Wikipedia talk:Community Portal

From Wikipedia

A community portal is something other... Belgian man 18:48, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC) Sorry. You must move your own comments to here (the discussion-page) or to your (discussion?)-page. Belgian man 18:48, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NOW IT IS UNDER CONDSTRUCTION BY ME!!! User:Belgian man

I have replaced your comments to here:

Good afternoon (or whatever). I forget how I came to notice this WP this morning. It seems to need some tender loving care. I gave it a few tweaks. New Zealand has some duty to take an interest in Naoero because of our interlinking history, but I don't intend to learn the language to help.

Before I leave (to create some links to this WP from friendly pages elsewhere), I wonder if it's too late to suggest that "nr" could be a more standard abbreviation for this WP (as it's the internet code)?? - see CIA factsheet

When you get a "Wikipedia:Village Pump" or "Wikipedia:Coffeebar" page, anyone's welcome to move all of this contribution to it.

Robin Patterson http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robin_Patterson 28 October 2004

Contents 1 Italics 2 Another word 3 Wikimedia Collaboration 4 Nauruan language, nauruan grammar etc. 5 Origin of the Nauruan Wikipedia ;) 6 WOW! New greats I've found... ;) 7 "Contacts with Nauru" ;) 8 Nauruan Wiktionary 9 Simple Nauruan phrases: 10 Tip of ibum?

[Kiwiwid] Italics

The words in Italics may replaced by a Nauruan word. If you speak Nauruan, do it please... Belgian man 20:04, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[Kiwiwid] Another word

I'd propose to change from "Deden Dorum" into "Domaneab" which means "meeting house" or "place of meeting". Actually it was the name of the former legislative centre in Nauru, a small building in the Uaboe district, and this designation is widely known in Nauru and means today a place where people meets. Ekamwawir Omo -- CdaMVvWgS 20:21, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes it would be better. I'll change. Oh no i'll do not, because this is the community portal. That isn't a meeting house, isn't it? Belgian man 21:34, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It may be no meeting house, but it's a place where people meets, and that's the meaning of "Domaneab". Don't worry about changing. Ekamwawir Omo -- CdaMVvWgS 20:47, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

domanaeb always meant 'meeting house', and is very closely related to the I-Kiribati 'menaeba' which means the same thing. The admin building for the Nauru local govenrment was named the Domenaeb.

OK, but I think Wikipedia:Tekawa ewak (that is in fact the "village pump" of our Wikipedia Edition) would better have the name Wikipedia:Domaneab. The Domaneab here, is the community portal. Belgian man 18:31, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank god you changed the name from Deden dorum guys. It was too funny. Deden means something like variety. Da rum means the room - a direct loan from english. What you had written "Deden Dorum" means something loosely like "the type of genitals you have". YOu have made the right choice - a forum should definitely be called a domenaeb. I also don't know why some parts of this site have Talofa in them. Was the template borrowed from Samoa or Tuvalu? Can i change the Talofa whenever i find it? And one more thing - where did you find the word 'Tekawa ewak' meaning village pump? To me that means 'city'. Keep going with this guys - it is a really good idea. ANd keep experimenting with Nauruan - it really is the best way to learn. Does anybody know how to get this page to recognise SILSophiaIPA font? If you could get that done, i can post phonetic spellings so you can learn how to speak the language. Keep it up! Meibitobure

Hi! If you know the correct word for "welcome", you can change the word "Talofa" here (and it will be changed immediately on all the talk pages where it is on, that is the principle of a template :-) ) and here. I'll change the names "Tekawa ewak" and "Domaneab". An important question from me to you is: Do you know a good word for "Community portal"? Ta'arawong! Belgian man 18:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC) PS: CdaMVvWgS said "Talofa" means "welcome" (also) in Nauruan, I knew already it was Tuvaluan... It was indeed a bit strange, Tuvaluan is a Central Pacific language, Nauruan is Micronesian.

[Kiwiwid] Wikimedia Collaboration

A new attempt to get the Wikimedia community to collaborate on multi-lingual tasks is the Wikimedia Collaboration of the Week. Please see the page on meta for details. It would be great if you could translate the following and add it to Community Portal. The text below is from en:Template:Wm-cotw and will be updated every week. Thanks. Angela 19:22, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I hope we find somebody who wants do this, I am not able to translate it into Nauruan for the moment, text is too difficult. Greets, Belgian man 20:00, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[Kiwiwid] Nauruan language, nauruan grammar etc.

After months of contributing quite rarely, I now want to make a little statement about what I know now about the language and grammar.

I have seen that there is some very good work in progress. To be mentioned are the pages "Wikipedia:Grammar problems", "User:Artur Lion/NAOERO DICTIONARY" and "User:Node ue/Nauruan word list". I know I had promised in this year's May that I would have more time in July to contribute more often, but I couldn't manage it, there were so many other things to do. Amongst them was also a deeper look into the Nauruan Grammar book by Alois Kayser, and I got a 700-pages book by a German called Paul Hambruch who wrote many things about Nauru I didn't know (i.e. tales from the Nauruan mythology, some history, a list of all historical villages, and a quite large part about the language (which isn't as good as Kayser's book)); I also found some web sites containing Nauruan text (I think it was an article about a medical matter), but unfortunately didn't keep the address. I'm sure it was Nauruan, and it did not contain any diacritical marks, as well as the national anthem "Nauru Bwiema", which doesn't contain diacritical marks too. So, there's a new rule to be followed:

• any diacritical mark in Delaporte's dictionary and bible, in Kayser's grammar book, and in Hambruch's language part seems to be no more in use, and has to be ignored.

Another thing I discovered that the actual spelling of "ts" is like "j", as in English word "jug". However, the word "atsin" in Nauru Bwiema is still written with "ts", it is likely that this word should be written as "ajin". But as I'm not completely sure in this point, I would say we should discuss this later, as it's currently the only grammatical matter I'm not sure about. Additionally, the previously used "j" (like in "jor" or "Jesu") has to be replaced by "y" ("yor" or "Yesu").

Still to be followed is the rule about "ñ -> ng". The double letters like "bu" (in "bue"), "mu" (in "muinen") or "qu" (in "equan") are to be written as "bw" ("bwe"), "mw" ("mwinen") and "kw" ("ekwan").

I'm currently working on a school project about the Nauruan language, which will contain a general part about the language (the final version of this text will be included in the German Wikipedia article) and a Nauruan-German dictionary, composed of the available sources (Delaporte, Kayser, Hambruch, and Node ue's list from the Jehova's Witnesses website, which I didn't know until yet; many thanks for that list). It will be finished in November.

I hope the users Artur Lion and Node ue will keep up their good work and change their lists according to the new rules above.

And of course I will contribute as much as I can, but I'm limited. Thanks for your assistance. Greetings -- CdaMVvWgS 15:42, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Agh, it's sad that the Nauruan language is losing its specialties (especially the ũ!). I also fear that English has a major impact on it, which is really a shame. But, que sera sera. / Jon Harald Søby 15:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I've redone my User:Artur Lion/NAOERO DICTIONARY with new rules, listed on this page but I still have some doubts about 5 new changes, with "ts/j" "i/y" and "bu/bw" as "bu" on the terminal part of the word (as in the "200" which is arobu, so then arobw? Or simply those a few are exceptions?) --Artur Lion 22:52, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Please note all words that aren't in my NAOERO.xls in the "!!! HERE PLEASE ADD WHAT TO CHANGE IN THE DICTIONARY !!!" part on this site above (with asterix (*) for example ;). If it's possible, please note also the "old-nauruan" writing with all diacritical marks so we would have also chance to revert our dictionary to the original writing ;) --Artur Lion 22:52, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

The rule for bu->bw, mu->mw and qu-kw is only valuable if the double letter is followed by a vowel. In example, "muinen" -> "mwinen", "buiduga" -> "bwiduga" and "aiquen" -> "aikwen", but "arobu" etc. doesn't change. -- CdaMVvWgS 05:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

And is it sure or not that the "j" must be "y" everywhere? Belgian man 18:46, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

All texts in my corpus were very recently written or translated, so it's difficult to believe the orthography is incorrect.

OK, in that case my proposal for the rule about "ts" and "j" is the following: every "j" should usually be replaced by "y" (of course, there may be some exceptions), also the xenonyms like "Jesu", "Jehova", "Johannes", "Jesaja" etc. (which turn into Yesu, Yohanes, Yehowa, Yesaya). "ts" is still written and has not to be replaced by "j"; therefore "j" remains as a very rare letter, which is confirmed in Solange and Swadesh List, where "j" is quite rare. How about that? Ekamawir Omo -- CdaMVvWgS 22:06, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me like "j" in these situations is limited to German loanwords. Similarly, the word "schafen" is used for the religious concept of being sheep, which is definitely not normal Nauruan spelling. --Node ue 04:47, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to wait a few days with some radical decisions. I've just caught some contacts with Nauru... Since about 3-4 days I've sent about 20-30 e-mails to all addresses connected with Nauru. Some of them do not exist anymore, some did not answered me yet and... I've received some answers. In general those are Air Nauru, Nauru Fishery, Radio Nauru and Ross Arthur, who has made this Nauru1.exe program which is mentioned on T.Russel's page ;) All of them are invited on www.na.wikipedia.org, encouraged to contribute and help. I've attached also some of our main Nauruan language problems such as lack of knowledge about grammar (plural forms, flexion, declination etc.) and Nauruan ortography, such as thos y/j/ts/bu→bw/àâäèêëöõũ etc. Today (8-9. Sept) I've received those e-mails with the texts which can be shortly mentioned as "Hi! What exactly do You need?". I've answered, invited them here again and... I'm waiting for answers! Also General Mission of United Nations on Nauru, national and only Nauruan Internet Service Provider, some people from the Goverment (only those which e-mails I've found) were informed. I'm still waiting for the answers. I haven't made a list who was informed because... If that supposed Naoero helper would help us... He/She *do* have first simply answer on the e-mail (or just this e-mail has to exist ;). Also I've found some small (about 5-15 posts) message boards where some people mentioned they're from Nauru, lived there or sth like that. Maybe we would have some answers from they ;) Ross Arthur also mentioned about some Canberra's institution where someone can know Nauruan. Do You know what institution it supposedly it is? So... Please wait for new user on NA:Wiki (I wish... ;) or some news from me. Maybe it will be helpful before we will change all Naoero texts with new rules... --Artur Lion 23:41, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

That would be VERY GOOD, Artur... Thanks for you efforts, I don't receive an answer from nauru.de. The 2 most important facts that we have to know are PLURAL OF NOUNS and THIRD PERSON SINGULAR OF VERBS. Each fact you know, you can add on Wikipedia:Grammar problems/en/index, if you want... Belgian man 12:39, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

In fact all I have, I've written in the {{Naoero}} box. I'm just waiting for the answers from those Nauruans (supposedly Nauruans ;) but it's weekend so... wait till monday, problably. I wish they would click on the "www.na.wikipedia.org" links which are many in the messages I wrote to them. ;) At least, if they would not want to participate in the project, it will be very helpful to us to get a known of those grammar and ortography problems. Those You've written are stressed in the messages I've sent ;) BTW If it is not a problem I would like to invite You to help me with my NAOERO dictonary - there's a section where You can freely edit with new words or some bugs found. I've found a little till now... --Artur Lion 14:53, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

About the plural of nouns and the third person singular: I quote my Nauru Grammar by Kayser from the 1930s: "The substantives as such have no distinctive form to denote numbers." That means that i.e. "eoning" can be "a child", "the children", or just "children" in general meaning. And there's also no special form for third (or whatever) person singular or plural, according to Kayser. Here I'm not completely sure, but I'd say the infinitive form of a verb is the general form for every personal form etc. But remember: the grammar is from the 1930s. I don't know what material is used today in the Nauruan schools to teach and learn Nauruan.
About the contact to Nauru. It's almost like a miracle when somebody from Nauru replies to an e-mail message. I also had contact over MSN with a Nauruan woman some months ago, and I told her about Nauruan wikipedia. She replied that she would tell this site to her friends and wouldn't forget the Nauruan wikipedia. But I never had contact again with her since that. By the way, I'm the "Co Vice President" of the society which runs nauru.de, and the last time I heard anything from them was in June. Don't try again to contact them, they likely will never reply you, maybe they are too busy, I don't know what's up with them. Ekamawir omo -- CdaMVvWgS 17:59, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the information... I already thought so, CdaMVvWgS :-) @Artur: I can maybe help with the dictionary but I don't know how... And I am rather busy for the moment. Maybe I can make the dictionaries Nauruan-English on internet English-Nauruan on a Word document, so you can add extra words without extra work. But I'm afraid I can't do this now. We don't have to make over many articles, CdaMVvWgS, if the conjunction of verbs remains the same as the infinitive and if the plural forms are the same as the singular forms. Belgian man 09:48, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

[Kiwiwid] Origin of the Nauruan Wikipedia ;)

Now it's obvious that there are requests for the new Wikis on the Meta:Wiki. But... how it happened that Wikis such as this Nauruan or Tahitian was brought to live? Were there some natives who claimed that they would participate and contribute in the project and they... simply failed? --Artur Lion 19:28, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there were such people. Belgian man 09:50, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

So they have been done AUTOMATICLY? How many Wikis then? So why Nauruan not all languages of the Oceania? ;) So You want to tell me it's possible that there was NO native Nauruan on the Wiki when Na.Wiki was created? --Artur Lion 13:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I think so... Belgian man 17:24, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[Kiwiwid] WOW! New greats I've found... ;)

1. Nauruan sample text: http://www.language-museum.com/n/nauruan.htm, not much, but maybe helpful ;) 2. " Frederick Pitcher is the ambassador of the Republic of Nauru. There are no spelling rules in the Nauruan language. Spelling is entirely phonetic - everyone writes as they speak. Because the language developed only in this small island state in the middle of the Pacific, cut off from other linguistic influences it has no affinities with other languages. Mr. Pitcher also explains that Nauruan is a very complicated language that is spoken by very few people. " How dou You fell now? ;) This one is from http://www.moment-art.com/e/sander/show_language.php3?lang_id=nauruan --Artur Lion 19:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I've seen these two pages already a few months ago... But I think the second text is a bit exaggerated. Belgian man 09:52, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I included the sample text from the first page in de:Nauruische Sprache several months ago. About the second page I'm not sure; I think there were spelling rules at least back in colonial times. Maybe nowadays those rules are not as common as they used to be, but in my opinion they have to be recognised and followed here, if we want to build a Nauruan Wikipedia of a good quality. Ekamawir omo -- CdaMVvWgS 11:45, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Hehe... Sorry, I'm a few months before You in those searchings and I think You are aware that "nothing more can be found" but I need to prove it (to) myself ;P So... the first txt (N.Y.C. languages) - I think it's like in every language - some people speak in a fluent, "high" way and "peoples" do mistakes, use slang expressions etc. etc. etc. everything that is not easily recognized as "She/He is speaking as a well educated person". As we can see no institution is responsible to keep Nauruan clean with some rules so... I think that Frederick Pitcher is quietely right with his words... I think nowadays Nauruan is quite "creole" language with GREAT influences of English and diacritical marks are really as You all say memories, "souvenirs" from the past... --Artur Lion 13:46, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

About the sample text - sorry but I've decided firstly NOT to use Wiki to find anything about Nauruan or native Nauruans. In fact I do not read German in fluent way (Norwegian bokmal is less known to me than Nauruan now ;) so I've left it for now... I'm sorry for my "new" ("new", haha) "great" (as I see now ;) founds ;P --Artur Lion 13:46, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Er... I should not say that is a kind of Creole... Nauruan is an isolate within the Micronesian languages, but to me it is clear that it is more similar to Kiribatese, Kosraean, Marshallese, Mokilese, Pingelapese, Pohnpeian, Carolinian, Chuukese, Mapia, Mortlockese, Namonuito, Pááfang, Puluwatese, Sonsorolese, Satawalese, Tobian, Tanapag, Ulithian and Woleaian (the 19 other Micronesian languages, who belong all to the Micronesian Proper group), and to the 1248 other Austronesian languages than to English... Otherwise Ethnologue should classify it as a Pidgin, Creole or Indo-European language. In fact, the 19 languages above are the most related-to-Nauruan languages of the world. Belgian man 17:17, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[Kiwiwid] "Contacts with Nauru" ;)

Duh... Bon appetit - see what answers I've received today in my "experiment" ;) http://na.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Artur_Lion/NaoeroContacts ;)--Artur Lion 14:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

[Kiwiwid] Nauruan Wiktionary

As we have now some new words by our new user Meibitobure, we should seriously think about adding them to the Nauruan Wiktionary to have a better overview of all known words. The lemmas should be the most common written form of the word, if there are two or more ways to write them (have a look on these articles about Nauruan words in the German Wiktionary).

I'd propose that the current admins of Nauruan Wikipedia should also get adminship on Nauruan Wiktionary (or at least register as a user there), and Belgian man could request the bureaucrat ship at Wikimedia's website. Let me know what you think about that. Link to the Nauruan Wiktionary is http://na.wiktionary.org/. Ekamawir omo -- CdaMVvWgS 17:34, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi CdaMVvWgS. I think the Nauruan Wiktionary is tooooooo small to have four administrators and a bureacrat. We haven't got yet one serious, daily contributor... My meaning is that if somebody wants to be the first administrator on na:wikt, he must have a vote. If you would stand for the adminship, I'll vote for you (and you may decide which requiries there must be for candidateships), I take a look weekly on the Nauruan Wiktionary Edition. But I do not think I'll stand for the adminship there... I have one IMPORTANT NOTE for EVERYONE HERE: This page isn't our Village pump/kroeg/Forum (everybody thinks it is)... Our Village pump is in fact Wikipedia:Tekawa ewak. Ta'arawong, Belgian man 17:11, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, I made a request on Meta for permission to be bureaucrat on Wiktionary (link. They said I should inform you of my new privilegies, then I'd be granted bureaucrat status there. I'll add some words there which we already have got from Meibitobure. I hope some other contributors will participate in the work there. Ekamawir omo -- CdaMVvWgS 09:28, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, it is no problem to me that you'll become an admin/bureaucrat, because the community is too small for a voting. Ta'arawong, Belgian man 18:25, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[Kiwiwid] Simple Nauruan phrases:

Omo yoran – good morning Omo yekwo – good afternoon Omo yemerra – good evening Omo yibum – good night Wo reit eid? – how are you? Mo – good Mo kor – very good Io dugdug – okay Dabur – superb Baka – bad Babaka – very bad M’eid auwe? – how about you? Eket imwin? – what’s news? / what’s happening? Eken wam paran? – What’s your plan? Eken wam kamarar? – What’s your plan? Ta’arawong – see you later Iyen egom? – what is you name? Auwe amin i? – where are you from? Anga amin Buada – I am from Buada. Iyen egen amea? – what’s his name? Iyen ea? – who’s that? Anga – me A – I Auwe – you Amea – him Eito – her Eiy – he/her/it Amune – This man here Amuno – That man there Eitune – This woman here Eituno – That woman there Inne – Here Inna – there Inno – there (farther than inna) I – where? (place) Inga – where? (thing) Ingeiy – where? (person) Anga ebon u – I love you Anga eauwe u – I love you

<<MEIBITOBURE>>

[Kiwiwid] Tip of ibum?

Ibum means 'your grandfather or grandmother' or 'grandson or granddaughter'.

DO you mean tip of bum? or jibum? that would make more sense.

I thought "ibum" meant "day"... How do you translate "day", please? Ekamawir omo, Belgian man 18:37, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Ibum means 'your grandfather or grandmother' or 'grandson or granddaughter'. Yibum, or jibum, or bum means night. We don't count by days in Nauruan. For example, three nights is eijibum. We don't have a word for day, but we have things like yoran (morning), yekwo (afternoon), Yemero (evening) and yibum (night). We also have tomorrow (yaran) and yesterday (nene).

Meibitobure.

Interesting... But a little strange :-) Thanks a lot for your help here (Note: You can put grammar facts best on Wikipedia:Grammar problems/en/index)... Ta'arawong, Belgian man 17:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

"NAOERO LANGUAGE PROJECT"

EXTERNAL LINKS

Delaporte's Nauruan Dictionary (1907) Nauruan Swadesh List Tri-Institutional Pacific Program Yale University (1954) Nauruan-English Vocabulary from Solange Petit-Skinner's "The Nauruans" (1981) Ethnologue.com on Nauruan Review of Kayser's Nauruan Grammar, by Bernard Comrie, Language 71, 1995 Big sample of Nauruan text at Jehovan's Witnesses (NEW!) Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database Nauru1.exe, DOS program based on Delaporte's Dictionary by Ross Arthur from Liberation Philology Software

INTERNAL NA.WIKIPEDIA LINKS

Grammar problems by Belgian man (English) Grammar "deciphering" by Belgian man (English) Node ue's Nauruan word list Grammar "deciphering" by Node ue Artur Lion's Excel format Naoero Dictionary Project Wikipedia_talk:Domaneab