right above it.

This was done with "denwa", which is interesting because people often just read it as "denwa" instead of reading the phonetic guide "terehon", whereas in other cases people always stuck to the phonetic reading so now there are sets of kanji for new words which do not fit with their readings. (however, this has fallen out of favor so people usually use katakana for such loanwords instead)

Mark

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:16:04 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan felixwiki@earthsphere.org wrote:

On Mon, February 28, 2005 3:03 pm, David Gerard said:

...

So would this be created before or after a Cantonese wikipedia?

I hope that Classical Chinese Wikipedia is more accepted, and I don't mind if it is created before the Cantonese Wikipedia. I hope that we can consider the merits of a Classical Chinese Wikipedia seperately, unaffected by the emotion surrounding Chinese regional speeches.

On Mon, February 28, 2005 2:12 am, abc_root said:

...

I would like to request a new Wikipedia for classical Chinese or kanbun( 漢文/文言文) which is the standard form of Chinese for about two thousand years and was used throughout East Asia as the formal form of writing. Its importance in East Asia is like that of Latin in Europe. Now that Wikipedias are running or being started for many of the languages in East Asia, it seems that the language which is the backbone of these languages should also have a place.

I find that an interesting idea and will support it. I am just not sure how many people are fluent enough in Classical Chinese to maintain the site.

...

One problem that might be encountered in writing articles for kanbun wikipedia is how the foreign loanwords (e.g. from English) should be phonetically transcribed when there is no corresponding word in kanbun itself. If they are transcribed using kanji (Chinese characters), there is the question of which language should be used to read the kanji. Here I suggest using an alphabet system of East Asia (e.g. Japanese kana or Korean hangul, or Taiwanese chu-yin) for the transcription and also note the original word in English (or any other language of origin or the roman transcription if the language is not written in roman alphabet). This allows kanbun users speaking different languages to know the original foreign word.

I have different ideas for loanwords. If the loanword is a proper noun, and do not have a historical transcription, we could be better off to leave it in its original form. (or roman transcription?)

If the loanword is a common noun that has a meaning, the way Classical Chinese should work is to coin a word that expresses its meaning. Japanese speakers did a good job in coining "keisai" for economics and "denwa" for telephone, and those terms were well accepted by Chinese speakers. However, newer terms are usually phonetically transliterated in katakana, which in my opinion is a little bit lazy. Many translations in modern Chinese follow that same principle of Classical Chinese. We may pick from those that convey the meaning, not just the sound.

Felix Wan

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Kaixo!

On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 05:31:42PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:

In addition there was the old practice in Japanese of writing a neologism descriptively in Chinese characters, and writing the pronunciation (usually from English or French) right above it.

A more problematic issue would be proper nouns, like place names or country names; while some of them (those in the area of influence of Chinese, eg: Vietnam, Thailand, China, Mongolia, Corea, Japan, etc) are identiqual in both Chinese and Japanese (at least in classical writting), others are not, for example in Chinese USA is the "beauty-country" while in Japanese it is the "rice-country"; France is in Chinese represented by the hanzi meaning "law", while in Japanese the hanzi for "Buddha" is used instead, etc.

They can be produced at the same time. Cantonese speakers only constitute a small portion of kanbun users.

--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com からのメッセージ：

abc_root wrote:

...

I would like to request a new Wikipedia for classical Chinese or

kanbun(

...

貍「譁・譁・ィ譁・ which is the standard form of Chinese for about

two thousand

...

years and was used throughout East Asia as the formal form of

writing. Its

...

importance in East Asia is like that of Latin in Europe. Now that Wikipedias are running or being started for many of the languages

in East

...

Asia, it seems that the language which is the backbone of these

languages

...

should also have a place.

So would this be created before or after a Cantonese wikipedia?

• d.

---

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Hi Shizhao,

I'm having some difficulty understanding your message. Can you write it in Chinese so I can understand it better?

Best, Mark

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 03:22:08 +0000 (UTC), shi zhao shizhao@gmail.com wrote:

abc_root <abcd_root@...> writes:

...

Dear all:

I would like to request a new Wikipedia for classical Chinese or kanbun( 漢文/文言文) which is the standard form of Chinese for about two thousand years and was used throughout East Asia as the formal form of writing. Its importance in East Asia is like that of Latin in Europe. Now that Wikipedias are running or being started for many of the languages in East Asia, it seems that the language which is the backbone of these languages should also have a place.

One problem that might be encountered in writing articles for kanbun wikipedia is how the foreign loanwords (e.g. from English) should be phonetically transcribed when there is no corresponding word in kanbun itself. If they are transcribed using kanji (Chinese characters), there is the question of which language should be used to read the kanji. Here I suggest using an alphabet system of East Asia (e.g. Japanese kana or Korean hangul, or Taiwanese chu-yin) for the transcription and also note the original word in English (or any other language of origin or the roman transcription if the language is not written in roman alphabet). This allows kanbun users speaking different languages to know the original foreign word.

---

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Problem is use when of does the classical Chinese write? Ming and Qing? Is Tang Sung period? Or does QIN2 HAN4 is period? Or to is more early? Each period classical Chinese differ very greatly.The Manchu Dynasty and Han dynasty rise of test twice according to the custom of the ancient works, be for can let the then person comprehend the people of the past's work of classical Chinese.The ancients is still not apprehensibility more early the classical Chinese of the ancients, so which period classical Chinese we use to write worthwhile discussion.If use the MIng and Qing period classical Chinese writing, that is much more simple, plus some 之乎者也, delete 的了呢.( this and Chinese version difference not big)If use first Qin's classical Chinese write, having no several individuals perhaps can write.

[[zh:user:shizhao]]

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&gt;From: &quot;Felix Wan&quot; &lt;felixwiki@earthsphere.org&gt; &gt;Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org &gt;To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org &gt;Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for classical Chinese &gt;Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:50:12 -0800 (PST) &gt; &gt;On Wed, March 2, 2005 7:22 pm, shi zhao said: &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Problem is use when of does the classical Chinese write? Ming and Qing? &gt; &gt; Is Tang Sung period? Or does QIN2 HAN4 is period? Or to is more early? &gt; &gt; Each period classical Chinese differ very greatly.The Manchu Dynasty and &gt; &gt; Han dynasty rise of test twice according to the custom of the ancient &gt; &gt; works, be for can let the then person comprehend the people of the past's &gt; &gt; work of classical Chinese.The ancients is still not apprehensibility more &gt; &gt; early the classical Chinese of the ancients, so which period classical &gt; &gt; Chinese we use to write worthwhile discussion.If use the MIng and Qing &gt; &gt; period classical Chinese writing, that is much more simple, plus some &gt; &gt; 之乎者也, delete 的了呢.( this and Chinese version difference not &gt; &gt; big)If use first Qin's classical Chinese write, having no several &gt; &gt; individuals perhaps can write. &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; [[zh:user:shizhao]] &gt; &gt; &gt;That is a real concern. True, even &quot;Classical Chinese&quot; is a blanket &gt;term covering milleniums of evolving written Chinese style. &gt; &gt;Since the original proposer is a Japanese, I guess the style that is &gt;most compatible with kanbun or other traditions known to East Asians &gt;should be that of the Tang-Song period. That is also the period with &gt;the richest literature for reference, and most educated Chinese should &gt;be familiar with the style. So if we are really going to open such an &gt;encyclopedia, let's fix the reference time frame to the Tang-Song period. &gt; &gt;However, my perception is that the grammar of Classical Chinese is more &gt;or less stablized since the Tang dynasty. New ways of saying things &gt;were introduced, but the real substantial change happens with the &gt;introduction of Baihuawen. &gt; &gt;Does the Latin Wikipedia face similar problems in selecting the style? &gt; &gt;Felix Wan &gt; &gt;_______________________________________________ &gt;Wikipedia-l mailing list &gt;Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org &gt;http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as possible - the style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort of era (1st century BC - 1st century AD). It's not always possible; for example if we want to write about modern people or places, we may have to use a neo-Latin construction, or ecclesiastical Latin to write about a religious topic. (Personally, I admit that I let a few medieval Latin constructions slip through once in awhile, as horrible as that may be to the purest classicists :))

Adam Bishop

&gt;From: Delirium &lt;delirium@hackish.org&gt; &gt;Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org &gt;To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org &gt;Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for classical Chinese &gt;Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 18:57:52 -0500 &gt; &gt;Adam Bishop wrote: &gt; &gt;&gt;On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as &gt;&gt;possible - the style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort &gt;&gt;of era (1st century BC - 1st century AD). It's not always &gt;&gt;possible; for example if we want to write about modern people or &gt;&gt;places, we may have to use a neo-Latin construction, or &gt;&gt;ecclesiastical Latin to write about a religious topic. &gt;&gt;(Personally, I admit that I let a few medieval Latin constructions &gt;&gt;slip through once in awhile, as horrible as that may be to the &gt;&gt;purest classicists :)) &gt; &gt;As compared to historical Latin works, the Latin Wikipedia seems to &gt;use *much* simpler sentence structures and grammatical constructions &gt;and so on, which to some extent also minimizes the differences &gt;between different eras of Latin. Is that on purpose? If so, is &gt;that something that'd be applicable to a classical-Chinese &gt;Wikipedia? &gt; &gt;-Mark &gt; &gt;_______________________________________________ &gt;Wikipedia-l mailing list &gt;Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org &gt;http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

It's not on purpose in the sense that we are consciously making a "simple Latin" wikipedia, but everyone writes according to their own level of comprehension - there are many excellent Latinists there (I am not one of them!), but of course there are no native Latin speakers, either to write in more complicated Latin or to correct what we write.

Adam

In fact the sentence structure of classical Chinese is usually simpler than modern languages e.g. written Mandarin or Japanese. The former should not be made too complex.

--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org からのメッセージ：

Adam Bishop wrote:

...

On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as

possible -

...

the style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort of era (1st

...

century BC - 1st century AD). It's not always possible; for

example

...

if we want to write about modern people or places, we may have to

use

...

a neo-Latin construction, or ecclesiastical Latin to write about a religious topic. (Personally, I admit that I let a few medieval

Latin

...

constructions slip through once in awhile, as horrible as that may

be

...

to the purest classicists :))

As compared to historical Latin works, the Latin Wikipedia seems to use *much* simpler sentence structures and grammatical constructions and so on, which to some extent also minimizes the differences between different eras of Latin. Is that on purpose? If so, is that something that'd be applicable to a classical-Chinese Wikipedia?

-Mark

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