Talk:Romani alphabets

message: Not a bad article, it could use a bit of a going-over by an educated person to remove repetition.  Also I'm not sure what this phrase means--
:with a contemporary utilization less than Latin.
Latin script I'm guessing?  It could be made a bit clearer. Dan Carkner 13:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

message: The 46 characters are not exactly an alphabet, but a collection of letters used in different writing conventions. For example different variants choose either a diacritic or another. So it is pointless to say that a certain dialect does not use them all, none use them all. Probably the author(s) of the article they were imported from thought that all of them are used together in a simultaneous writing convention. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 23:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Latin characters

message: OK, you two. Quit it. It's not productive. There's some good evidence that Desiphral is either the originator or a significant player in the movement to use Devanagari for Romani, as is shown on the Romani wikipedia. Frankly, I say good on you, that Řoma are discovering their Desi roots is a good thing, in my opinion, and highly laudable. However, it's not really appropriate for a Wikipedia context. The reason why I'm pushing for the standard scholarly transcription to be used both here and elsewhere in Wikipedia articles is because if people want to read further on the Romani language it's this transcription they'll encounter. Writing chey is all very well, but the form people will encounter if they read further in scholarly literature isn't चेऐ or chey, but čhej. Personally, in the form of Romani that I'm learning, I would say šej, but I'd expect to see čhej. Basically, wikipedia isn't about what we think is right but about what we know is verifiable. For example, I believe that Hancock's derivation of rrom from rama is correct, but the scholarly community as a whole disagrees with me and prefers to derive it from ḍomba (c.f. Roma_people#Etymology. So it is this view that we must provide in Wikipedia, in the same way that we don't consider the glottalic hypothesis to be gospel, just a theory.
Now, if you two can quit sniping at each other, and if you, Desiphral, can accept that Wikipedia's aim isn't to write about the "truth", but what's verifiable, I think we'll all be able to move forward productively. Dewrad 22:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the Wikipedia:Conventions#National_varieties_of_English, there should be followed the spelling of the first contributor and stay with it. Your argumentation presenting the caron variant as the academic, standard one, is baseless. In Eastern Europe there is an entire teaching system organized with acute accent (in Romania, the country with the biggest number of Roma), system also endorsed by the World Romani Congress, while the variant without diacritics, based on English spelling, is the most rapidly expanding (for obvious reasons), most used on Internet and also the most understandable (if I would use your argument about the expectations of the readers). You just replaced a system with another system from those available, naming your preffered one as "standard". Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 17:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An excellent convention for English. You'll note, however, that we're not dealing with English words. And, for the love of god, I'm not replacing it with my "favoured" form, I'm replacing it with the form that is encountered in pretty much all academic literature on the subject at the moment. For similar reasons, we don't transliterate Sanskrit with any old ad hoc system but that which is the current standard. Similarly, I haven't used the system endorsed by the WRC, no matter how "rapidly expanding" it is, because Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Dewrad 17:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Romani is in a similar case as English, used in many countries and continents, without a central organization of its Latin script. Which is the Romani correspondent of the National Library of Calcutta? Maybe you? I maintain my point of view that your choice is totally relative. If you would have learned first the official variant from Romania, as other people interested in linguistics did, probably you would have militate for the "acute accent" variant. There is enough academic literature in non-diacritic and acute accent variants, just you probably don't know or don't bother about them. Knowing your past behaviour, I would expect various arguments about how your variant is more academic as being more used in Western countries, but, the same as in the other cases, it is just your personal point of view, your personal experience in the place where you are. There are many Roma, in fact most of them, living outside USA/Canada/UK (and also non-Roma working with the Romani language) and they develop too this language. The "rapidly expanding" issue was just an auxiliary one, you did not answer to the main issue of simultaneous use of different spellings. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 20:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Desiphral, refrain from commenting on users; comment on content only. Dewrad's provided a number of actual citations to back up his arguments; you still haven't. The rules for differences between British/Canadian/American/Australian spelling on the English Wikipedia has nothing at all to do with how we spell non-English words here. What you're arguing would be more like saying that if someone starts a Wikipedia article with AOLese spelling ("teh romani language iz rittin sevrl wayz..."...I suck at imitating it, but you know what I mean), then other people wouldn't be allowed to change it. --Miskwito 00:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Those conventions do not apply to non-English spellings. Orthography used should be that either 1) Handed down by the regulatory body for the language, in case there is one; 2) Failing that, the one used in most academic sources; 3) Failing that (ie, there are no academic sources about the language), there are other things but #2 works here. --Node 01:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, I deeply resent the manner how a sheer majority of users that state they have nothing to do with Romani language push to fulfill personal theories and also the derogatory way to present other scripts (the comparation with AOL). Second, even the sources provided to support the caron variant state their choice is not a standard. See the Matras' article here: "The bulk of Romani language publishing has a regional or local orientation, and lays no claim to becoming an international Standard." In the Handbook of Vlax Romani of Ian Hancock, at pages 34-36 he presents some of the contemporary Romani spellings and writes that: "It would be good to learn all three methods of speaking". No claim of standard variant... It is just some users on Wikipedia that have nothing else to do with their time (since the result of their "work" until now is just hindering, nothing productive). If you would have been the correct guys you pretend you are, you should have come forward, not me, with these facts. Sources for the acute accent variant: the page of the Romani teaching system in Romania based on all dialects in Romania, be they Romanian, Turkish, Hungarian or Slavic influenced. Don't tell me it does not exist since you did not hear about it. This is your personal problem that has no place in Wikipedia. Non-diacritic variant: Spanish influenced, here more; Hungarian influenced, more Hungarian, another one; Albanian influenced. If you would be indeed the Romani's National Library of Calcutta as you claim, you should have known about such sources already. Unless this is your method to find out new sources to learn Romani. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 10:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

text: A simple way to present the bias of the pro-caron users is the fact that they did not modify the words from Romani_language#Standardization, they just stick to basic words like yag, chavo, chey. Why? Are you less accustomed to them? Probably because they proceed fom an academic work ignored by you? Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 11:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Node and Desiphral 

message: Whoa, whoa, whoa. One reference that dismisses Devanagari as being "of academic interest only" does not warrant reimporting OR. Consensus has done away with it, and away it shall remain until your provide printed references. Dewrad 20:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hold your horses. 

message: I have opened a Request for Comment on Desiphral for his actions on this and other pages related to the Romani language and Roma people. The page can be found at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Desiphral. If you have any comments or opinions on the RfC, please feel free to make them known there. --Miskwito 22:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried bringing up the issue of the usage of the Devanagari script in Romany Wikipedia to the Wikipedia mailing lists, but without any results.  bogdan (talk) 21:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC

message: This is one of exactly two articles in Wikipedia that still uses both Wikiref and Wikicite. Looking at the structure of the references in this article, I would suggest replacing the "wikirefs" with  and using  to format the citations. This would recreate the same behavior without too much effort. However, if the editors of this article object strongly to citation templates, there is no reason to change the article.   ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikicite is deprecated 

message: Hello
I am the same author as 193.49.219.185 in the edits. Being not used in contributing to Wiki, I'm sorry for having used "my" talk page instead of this.
Since Devanagari script has been reintroduced in this page as a "system in use" (Anthony Appleyard on Jan 1, 2010 and then "Martinhasan" for an uncommented "Bible section" on June 15, 2010), I edited this page in order to put into context the buzz around the Romani Devanagari mostly due to the construction of Romani Wikipedia and the contribution of Desiphral to it. 
Therefore I created a section "Other scripts" where I mentioned Greek and Arabic script (ref [9]), Andrzej Mirga and Devanagari (ref [10]). Besides, I also mentioned recent interest in Devanagari at individual level. I feel this is important in order to put facts into context, and since it is unlikely that Romani Wikipedia will be cleaned of Devanagari stuff. In this context I feel it's better to present this Devanagari interest as it is, an individual's project. Unfortunately it is impossible to mention Desiphral's personal site (web4desi.com) because it is blacklisted. Instead I refered to http://www.geonames.de/alphrs.html (Werner Fröhlich's site, geonames@gmail.com) which mentions the Devanagari transcription without reference but very likely coming from the same source. Therefore what is the best to do: (i) exceptionally, allow for the reference, since useful in context, or (ii) leave the edit as it is now, or (iii) delete any mention of recent interest in Devanagari ?
Thanks
Yves  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.196.133.70 (talk) 01:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Devanagari, again