Wiki discussion

[JoB]

A-haaa! Finally some success - if the full text search cache, after its next update, shows the matched text portion for Arni the way I expect it to. Phew. Took long enough.

[JoB]

if the full text search cache, after its next update, shows the matched text portion for Arni the way I expect it to.

Aaaand check (see attached screenshot)!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[JoB]

... which promptly raises the next questions: a) Does someone know the correct transcription of the Nordic characters into ASCII, and b) supposed they're not obvious (I'ld fully expect some people who've never seen Icelandic to transcribe "Þór" as "Dor" or "Por" instead of "Thor"), do we want to provide the correct, the dummy-ese, or both?

Ice: Áá Ðð Éé Íí Óó Úú Ýý Þþ Ææ Öö
Den&Nor: Ææ Øø Åå
very formal Nor: Ææ Øø Åå é è ê ó ò â ô
Swe&Fin: Åå Ää Öö
very formal Fin: Åå Ää Öö Šš Žž

[Fimbulvarg]

very formal Nor: Ææ Øø Åå é è ê ó ò â ô

I don't get this, what's formal about it and are all those lower case letters meant to be Norwegian characters?

[JoB]

I don't get this, what's formal about it and are all those lower case letters meant to be Norwegian characters?

Info taken straight from Wikipedia ...

(OK, calling it "formal" might be incorrect. It's the Wikipedia page on the Finnish alphabet mentioning that "in practice, only highly formal sources such as official texts, encyclopedias or Helsingin Sanomat use them.")

[JoB]

I mightn't be able to understand word one from them, but it seems that the native counterparts confirm the two Finnish extra characters as well as the use of at least the acute and grave accent in Norwegian ...

[ThisCat]

I don't get this, what's formal about it and are all those lower case letters meant to be Norwegian characters?

I know at least some of them are used. I use é myself quite often and I know the letter ô is supposed to be used in at least one word (fôr). Though it's formal because very few people actually use them.

[Fimbulvarg]

I mightn't be able to understand word one from them, but it seems that the native counterparts confirm the two Finnish extra characters as well as the use of at least the acute and grave accent in Norwegian ...

Ah, but these are not individual alphabetic letters, they are diacritical accent marks and are used in English too (with the exception of the circumflex, which I really believe has only one application in the entire Norwegian non-loan word lexicon). That's not entirely the same as Icelandic Á and Swedish Ö which are not found in English and are always regarded as separate letters with distinct phonetic realisations compared to their derivatives.

Also there's not really any point in creating an artificial distinction between the Danish alphabet and the Norwegian because they are identical also with regard to diacriticals.

[JoB]

Ah, but these are not individual alphabetic letters, they are diacritical accent marks

Hm ...

The current subtopics are a) how to transcribe terms with accented letters into pure ASCII, and b) (lower priority) which accented characters to maybe include into our CharInsert config so as to allow people to "type" terms with correct accented letters, not to come with the ultimate definition of a Nordic language's alphabet. I'm under the impression that in both these areas, we should err on the side of inclusion ... ?

[Solovei]

I just wanted to thank whoever wrote the languages article, it's very nice! That graph is also very well done.

[JoB]

I just wanted to thank whoever wrote the languages article, it's very nice! That graph is also very well done.

Thanks, it suddenly occured to me that that buncha facts ought to be spelled out on its own page (before, say, the editors of the characters' pages sprinkle it every which way). I am still puzzled where to put links to it, though.

[JoB]

Did we break Wikia's newest and bestest (the VisualEditor), or has it been disabled globally? :-/

[Fimbulvarg]

Did we break Wikia's newest and bestest (the VisualEditor), or has it been disabled globally? :-/

I can still access visual editor ...  did you mean that some newer edition of visual editor is inaccessible or are you totally consigned to the source editor?

[JoB]

I can still access visual editor ...  did you mean that some newer edition of visual editor is inaccessible or are you totally consigned to the source editor?

I'm hitting the normal "Edit" button and instead of bringing up the VisualEditor, I get the Classic Edito (in visual mode).

Then again, I'm restricted to an older browser the last couple days ... will try with the other one when I get a round tuit.

[JoB]

Then again, I'm restricted to an older browser the last couple days ... will try with the other one when I get a round tuit.

Yup, it was a reaction to the aged browser. Forget I said anything.