Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems

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It has been proposed that every WikiProject choose a single article which represents what the Project members hope each article will eventually look like, so that interested onlookers can see where a Project is heading. If this project is ready to choose such an article, please do so and link to it after the Project name at Wikipedia:WikiProject. If there are no articles ready for this yet, you may wish to focus as a group on an article which is close and/or will be relatively easy to research.

Contents 1 List of lists and categories 1.1 Categories 1.2 Lists 1.3 Lists within articles 2 To do 2.1 Lists and categories 2.2 Terminology used on article pages 2.3 Presentation of script samples 2.4 Separating the script articles from language articles? 3 WikiProject Transliteration 4 Still active? 5 Project page re-org 6 Proposal for article structure and format 7 UPA draft help requested 8 Articles for the wikipedia 1.0 project 9 transliteration 10 New member 11 {{Infobox WS}} is complete 12 Cantillation 13 Benjamin Franklin? 14 Problems with talkpage tags 15 Additional Template and Project work 16 Regarding scope and assessments 17 Tagging talk pages and assessing articles 18 John Dee 19 Names of letters 20 What constitutes a "letter"? 21 Importance of writing systems 22 Italics in non-Latin scripts 23 Category:Unassessed Writing system articles 24 GA Collaboration 25 Problems at ISO 15924 26 Problems at N'Ko 27 Writing system != Language 28 Stablepedia 29 Classification 30 Wikipedia:Vernacular scripts 31 Writing systems by geographical area 32 Wikipedia Day Awards 33 Proposed program 34 GR romanization: (re)assessment 35 Proposal: Wikipedia:Romanization_of_Mongolian 36 Meanings of letters in the Latin alphabet

[edit] List of lists and categories

I'm very unclear about how to distribute things between the project page and the talk page, so I put this here for the momemt. Pjacobi 11:16, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

• Category:Writing systems
• Category:Logographic writing systems
• Category:Abjad writing systems
• Category:Abugida writing systems
• Category:Alphabetic writing systems
• Category:Latin-derived alphabets
• Category:Cyrillic_alphabet
• Category:Undeciphered writing systems
• Category:Syllabic writing systems
• Category:Syllabary writing systems

[edit] Lists

• List of writing systems
• List of alphabets
• List of undeciphered writing systems

[edit] Lists within articles

• Abugida

[edit] To do

A rough scratch for start, please expand and comment. Pjacobi 11:17, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lists and categories

Is this in-scope for a WikiProject?

The above mentioned lists and categories all disagree in subtle and some not so subtle points. Tedious cleanup seems necessary to me, starting with getting input from actual field experts on some difficult points in classification.

See alse these talk pages:

• Category_talk:Writing systems
• Category_talk:Abugida_writing_systems
• Talk:Devanagari

[edit] Terminology used on article pages

When to use alphabet, when to use script.

Of course the best usage would be 'writing system', but that can feel a bit awkward, particularly in the title of an article. 'Alphabet' has a distinct technical use, but is popularly used for most writing systems (perhaps excluding logographs). 'Script' just feels a bit amateur, but may be the best solution: it is equivalent to a 'writing system'.

There is also the issue of how to name individual segments of a writing system. The usual, western use is 'letter', but there is a tendancy to drop this use with more 'exotic' (from a western POV) scripts: glyphs and characters. I think the technical term is 'graph', but in popular usage that word is used for a graphical representation of statistics. There is also the issue of what to call the vowel marks in a vocalised abjad text, or the additional vowel strokes in an abugida.

Gareth Hughes 13:14, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Presentation of script samples

To rely on rendering of Unicode text or creating images. In case of images, a recommendation on size and layout and some tips for tool chains to use.

[edit] Separating the script articles from language articles?

For scripts only used to write one language, there currently often exists only one page for both language and script. Is it preferable to separate these, or can criteria given when to separate these?

In my view, yes, it would be ideal to have separate pages to describe the spoken language, and the script/writing system (of course, interlinked). Writing systems may be used (with little variation) by more than one distinct language, and a language may commonly (or formerly) be written by more than one script. Even in the case where there may be a one-to-one relationship, one might wish to discuss aspects of one or the other in more detail than would be convenient if they are presented together on the same page.

As for when to separate where they may already be conjoined, a blanket criterion could probably not be given in advance - it would depend upon how advanced the current conflated description is, how much effort it would take to separate, and if there is anyone prepared to do it. But yes, I for one would like to see separate articles appearing on each of the individual writing systems used to encode a given language, as they merit such a distinction. Whether this can easily be done, is another question! --cjllw | TALK 06:39, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Transliteration

• This WikiProject aims primarily to provide a consistent treatment of each language family on the Wikipedia.

I imagine "language family" is supposed to mean "writing system", seeing that this is what this project is dealing with?

I would like to start a WikiProject "Transliteration/Romanization" as a central place to develop policies how terms that are natively spelled in non-Latin alphabets should be represented. See Transliteration for a list. See also Talk:Islam#transliteration.2C_capitalisation.2C_diacritics for my thoughts on the Arabic language. Should this project's scope be expanded to cover these questions, or should a sister-project be initiated? dab 17:53, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Still active?

Doesn't seem to be much in the way of recent activity here - is anyone still active or monitoring this, who would be interested in firing this up again? --cjllw | TALK 03:36, 2005 Jun 10 (UTC)

I am no linguist. However, I'll contribute in whatever way I can and also give some inputs on Tamil script and related scripts. Perhaps, I can help bring that article to a model article state. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 07:17, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

na - wikiprojects tend to be dust-gatherers. I can thing of a few efforts. The Old Italic alphabets need loving attention, for example, with articles on individual scripts, such as the Alphabet of Lugano (see Gaulish). Also, lots of articles need images of the actual script. Iberian scripts for example. dab (ᛏ) 09:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

ah, and most of the stuff on this talk page should be promoted to the project page! dab (ᛏ) 09:10, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

plus, nobody addressed my transliteration questions above... Maybe we should spam some alphabet articles' talk pages drawing attention to this page? dab (ᛏ) 09:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I saw your question above. I personally feel that it can be a part of this wiki project itself. -- Sundar 09:15, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Project page re-org

I've taken the liberty of making a start to reorganise the project page, scope and outline. It is by no means definitive. Hope no-one minds. Further comments, suggestions, expansions etc gratefully received. Cheers. --cjllw | TALK 09:18, 2005 July 14 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for article structure and format

I see that you guys haven't come up with anything for the "Article structure and format" section. Here is my idea of what any article about a writing system should contain:

Articles on individual writing systems - proposed coverage and structure

• Introduction. Opening para summarising key points for the script. Include a common infobox, which (very briefly) gives quick reference to pertinent info (eg., script classification, language(s) reflected, whether in current use or not (perhaps date range of use, est. No of graphemes, precursor scripts if any, etc).
• History of writing system. Origins, earliest texts, which other scripts it may be related or derived from. In the case of a conscript (would this fall within the scope?), this will provide an account of the development of the alphabet, the motives behind it, etc.
• Decipherment of writing system. Where appropriate, for historical scripts which have been (or are yet to be) re-interpreted; some account of the history, efforts and results.
• Overview of writing system. Discuss usage, correspondance to language(s), region(s) where used; notable features (eg alphabetic, syllabic, logographic, etc); Historical & current literacy;
• Table of characters. Present the graphemes of the script (where feasible, all "main" phonetic & non-phonetic graphemes to be shown; if there are too many such signs (eg Chinese scripts), some representative sample will have to do).This perhaps goes without saying. The question is whether to have an image, a Unicode table, or both. For many scripts, both an image and unicode chars will be appropriate, since we would need to cater for various browsers which may not be set up to view the chars.
• Script Orthography. Summary of main rules of writing; punctuation, references to spelling where appropriate; standard(s) of transliteration into (Latin-) characters, if and where appropriate.
• Application(s) of the writing system. Languages in which the alphabet is used, differences between usage in different languages (e.g., the differences between the use of Devanāgarī in writing Sanskrit and writing Hindi).
• See also. links to related systems & topics.
• References, academic or otherwise notable resources dealing with the script and used in the exposition of the script to be given.
• External links. Almost every page dealing with a writing system will have a link to Omniglot, though this need not necessarily be the case. Omniglot is a good resource, but others also should be given. Also, perhaps links to free downloadable fonts for the script, if any.

This is all off the top of my head, mind you. Please feel free to make suggestions, but (please!) do not put it up on the project page until a final version is decided upon by all participants.

Oh, and sometime in the future, I'll busy myself with making an infobox for writing systems. (The Alphabets template just won't do.)--Siva 22:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Nice work, Siva. I have made some alterations and additions to the scope and structure, above. Note that, it would be ideal if the structure could accommodate all kinds of writing systems, not just alphabetic ones (I have amended some of your points accordingly). Again, just initial proposals at this stage, needs further work & discussion. --cjllw | TALK 07:06, 2005 August 1 (UTC)

As an addendum, re the current Alphabet infobox - this serves a different purpose, and if we do develop an infobox for writing systems in general, it should not replace, but rather complement, the alphabet infobox- I would see that a general writing systems infobox could be used for all scripts, not just alphabetic ones - also see my comments above.--cjllw | TALK 07:12, 2005 August 1 (UTC)

I'm mostly happy with your suggestion. The only thing is, not all of the sections that you suggest will be relevant for all writing systems. For example, it would be simply ridiculous to talk of the decipherment of the Latin alphabet (especially on a website that actually uses the Latin alphabet). Also, I am not quite sure to what extent the "script orthography" section would be relevant to different scripts; there is not much to say about the orthography of an alphabetic writing system (for example), and punctuation, if it exists for the script in question, is at any rate more closely associated with the language than with the writing system. One more thing: Is it really necessary to have a separate section for an overwiew of the writing system, or would the Introduction suffice?--Siva 22:16, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Siva, indeed, as I had noted above some of the topics for coverage (eg decipherment) will be applicable only to some writing systems; however where this features (eg Maya hieroglyphics) such an account would be useful. Also, "orthography" may not be the best term, what is meant is some exposition on the general rules of the writing system, and again may not be appropriate or even useful for particular examples. I have inserted one thing which I overlooked earlier, namely an annotation of any transliteration or transcription standards which may apply (again, only applicable to a subset of scripts). "Overview" also may not be the best term; the way I see it, the intro should ideally be only a few sentences summarising the most notable features of the script, and a subsequent "overview" or similarly-named section can be used to go into more detail, not appropriate for the opening paragraph. At least, that seems to be a fairly widely-observed practice for articles in general.

Whatever the section headings, an "ideal" article on a given writing system should give the reader information which covers (not necessarily in this order):

• what is the article about (opening para)
• how and when did the script originate
• what are the historical contexts of its development
• who uses/used it
• how widely is it used / was it used
• literacy amongst user population - widespread, or restricted?
• where is it used
• what language(s) does it relate to
• what other script(s) is it related to, derived from, the precursor to
• what "type" of script is it, what are its notable characteristics (syllabic, alphabetic, etc)
• what are its main constituents (graphemes- both phonetic and non-phonetic elements)
• what is the common "ordering" of the elements (eg. alpha-sort)
• what do they look like, what are the variations - current and historical
• what are the main rules for writing (orthography, spelling, etc)
• how may it be transcribed/transliterated into Latin chars (not applicable to all scripts)
• what are the notable texts/documents in the script (mainly for "historical" scripts)
• what notable tools/methods are used for inscription (mainly historical, eg cuneiform)
• if the use of the script is specialised, what kind of information is recorded (again, mainly historical examples)
• what progress, if any, has been made in decipherment (for "historical" scripts)
• what external notable references have been used so the reader may refer to them for further information
• how is the script represented in Unicode (or other electronic format)
• what fonts may be available for the script

The above not an exhaustive listing. Further comments welcomed.--cjllw | TALK 09:04, 2005 August 3 (UTC)

How about for articles that describe several writing systems, e.g. Tajik alphabet. (Incidentally yes I have been working on it a lot, and would welcome suggestions for further improvement). - FrancisTyers · 23:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UPA draft help requested

I have a draft up on User:Cassowary/Uralic phonetic alphabet about the Uralic phonetic alphabet, to replace Uralic Phonetic Alphabet and Finno-Ugric transcription. I don’t know much about it though, and would appreciate any help. If you can, please dive in. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 11:14, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Cassowary. Whilst I'm mostly unfamiliar with UPA, I've taken a look at your draft and made a few copyedits and suggestions over there for your consideration- looks like some very neat work in progress there, will be quite an improvement on the current entry - well done!--cjllw | TALK 01:34, 2005 September 7 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for the wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any articles on writing systems? We are looking for FAs as well. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers!--Shanel 03:28, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] transliteration

We may need a sub-project to deal with transliteration issues. At least, I would like some central list of templates tagging individual transliterations/transcriptions, such as {{IPA}}, {{IAST}}, {{PIE}}, {{ArabDIN}}. dab (ᛏ) 11:46, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

there are also an unknown number of templates like {{ar}} that tag languages as spelled natively. dab (ᛏ) 12:10, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

there is also {{Ivrit}}. We need a place to collect these... dab (ᛏ) 18:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

{{UPA}} for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet. —Felix the Cassowary 11:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

{{he}}, which is being tfd'd, should be replacing {{Ivrit}}. dab (ᛏ) 14:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

{{Semxlit}} for generic Semitic transliteration (Proto-Semitic, Akkadian, Phoenician etc.); should possibly be renamed. dab (ᛏ) 14:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New member

Hi, I'm just added my name to the project. I want to help transliterate articles into IPA, add images, and maybe help make some templates. Any suggestions, or ways I can find articles needing help?--The ikiroid (talk)^{(Help Me Improve)} 00:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi there Ikiroid. As you can probably see from the Project's history view, this has been a rather moribund project for a few months now (at least), as others (including me) have been pursuing other activities. Still, don't let that discourage you, sometimes all it takes is for a couple of new interested editors to come along for things to pick up again. And thanks, BTW, for setting up the WS User template. If you feel inclined, and you'd like to round up a little more interest in this area, you could possibly work on a WikiProject WS banner template for article talk pages, which could direct other interested parties to this project. As you can see, there's also a bit to be mapped out on the project page itself, you're welcome to expand it if you can see things to add.

As for your question re finding articles with portions in need of IPA transliteration, AFAIK there's no listing of these, but one way would be to review the articles in the writing system categories and see what's there, and what's missing. You could even compile such a list yourself and put it on the project page to be worked on. Regards, --cjllw | TALK 23:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I was thinking of also working to create a template for the writing system articles. However, I'll be sorta strapped for time in the next week or two, but I'll do what I can with the time I got.--The ikiroid (talk)^{(Help Me Improve)} 00:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I've created Template:Infobox WS. It needs much work.--The ikiroid (talk)^{(Help Me Improve)} 16:56, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Infobox WS}} is complete

It's good enough to be added into any Writing System article. I've already put it in katakana, hiragana, Arabic alphabet, Leet, and a few others.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cantillation

I'm not sure it's a "writing system"; it's more of a system of punctuation/musical notation. --Dweller 06:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Benjamin Franklin?

I'm not really sure I understand the logic behind adding Ben Franklin's biography to this project. I'm going to remove the tag from his Talk page, but if for some strange reason it should be there, anyone is welcome to add it back. MagnoliaSouth | Talk 13:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

A bot recently added a bunch of articles to the Writing systems project. It automatically picked up every article in a number of categories, including Category:Inventors of writing systems. I originally added Franklin there because he indeed invented a phonetic alphabet (see his article). Someone later made Ben Franklin's own category a subcategory of this, so he is still in the parent category as you can see by checking Category:Benjamin Franklin. Because he did work with phonetic alphabets, it may or may not be appropriate to include him in the Writing Systems project, as the bot did... What do you think? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean now! Yes, he did "invent one" but it was more of a toy of his. Actually I was thinking he was added due to his typeset inventions, which is the reason I was confused because it is a print format and not really a writing. I guess it's worth it then to at least explore what it is that he did, but would the writing systems project still be interested if it's not in use, or never was in use? I'm not entirely sure, but I don't believe it ever evolved into a true alphabet. I'm currently reading a book on him, as time allows, and perhaps I'll learn more but I have to admit that this is an interesting idea. I'm adding the project back to his talk page. :) Thank you! MagnoliaSouth | Talk 22:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with talkpage tags

I see above that there were some...er....off-topic articles that had the {{wsproj}} added. This is because we had a bot add this tag to all writing systems categories. Feel free to remove these tags in articles that don't apply. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah come on. Did you add them? It looked like a spate of spam. You (or whoever) should not have put them into articles that don't apply. Why put it on us to clean it up? Evertype 00:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I did not count on articles that had nothing to do with writing systems being in writing systems categories. I'm sorry. There are hundreds of writing system articles, and this was the best way to tag them. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

-) Not a problem for me. I know what it can be like trying to tag loads of articles. I noticed this because an inventor of several writing systems (J. R. R. Tolkien) got tagged. I've removed the tag from that article talk page (as the article actually says little about his work on inventing these writing systems), but left it on Tengwar and Sarati and Cirth, as those are articles about the writing systems themselves. Carcharoth 14:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additional Template and Project work

I've added Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing systems/Assessment. There is a bit of a question as to whether "system" or "systems" should be used in some of the template pages. I mean, is it [[Category:B-Class Writing system articles]] or [[Category:B-Class Writing systems articles]]? And should we migrate from {{Wsproj}} to the more informative and standard {{WP Writing systems}}? We should decide these things now before the project gets too big, I should think. -- Evertype·✆ 14:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

For the project banner's name, agree that {{WP Writing systems}} is a more informative and standard choice. It will not be that difficult to migrate to it, I'll look to doing this in the next little while.--cjllw | TALK 01:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've now moved the project's banner to {{WP Writing systems}}, and commenced migrating from the previous name. However, I hadn't counted on there being so many articles' talk pages already tagged with the banner (1200+), and it's proving a little tedious- perhaps the bot could be re-enlisted to make the updates.

In any case, it doesn't matter so much since the previous banner {{Wsproj}} redirects to the new one, and either can be used (the category inheritance still functions OK).--cjllw | TALK 07:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding scope and assessments

As has been commented on above, when the bot went through tagging all articles within the schema of the writing systems category and its child categories, it picked up quite a number of articles which could be seen as "non-core" or only tangentially-related. At this juncture it's probably appropriate for the Project to decide how wide or narrow its scope should really be. Articles on specific writing systems, and articles on writing system types, components and terminology would seem to be a given for inclusion in scope - but what about articles on say, inventors of writing systems, or writing implements/materials? Either approach would be valid, but how extensive the project's scope needs to be should be determined.

Re the rating assessments- before doing too much more of this the project also needs to articulate what each of the importance classifications mean in the project's context. The general idea of importance rating as used in other projects is for Top- importance to be reserved for those topics (generally at the highest level of coverage) indispensable for any brief extract or compendium of information on the subject (viz. writing systems), High- importance to include other significant (sub-)topics, and so on down the line. Any thoughts on what would be the best way to define how the importance scale is to apply for this particular project?--cjllw | TALK 07:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Evertype seems to be establishing a lot of this....I'll contact him. He created the class/importance subpage of this project. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Evertype is in Tokyo hopelessly jetlagged. But I dunno. I've been tagging things according to my own whim. ;-) Obviously Latin alphabet is Top. Ogham probably Mid. -- Evertype·✆ 09:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps articles about individual letters should be low, and all articles on writing systems themselves should be at least mid, if not high. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 18:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

High and Mid for writing systems at least. -- Evertype·✆ 22:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging talk pages and assessing articles

Hi. If you still have work to do tagging talk pages and assessing articles, my AWB plugin might be of interest to you.

The plugin has two main modes of operation:

• Tagging talk pages, great for high-speed tagging
• Assessments mode, for reviewing articles (pictured)

As of the current version, WikiProjects with simple "generic" templates are supported by the plugin without the need for any special programatic support by me. I've had a look at your project's template and you seem to qualify.

For more information see:

• About the plugin
• About support for "generic" WikiProject templates
• User guide
• About AWB (AutoWikiBrowser)

Hope that helps. If you have any questions or find any bugs please let me know on the plugin's talk page. --Kingboyk 15:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Dee

John Dee is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 21:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Names of letters

Has there ever been any general discussion about what forms the names of articles on the extended letters of the Latin alphabet (or other alphabets) should take? Some articles are under the name or description of the letter (or its function) (e.g., Voiced velar plosive, Open O, Wynn) while others are under the symbol itself (e.g., Ă, Ɛ, Š). Ever any attempt at standardiz/sation? Where would be the appropriate place to discuss this? -  AjaxSmack  01:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, if it's a rare symbol not supported by most browsers, then the name is usually written out. However, if no actual name exists (such as Ҩ) they are made into the letter. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What constitutes a "letter"?

I notice that in some "alphabet" articles (Romani Latin alphabet to pick an example at random) letters with diacritical marks are considered separate letters of the alphabet, whereas in others (French alphabet to pick another example at random) they aren't. Is there any logic to this, or is it just down to the whim of the editor? If there is no logic to it then ideally the articles should be standardised in this respect. Matt 20:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC).

This depends on the language and its traditions. Look at any dictionary (or directory) in the language in question and you will see how the words are sorted alphabetically.   Andreas   ^(T) 22:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance of writing systems

Which writing systems should be considered "top" importance? Latin alphabet is as of now, and I raised the importance of Greek alphabet to "top." But what about phoenician, japanese, chinese, cyrillic, etc.? I'm in a quandry over what to do. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I just started assessing some Cyrillic alphabet articles, and found that existing articles don't seem to be consistently tagged for importance. How does the following sound? Please add to the list. —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 22:31 Z

• Top
  • Writing systems main/overview articles: writing system, writing
  • Types of writing systems: syllabary, alphabet, Abjad, Abugida, Logogram
  • Major writing system families: Latin alphabet, Greek alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet
• High
  • Writing systems terminology: grapheme, Transliteration, Decipherment
  • National alphabets: Russian alphabet, Ukrainian alphabet, Tajik alphabet
  • Well-known extinct scripts: Cuneiform script, Egyptian hieroglyphs
  • Very well-known special-use scripts: IPA, Braille
• Mid
  • Alphabets not in use: Ukrainian Latin alphabet, Belarusian Arabic alphabet
  • Specialized alphabets and transcription systems:Scientific transliteration, ISO 9, Romanization of Russian
• Low
  • Individual letters: A (Cyrillic), Be (Cyrillic), Ve (Cyrillic)
  • Narrow topics spun off from mid-importance articles: BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian
  • Obscure topics: ?

A spinoff article or subordinate topic would typically be one level lower in importance, depending on the breadth of its scope (use your judgment).

Where would we rate families which are represented essentially by only one national alphabet, such as the Armenian alphabet or Georgian alphabet—top or high? —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 23:33 Z

I'd say they should be rated 'High'. - Francis Tyers · 20:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Italics in non-Latin scripts

A guideline on whether or not to italicize all scripts other than Latin is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Unassessed Writing system articles

We need people willing to help chew away this backlog by rating articles according to WP:WPW/RATE, and helping standardize articles with the appropriate infoboxes, navtemplates, and {{Writingsystem-stub}}. On another somewhat related note, should we start a newsletter or something about projects we are working on? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Collaboration

An article in this wikiprojects criteria has been chosen to be the GA Collaboration. We would appreciate your assistance in figuring out what a few sentences as found on the Alphabet article's talk page as well as a few places that we could use as references. Also any other suggestions would be appreciated. Tarret 00:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems at ISO 15924

Please see Talk:ISO 15924#Stop adding this misleading section on "scripts missing". Mr Orlandi continues to add more and more to this section. This is, in my view, bad faith given the view of the ISO 15924 Registration Authority. Please discuss. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆ 18:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

false claim of Michael Everson. No Mr Orlandi around there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This is uncivil. I made an error remembering Mr Conradi's name. Actually, I confused Tobias Conradi with Copticist Tito Orlandi. This is not a lie. These things happen. But Mr Conradi feels it best to attack me. -- Evertype·✆ 18:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems at N'Ko

Please see Talk:N'Ko language#Unwelcome changes: only one article needed. Mr Orlandi split the article needlessly; I have reverted. Please discuss. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆ 10:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

false claim of Michael Everson. No Mr Orlandi around there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This is uncivil. I made an error remembering Mr Conradi's name. Actually, I confused Tobias Conradi with Copticist Tito Orlandi. This is not a lie. These things happen. But Mr Conradi feels it best to attack me. -- Evertype·✆ 18:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting that you started to explicitly state after one of your statements that it is not a lie. Shall we assume the opposite in absence of this? How do you know my feelings (But Mr Conradi feels it best to attack me.)? BTW, I did say that you made a false claim, which is different from attacking you as a person. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

A false statement, or lie, is intended to mislead. An error is not. I consider being accused of falsehood to be an attack. -- Evertype·✆ 18:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

'Intentional false claim' = 'lie'.

'Unintentional false claim' = 'error'.

'Bickering over whether just "false claim" is meant to infer intentional or unintentional' = 'annoying'

Confusion cleared up. Can we please move along? --CBD 13:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see N'Ko alphabet which has been proposed to be merged with N'Ko and deleted or made a re-direct. -- Evertype·✆ 18:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Writing system != Language

Michael Everson does not want to follow the WP concept that there are articles for languages and articles for writing systems. This is ok. I on the other hand want to follow this. Reasons:

• If you link from somewhere you should be forced to link to the correct item (lang or script) so that WP gets links of higher quality
• not confuse the reader
• make clear what the content is about, e.g. the mixed N'Ko article is to 90% about the N'Ko alphabet. The language related stuff is almost not existing. By having a seperate article N'Ko language, this is much more visible. This in turn may encourage people that know about the language to add content.
• no mess with two Infoboxes at the top right. BTW which gets precedence? The language box or the writing system box?

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I object to Mr Conradi's characterization of me here. I do not object to the split of Latin and Latin alphabet as both are long and complex articles about language and script respectively. However, N'Ko is quite different. It is a short article, and there is no justification for the split. I suspect that Mr Conradi's motivation here is nothing more than his unhappiness about the "mess with two infoboxes" which is not, actually, messy at all. Comment from other editors is invited. -- Evertype·✆ 18:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Again: false claim by you. And yes, I am unhappy about mess with two infoboxes. But look above, this is not the only motivation. I wrote more reasons than only that one. IMO general policy should be to have one article for each item. The N'Ko alphabet article is IMO a nice small writing system article. The language article would only constitute a small stub right now. But this is work for the WikiProject Languages. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I object, again, at your calling me a liar. I have made no "false claim". What do you think the "false claim" is? That there is "no justification" for the split? I haven't seen a credible one offered. There is no "mess" with two info boxes. It looks quite good, in my opinion. There is nothing about the language that does not belong on the same page as the script. I say this as someone who knows a lot about N'Ko, and who knows many people who use N'Ko. A language stub for N'Ko will stay a stub indefinitely. Until such a time as there is enough information about the language that it would justify a separate page, the only article we ned is N'Ko. -- Evertype·✆ 18:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

What do you think the "false claim" is? That there is "no justification" for the split? - Exactly. BTW, I would like to see evidence that the N'Ko language exists at all. If it exists, I wonder why you think there is nothing that can be written about it. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

You have offered no credible justification for the split. My claim is not false. -- Evertype·✆ 23:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you notice that you changed your claim? "no justification" is different to "no credible justification". It now depends on how one interprets "credible justification". I don't know how to show they are credible nor that they are not credible. So, I would now say you made a difficult to prove claim or an unproven claim. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

My view of the unhelpfulness of your splitting of the N'Ko article remains unchanged, whether modified with an additional adjective or not. You're not going to "prove" anything by suggesting that I am changing my mind or my claim. -- Evertype·✆ 09:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, the intention was to let you think, not to prove anything. But since your initial claim was false, you added one with by your "23:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)" post. Quite a lot around now. BTW, modification IS change. Seems your kind of logic is very different to rationalism. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 04:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] Classification

See this where I have endeavoured to describe how we may wish to classify articles. I would like to see consistency in the use of "alphabet" and "script" in article titles. Can we discuss this and come to consensus? -- Evertype·✆ 10:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Consensus would be good. My objection continues to be that actual usage is not consistent with the way you are actively renaming/rewriting these articles... which would be a good thing to hold off on doing until there IS consensus. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) for the basis of my objection. It would be more 'logical/consistent/organized' to have all the life-form articles in Wikipedia by their scientific names... but we don't because 99 times out of 100 someone is going to search for 'Bat' instead of 'Chiroptera'. IMO the same applies to writing systems... it would certainly be more logical/consistent/organized to name and describe all the writing systems based on some sort of formalized hierarchy. But that isn't how Wikipedia naming conventions work and I don't think it should be. If people commonly call something a 'script' then Wikipedia should call it a script... regardless of whether that complies with a formal hierarchy of definitions. --CBD 11:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Look, though I have explained this to you about a dozen times, I will try again. There is a thing called the Arabic script. It has many hundreds of letters in it. There is a thing called the Arabic alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. There is a thing called the Urdu alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. There is a thing called the Persian alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. There is a thing called the Arwi alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. And there is a thing called the Sindhi alphabet, which is a subset of the Arabic script, using only a couple dozen letters. We need to be able to distinguish "script" and "alphabet". It does not matter if you find somewhere on the internet the term "Albanian script" used to mean the "Albanian alphabet" (being the Latin-script alphabet used in Tiranë). The word "script" may also mean a kind of cursive handwriting, but that is orthogonal to the question of terminology in articles about Writing Systems. I re-iterate my proposal that we use consistent and precise terminology for Writing Systems articles. -- Evertype·✆ 14:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That seems like a logical, clear and useful distinction, but I can't help but be curious, can you tell me who is it who first made that distinction, Evertype? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It certainly isn't a new way of describing things. -- Evertype·✆ 19:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You say that "we need to be able to distinguish 'script' and 'alphabet'". Why? Given that there are literally millions of people in the world, commonly known as 'our users', who do NOT distinguish between these two words why would it be beneficial to here use them for specific different meanings? You say 'this is a script and that is an alphabet'... per the specific definitions of the two terms you are using... and that we should ignore the fact that other people call your 'scripts' "alphabets" and your 'alphabets' "scripts". Why? Doesn't the fact that they ARE so used mean that we should do so here as well? Wikipedia is a reference work for 'the way things are'... not a research project for 'the way things should be'. As I have tried to explain back to you just as many times. --CBD 15:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

We need to be able to distinguish them because people are confused by the fact that there is an Arabic script which is a superset of the Arabic alphabet and the Arwi alphabet, and because it is important for us to be able to make this distinction so that our articles are clear and unambiguous. We want articles on Writing Systems to be well-structured and unambiguous, and so we should choose precise meanings for words like "script" and "alphabet". The fact that the word "script" may be polyvalent and can be used in an imprecise sense does not mean that we should use it in an imprecise sense. What would be the advantage to that? -- Evertype·✆ 19:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

If people actually use the terms that way then they aren't "confused"... that really is the way the concepts are commonly expressed and I don't think we should be trying to impose an artificial consistency on them from without. That seems a clear case of original research to me. The argument that we could pick amongst multiple accepted terms is reasonable (and beats the various claims that alphabets aren't called 'scripts' hands down), but it still takes us away from more common/natural usage to an artificial standard. Also, you need to consider that this represents a contradiction... you have argued that we should not have an article titled 'N'Ko script' because it isn't used that way independently of the N'Ko language. Now you are arguing that we should work not based on how terms are actually used, but by a formal hierarchy we define... which, as you designed it, would title an article on the writing system... "N'Ko script". We can't simultaneously follow actual usage AND ignore actual usage to follow a locally defined hierarchy. --CBD 12:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I have dismissed your accusations of "original research" about a dozen times, so I'm not going to deal with that here. N'Ko is one of those exceptions that prove the rule, because N'Ko is only a literary language, never written in any other script, it makes sense to deal with all of that in one place. There are therefore good reasons to deviate from consistency in the case of N'Ko. This is not the case for other scripts. Regarding the other "Common usage" which confuses the Arwi alphabet with the Arabic script is bad usage, and accuracy trumps frequency. -- Evertype·✆ 19:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The proposal sounds sensible to me. Although I am personally used to seeing "Cyrillic alphabet" more often, "Cyrillic script" is good for consistency. Have you considered the wordier, but more accessible "writing system" instead of "script"? —Michael Z. 2006-11-29 21:15 Z

Is there any problem with having Cyrillic alphabet / Russian alphabet / Tajik alphabet etc. ? -- However it doesn't matter that much, I would be happy with script or writing system for some consistency. Perhaps we could have an infobox template or something for these... - Francis Tyers · 09:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Cyrillic is the script; indeed there is no "Cyrillic language". The others are alphabets. In cases like this, I hope we can create policy for teminological simplicity. The WikiProject Numismatics has pretty robust rules about what to do about terminology. Could we have the same? There will be high feelings about Latin Script vs Roman Alphabet, but if our policies are sound, we might help users understand scripts and alphabets better. (The assumption that the Latin script is just the Roman alphabet is widespread, and mistaken.) -- Evertype·✆ 19:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

In particular, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Numismatics/Style -- Evertype·✆ 19:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Vernacular scripts

vote on scripts.--D-Boy 02:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Writing systems by geographical area

I just set up a page, Writing systems of Africa, and a category under the same name. These group a diverse range of topics and pages relating to use of writing (and symbols) in Africa. I'm not aware of other wide geographic scale collections (other than worldwide), but the thought occurs that it might be a useful addition for other areas as well, not necessarily continental in all cases (Asia for instance would certainly be too large a single category for number of writing systems to cover, even in such a brief overview format). --A12n 09:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool! Nice job, although it's a bit listy. But for being a new article, it's off to a great start. I'll try to fix around some things. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed program

I'd like to a propose a monthly (or perhaps a [bi]weekly) collaboration for our wikiproject. I've started the page at this location, does anyone have an opinion or any further ideas regarding the matter? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 23:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GR romanization: (re)assessment

Having just made a fairly thorough revision of the article on the Gwoyeu Romatzyh romanization of Chinese, I've tentatively given it a classification, & flagged it for reassessment -- though I don't know how that works in practice.

I'd be grateful for comments. Ndsg 12:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for Peer Review now made. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: Wikipedia:Romanization_of_Mongolian

I'm looking for expert input on this proposal. Any takers? It's a rather exotic language, but there's a lot of historic (and other) material based on it. --Latebird 12:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meanings of letters in the Latin alphabet

Some letters have a long list of meanings in the main article and a long disambiguation page where more are given, often overlapping. See, for example, I vs. I (disambiguation). Others have all meanings at the disambiguation page (e.g. G vs. G (disambiguation)), and yet others have an almost empty disambiguation page (e.g. H vs. H (disambiguation)). To the newcomer it seems an arbitrary muddle. Just in case I feel like tackling this, is any logic here that I am missing? Is there any preference for putting the meanings in one place or the other? Matt 12:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC).

Hi Matt, you bring up a good point. Wikipedia generally avoids merging multiple topics under the same title, which includes making part of a page a disambiguation. Technically, the disambiguation pages should be the bare letter (i.e. G (disambiguation) should be G) and the article about the letter should be something like G (letter). However, in situations where one topic is much more popular than all of the other choices, the popular topic gets the bare title and the disambiguation page gets a subtitle. It happens in other articles too, see IPA, which redirects to "International Phonetic Alphabet" and the disambiguation page is at IPA (disambiguation). I hope I answered your question without to much confusion ;-) The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, the way it is at the moment clearly doesn't work because there is so much duplication and overlap between the "letter" articles and the "disambiguation" articles. In the absence of any other opinion I propose that all these lists of other meanings should go on the disambiguation pages. I have made a start, and moved and merged the lists for Y and Z. I'll probbaly do some more as and when. Matt 14:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

Nice job! I'll try to do some work with it, too. Also, I'd suggest setting up an account—editors with accounts get a "watchlist" that helps them keep track of stuff they're working on, something that could probably help you here. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)