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:-) yes I know that, what I'm not familiar with is the distintion between pataħ gadol and pataħ qatan: at school I learned that pataħ was a "tnu'a qtana", no variants. If I remember correctly. Dan☺12:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Today pataħ never contrasts, that's true. But in the Middle Ages, in stressed or most open syllables, pataħ was long /ɐː/ (קין /qɐːjin/, בעל /bɐːʕɐl/, נחום /nɐːħuːm/, etc.). On the other hand, ħataf pataħ was short /ɐ/ no matter where it was. Since both long and short pataħ became /a/, the distinction between gadol, qatan and ħataf is pretty moot now. Though this wasn't the case with qamats, where qamats gadol usually evolved into /a/ and qamats qatan usually evolved into /o/. But the vowels ħiriq /i(ː)/, seggol /ɛ(ː)/, pataħ /ɐ(ː)/, qamats /ɔ(ː)/ and qubbuts/shuruq /u(ː)/ all could be either long or short historically. (Tsere /eː/ and ħolam /oː/ were always long.) - Gilgamesh (talk) 12:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
It's funny you should mention this, by the way. I've been working on a linguistics project over at Wiktionary where I transliterate Tiberian Hebrew in Latin script by only specifying which vowels are long or short. The word's stress pretty much always came on the last long vowel, wherever it was. This way, the long vowels are ī ē ẹ ạ ā ọ ō ū, and the short vowels (including the ħatafim) are i e a å o u. (In Tiberian vocalization, ā/ọ is /ɔː/ and å/o is /ɔ/. But ọ and å are both much rarer than either ā or o, limited to a few situations like the name אוהליבמה Ọholībhāmā or final unstressed -å.) I transcribe shva na /ə/ as simply e because there is no context it can exist where seggol qatan or ħataf seggol can, and vice versa. - Gilgamesh (talk) 12:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Cool. So the last vowels in each of the words דָּבָר and גָּבַר were distinct, but both long? In school they taught us they were both /a/, one "big" and one "small", with the pataħ comprising an exception to the "closed stressed syllable → 'big' vowel"-rule. How they lied to us! ;-) Could you explain what distinction is made by the different diacritics in your transliteration: the underdot, the overdot and the macron? And by the way, is there any evidence at all that shva was ever pronounced ə in Hebrew? Dan☺13:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
I'll level with you about shva. Probably not unanimously. In Tiberian vocalization, it was probably /ɐ/. The older Septuagint (which was translated by Hellenized Jews in some centuries B.C.E.) almost routinely uses α for shva. But in some later medieval traditions it was certainly /ə/. Anyway, by later medieval times, there were virtually no cases where a shva na/ħataf after a non-guttural wasn't pronounced shva, or where a shva na/ħataf after a guttural wasn't pronounced ħataf or defaulted to ħataf pataħ. Afterall, it's Mordekhay and Yoqne'am (not Mordokhay or Yoqno'am as they were written in niqqud), and it's Ħalaħ (not Ħelaħ as it was written in niqqud). Though I have a column based on medieval vocalization, it can actually be thought of more as high medieval where the vowels are concerned. As for the diacritics, underdotted vowels are for seggol gadol, pataħ gadol, or the very rare o-grade qamats gadol. Macron is for "normal" long vowels—ħiriq gadol, tsere, qamats gadol, ħolam, and qubbuts/shuruq gadol. As for an overdot...what overdot? Oh, and they didn't necessarily lie to you—pataħ could have very well been always-short for some centuries, as all vowels are short in several modern traditional varieties of Hebrew. But in a mora-timed language with long and short vowels and single and double consonants, you couldn't really get away with shortening vowels like that without changing a word's stress, unless the language had a Greek-style tonal accent. We know the Tanakh is sung (with the cantillation marks), but as for the old language having tone accents? I wouldn't know to venture. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, I suppose that's not entirely true about changing a vowel's length without altering stress. It's possible in quite a few languages to be mora-timed and have strong stress accent that isn't necessarily tonal. I suppose you could consider some of the long vowels as being tonal vowels. But the biblical cantillation frequently used cantillation marks to show that a syllable vowel was long rather than otherwise predictably short. A few of them (like the meteg and accent marks) are still sometimes used for this purpose when teaching Masoretic Hebrew to students (like in one of the books I learned from, "Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew"). - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Huh, on this screen, in bold, the little o over the å looks like a dot. Interesting, are there any theories as to what the phonetic realizations of all of these phonemes was? Does this mean there were actually more than two phonologically distinct vowel lengths? Are we talking about several geographically remote dialects? Is there an article here in Wikipedia talking about all this? Dan☺18:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
My study is mostly Tiberian vocalization (which, last time I checked, describes the phonology), but I study bits and pieces of others. As for more than two vowel lengths...I actually kinda doubt it. The Tanakh treats matres lectionis almost like window dressing in some places, excluding it heavily from some books, and using it much more frequently in others. There are even a few places where vav is used for qubbuts qatan in an unstressed vowel before a doubled consonant (= shuruq qatan—I've seen both בֻּנִּי֫ and בּוּנִּי֫ for the common early Second Temple Period name Bunnī). I noticed that qubbuts and shuruq especially seem widely interchangeable in some places, with instances of qubbuts very clearly receiving cantillation emphasis and with instances of shuruq appearing no differently than ordinary qubbuts. Anyway, if there are more than two vowel lengths in the mora-timed language, it seems implausible to think that longer lengths are anything but allophonic with long vowels. And even if they are indeed phonemic, they seem wholly predictable in rhythm (which is practically allophony) - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the article. In classifying Hebrew vowels and their niqqud symbols, how commonplace in published work is the terminology "big – small – furtive / fleeting" as opposed to "long – short – ultrashort / very short"? I think maybe there would be a single set of terms here and personally I like "big – small – furtive / fleeting" better, since "long – short – ultrashort / very short" explicitly implies three (phonologically) distinctive vowel lengths, doesn't it? Dan☺21:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, I'm not fully convinced there is a meaningful difference between short and ultra-short other than context. (I didn't write most of that article.) There are two kinds of single morae—consonant-vowel, and just consonant. Short vowels are only longer in that they are followed immediately by a consonant—they are shut vowels. A shva or ħataf is one pure mora in length. A long/open vowel is two morae in length, which can be stretched to three or more as needed. For example, Yisrāʼēl is seven morae long, if you split it up as Yi-s-ra-a-ʼe-e-l. The word shəwā is three: shə-wa-a. Notice that shva na and shva naħ are of equal meter length, as they are with ħatafim and every short vowel. So, rather than saying "short" and "ultra-short", it might be better to say "short shut" and "short open", as that's the only real meaningful difference between them, with long or stressed vowels almost always being open. Long vowels could be shut at times, but Tiberian Hebrew was such that it was extremely rare to have a long vowel followed by more than one consonant, so adding a shva na (or an unstressed short segolate vowel) was practically routine. ʼĀsənạth, Nācərạth, gōren, bạyith, yạʻar, etc. Having a shva na was more predictable than not, so it's easier to learn the exceptions where this does not happen, like in certain words with penultimate stress like Miçrạymå (= "unto Egypt") ʼArtaħshạstå (Artaxerxes), and in names like Gērshōm, Yədhīdhyāh, ʼẠrd, etc. Tiberian Hebrew (with few exceptions) seemed to be allergic to clustering too many consonants at once or more than one consonant at the beginning of a word (even שתיים was ʼeshtạyim before it became later shtáyim—compare Arabic ʼithnān). Hm...I appear to have rambled a tad. - Gilgamesh (talk) 08:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, my bad. Not having access to the referenced books I can't check for myself, but anyway, I guess it just looked like vandalism. But FYI, "rvav" is "revert apparent vandalism" ... but be careful, as I've also been known occasionally to use it to mean "revert accumulated vandalism". -- Smjg (talk) 19:50, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, the references are at least referenced, with the quoted text. They're verifiable. But yeah, disco has always been pretty gay at times. - Gilgamesh (talk) 19:55, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
I quite agree, I've seen that term (Party of No) here and there as well. As it stood, though, it was an unsourced redirect to a non-obvious target, and some large portion of the population could easily take offense. If independent sources verify that the term is a valid nickname for the Republican Party, and if the Republican Party article discusses it in neutral fashion, then a redirect specifically to that section might be worthwhile - but not as it stood. Best, UltraExactZZClaims~ Evidence13:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Hi, you seem to have been the one to add the section that proposes original affricates. This claim is on the extraordinary side (especially wrt. PIE *s) and really needs to be referenced. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah16:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello. If you haven't noticed, I've started a structural reorganization of WikiProject Volcanoes. So far, I've beutified the head page and moved a lot of the stuff to subpages of the project, so as not to bulk the main page. As an active member of the project, this is just a notice about what's going on. Comments go on the talk page. Happy holidays, ResMar14:08, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Gilgamesh! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 3 of the articles that you created are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. Please note that all biographies of living persons must be sourced. If you were to add reliable, secondarysources to these articles, it would greatly help us with the current 4 article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the list:
Hi there, Gilgamesh.
I just thought I'd let you know, you have now made 296 articles on EnWiki. Would you like to apply for becoming an autoreviewer? Autoreviewer carries no obligation whatsoever, it simply reduces the workload of new page patrollers. You can apply here if you like. Autoreviewers usually have to have created 75 articles to get this feature, and you have nearly four times that number. Please consider. Thank you. --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk • Contribs) 21:41, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure. I've been editing since 2003, so it's been over a long period of time. I'm not entirely sure I have the time or discipline to be an autoreviewer... - Gilgamesh (talk) 01:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I read the description. I'm not certain, even after these years, that I have the most flawless grasp of notability. Several of the articles I've created have since been deleted as non-notable. Am I still a good candidate for this? - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I believe you do, because it's obvious that you are not going to put spam or pure vandalism pages up. Even if you don't qualify, you can still ask, they will just turn you down, and you will be no worse off then when you applied. I think you should go ahead. --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk • Contribs) 23:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, okay, you can nominate me. The worst I can do is go on one of my editing frenzies (mass-categorization of volcano articles, etc.). - Gilgamesh (talk) 00:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Miki Higashino. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").
Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Miki Higashino. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).
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Nea Kameni
If I'm not mistaken, you added Nea Kameni to Category:Extinct volcanoes. I removed it, because Nea Kameni only erupted 60 years ago, and I don't think it is monogenetic, because it has had eruptions before the 1950 one. If you have any disagreement, feel free to inform me. Thanks --Guanlongwucaii13:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
While I am appreciative of your interest in Lebanese history, I have to inform you of your mistaken belief that there was a Mount Lebanon Genocide. The Ottomans did not have naval forces blockading the area or intentionally starve the Mount Lebanese Christians. While the Ottoman province was blockaded, it was done so by the Allies as was much of the empire. Furthermore, while there was famines in the area, it wasn't an intentional thing but merely a consquence of the war. Also, the sources you provided to the page about the genocides, several don't work and two don't directly mention the Ottomans being responsible for the blockade, which make them very unreliable as sources if you plan to keep it up. :) I can state this with some authority as a Lebanese citizen who's family hails partially from Mount Lebanon (but mostly Balbak) and extensivly studies Lebanese and Middle Eastern history.
It was my Lebanese friend Joumana Medlej who told me about this years ago. When we realized there was no mention of it at the Mount Lebanon article, I dug for the information, and added the section and its sources. The two dead link sources could probably be recovered as links at the Wayback Machine. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:09, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I found the link for the first one.[1]. The other dead link is not on the Wayback Machine because it had a robots.txt exclusion and so was never archived while it was up. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I have nominated Oyaji, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oyaji. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.
A tag has been placed on File:Mt Eden, Auckland2.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image page for a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image.
If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 09:41, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
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If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 09:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
