User talk:Zenyu

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[edit] Minor edits

I noticed you have marked some large additions to articles as minor. The consensus seems to be that that designation is best limited to fixing typos and similar edits that don't change the content. Maybe your browser is 'stuck'! Anyway, it's a "minor" point of "wikiquette". Thanks for you contributions to the project. -Willmcw 23:07, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry my browser was indead stuck. -Zenyu 01:11, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Qosqo/Cuzco/Cusco

Hi, I'm curious what you mean by "known as Cusco to hippies." Is this a joke? Why is Cusco famous among hippies? As you noted at Talk:Cusco, 'Cusco' is the normal current spelling in Spanish. It replaced 'Cuzco' sometime in the last couple centuries. In Quechua it is Qosqo (at least in modern orthography--I'm not sure how far back modern spelling conventions in Quechua go). -Serapio 07:12, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)

I wrote "known as Qusqo to hippies" with two "Q"s Cusco with two "C"s is the spelling in both Spanish and Quechua among all the Peruvian Spanish and Quechua speakers I've known. According to the explorer Hugh Thomson, "Qusqo" with two "Q"s is the spelling used by the many hippies living in the areas surrounding Cuzco. I have no problem with hippies, they have set-up many of the best inns near ruins in the Vilcabamba. I've not often seen the "Qosqo" with an "o" after the first "Q" but this is probably a modern reconstruction, since the Spanish often changed o's to u's, as well as messing up i's and a's and adding c's to the end of words ending in vowels. The o's and u's in Quechua sound more like the English ones than the Spanish ones, and the 'i' in Quechua is spoken more like the i in 'is' rather than the Spanish 'i' which sounds more like like the e's in 'eek'. The Spanish 'a' is aspirated more like the 'i' in 'is' so this replacement makes sense in Spanish. I think perhaps we need a template explaining this so we don't need to list every variant of every Quechua word out there. -- Zenyu 16:01, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

PS As for why Cuzco (and Machu Picchu) is famous among hippies, I'm not quite sure, but it is. It might have something to do with the Inca's love landscaping, long before western europe embraced the concept. I believe this is taken for a revernce for nature, which may or may not be accurate.

Okay, I see. I suspect your Quechuan friends are simply using Spanish orthography, because the "official" Quechuan doesn't have a c, using k for the velar stop and q for the uvular. That problem of variant spellings is rife. For some chinese toponyms, there are over half a dozen different spellings, derived from a single set Chinese characters, through different dialects and romanization schemes. -Serapio 07:14, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

This is possible, the spellings changes happened later in Peru (1987) than in Bolivia (1984). But could it be an exception for place names? Perhaps observed by some and not others? I suspect observance of the new Spelling may be political as well, Peru is a very conservative/traditional place by Latin American standards. I've edited the Cuzco page to explain that "Qosqo" is the proper spelling in post-1987 Quechua, which I gather from you is correct.

--Zenyu 16:10, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Looks good. -Serapio 19:37, 2005 Jan 6 (UTC)

[edit] Juneberry/Saskatoon Berry

Just saw your note at Talk:Juneberry - by all means move it if you think it should be, that seems reasonable, if Saskatoon Berry always means Amelanchier alnifolia; AFAIK, Juneberry can refer to other species of Amelanchier as well, not just A. alnifolia, so may be poorly used here. - MPF 22:56, 27 August 2005 (UTC)