Word/quotation of the moment:

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The File:Original South Park flag.png Confederate flag is a matter of pride and heritage, not hatred.

In the early years of the study there were more than 200 speakers of the dialect, including one parrot. (from the WP article Nancy Dorian)

Mikebrown is unusually eccentric and not very bright. [...] Astronomers have not noticed any outbursts by Mikebrown. (from the WP article 11714 Mikebrown)

Keep Redskins White!

"homosapiens are people, too!!"

Spaghetti Weevil (and also) a sprig of spaghetti

"I've always had a horror of husbands-in-law."

awkwardnessful

anti–zombie-fungus fungus

"Only an evil person would eat baby soup."

Hi Kwamikagami, there is this Biscayan dialect article with a clarification tag, I wonder if you could add the phonetics for those sounds, since you seem to be familiar with Basque phonology and phonetics. That would be helpful, regards Iñaki LL (talk) 21:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Can't add a phonetic transcription without a ref to that dialect in particular, as it might differ from others. But the real problem there is that I can't parse the sentence. I have no idea which converge to what. — kwami (talk) 21:37, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kwamigami, ummm, is it about the Basque orthographical system? Basically it is about tx (Spanish ch) and tz (like in English "its"), and x (like English "share") and z (voiceless, = French intervocalic "ss" like in poisson), but letters spelled "s" and "ts" is a bit more tricky, something in between "tz" and "tx", voiceless. I do not know if I explained myself. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:34, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kwami. Neither Voice (phonetics) or Voicelessness cites simple examples for the 'common reader' to make sense of. There are references to "obstruents" and "pairs", but at no point do we make it clear which are which — using pairs that are obvious to the average reader such as [d and t], [b and p] instead of more obscure examples invloving [dj] etc.. So, even though it is not (always) that clear-cut, can't we add something to the effect that "simplistically speaking/ traditionally, the voiced are..... and the voiceless are ...? Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 16:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. There are (or were) simple examples on WP, I remember seeing them, but they may be in the articles specifically for English. Not sure if you're asking me for permission to change the article (sometimes people do) or for an explanation. — kwami (talk) 02:56, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kwami. Thanks for your reply. I primarily wanted to hear your take on this because things change and I might not be aware of latest theories/ findings/ trends etc. When I studied linguistics in 82-86, voiced and voiceless were clear opposites. Because the middle ground seems to have since vanished I was not sure if obvious examples such as [d and t], [b and p] are not longer accepted because of possible grey areas. If I failed to make myself understood (very likely), don't worry about it, I will come back to it at a later stage. Thanks. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 19:15, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

IPA [p] and [b] are distinguished by voicing, but English /p/ and /b/ are not exactly [p] and [b], or at least not always. (I just heard a song where "game" is pronounced with a [k] when stressed, with a [g] when not.) As long as it's clear that English and e.g. Spanish /p, b/ aren't identical, and that English isn't the best illustration, that should probably be good enough. Plus, I think English fricatives are pretty-much distinguished by voicing, and since it's easier to feel the buzz in your throat with [z] than with [b], that may be the way to go. — kwami (talk) 02:57, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Deviating from the topic, speaking of "game" with a [k], white South African - primed by the written form, pronounce "Shaka" as "shah-ker" and will not 'notice' that Nguni speaker actually say "Shaah-gah" even if they hear it repeatedly, unless it is deliberately brought to their attention. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 23:51, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kwami, The correct classification as per Harvey (2008) is Yirram (Jaminjung, Ngaliwurru, Nungali), Jingulu, and Ngurlun (Ngarnka, Binbinka, Gudanji, Wambaya). It has been suggested that Jaminjung and Ngaliwurru are closely related and that Binbinka, Gudanji and Wambaya are also closely related. I use the term 'language', because that is the appropriate term for speakers and owners of these languages. The ISO and derived codes for Australian languages are infamously incorrect. Ngarnka and Gudanji are not in a dialectal relationship, and no one has suggested this for fifty years or so (cf. any of the references on the page). This is why I deleted the ISO and glottolog codes. They're not very useful at all in this context, and actually serve to obscure the linguistic relationships between the languages. Please delete them again. West Barkly is an old term that is no longer considered genetic. It's a geographic grouping of Jingulu and Ngurlun. Please undo your adjustments. If you have relevant sources that support your case, let me know. Regards, David. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Osgarby (talk • contribs) 05:45, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David. No, I don't doubt your sources, but we should be consistent. The Mirngi etc. articles shouldn't contradict this one. Also, if the ISO or Glottolog codes are poorly defined we still need to report them as they are, though of course we can say how they're wrong. Sorry, no time tonight to fix things up. Will continue when I can. — kwami (talk) 06:12, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kwami. I see you've changed the name of the entire article now from Ngarnka to Ngarnji, you've changed the alternative names around, and you've adjusted the information panel on the right as well. All of these adjustments are incorrect. Please revert all of these changes, as my original information was very precise about language names and ethnonyms. It is a complex distinction for Australian languages, and much of the information about these languages is unpublished, so while I'm not sure what your sources are, I know they are not up to date. The language name is Ngarnka and the enthnicity is Ngarnji (the distinction being in the gender of the noun: neuter vs. masculine). It is a similar distinction between, the neighbouring language Jingulu, spoken by the Jingili people (again, neuter vs. masculine). I'm not sure why you are making edits to this article. Do not feel the need to fix things up with this article in future, beyond reverting the changes you have made. Regards, David. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Osgarby (talk • contribs) 09:58, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's certainly necessary to correct errors like with the ISO code. As for the name, if the ethnicity is Ngarnji, then it's the Ngarnji language. That's the default for naming language articles on WP. — kwami (talk) 03:39, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard this term ages ago, in an informal conversation like this one [1], and naively thought you might be interested in writing something on it or creating a redirect. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 01:06, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I think we have an article for that. I'll check for a rd tomorrow maybe. THanks. — kwami (talk) 03:41, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have an address for email, please? I'm looking for someone with expertise in rongorongo. Iridia (talk) 19:41, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Just click 'email this user' on the left of this page. — kwami (talk) 04:41, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We've got a new hyphen discussion at Talk:Red giant branch#Requested move 28 April 2016. --JorisvS (talk) 18:44, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]