Talk:Maldivian language/Archive 1

Pyrard de Laval

The translation of what Pyrard said in the 17th Century: "This Kingdom is called in their language Male'-rague', 'Kingdom of Male', and other peoples of India call 'Male'-Divar', and people 'Diues' (Dhivehi).... The main island, as I have said, is called Male' which gives the name to the rest of the others: because the word means Diues (Dhivehi) when number of small islands gathered. Leone (talk) 15:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Sorry for my error. Seanwal111111 (talk) 20:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Redirected.

I have redirected the article to Divehi. - (Aidan Work 05:35, 22 November 2005 (UTC))

Talk:Maldives

Just for future reference, see the following discussion on Talk:Maldives.--Adamrush 19:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Link

The included link (A Guide to Mahl Language - http://www.mathaaran.net/) seems to be broken (2006-10-04 5:33pm). panglossa 20:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Mergers

Hi.

• Merging of Moloki bas: Definitely yes. The language of Fua Mulaku is a dialect of Dhivehi. It is one of the dialects most divergent from Standard Dhivehi (in that it is more archaic), but still one of its dialects.
• Merging of Dhivehi Writing Systems: No. In my opinion, there should be a separate article for that, with a link as early in the Dhivehi article as possible, as for example with Sinhala and Sinhala alphabet.

Cheers, Krankman 21:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Latin transliteration of the Maldivian language

To user Deviathan. Please explain rationale for removing referenced paragraphs referring to Latin transliteration in Dhivehi language. The temporary adoption of Latin script during the 1970's ignoring previous lingustic research made by HCP Bell and Wilhelm Geiger was an important event in the history of the Maldivian language. Erasing referenced text without justification looks like vandalism to me.116.68.66.97 12:21, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Maldives Scouting

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Divehi? Thanks! Chris 03:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Southernmost IE language?

I don't know on what basis the assertion is made that Dhivehi is the southernmost IE language...I think Afrikaans at least is a strong contender for southernmost... Tomer^talk 19:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I probably agree with you, but this is the southernmost one that developed naturally: Afrikaans is a derivative of Dutch. This makes it a West Germanic language like English and German, so it's really more of a European language spoken in Africa. The Person Who Is Strange 05:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Afrikaans is as natural as Maldivian. It's not a constructed language, nor is it a pidgin or creole, which are both kinds of natural language anyway. The only way I can see justifying the exclusion of Afrikaans would be to distinguish between ancient and modern development of the language, or indigenous versus colonial. --Thnidu (talk) 03:51, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Or it was simply a slip for "southernmost Indo-Aryan language". I see that the text has now been corrected in this way. --Virda (talk) 21:13, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Before the European expansion (after 1492) it was the southernmost Indoeuropean language. The southernmost Indoeuropean language today (or any language for that matter) is the Spanish language spoken in Patagonia (the languages spoken by tribes in Tierra del Fuego like the Yahgan are unfortunately extinct today) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.245.104.40 (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

??

Why is the article on Mahal longer when it is a derivative of Dhivehi and has far fewer speakers? 24.167.214.53 (talk) 05:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Divehi is the correct spelling

In ISO Standard 'd' is used for unaspirated 'd' or 'daalu' in Divehi language. In Divehi there are no aspirated sounds. This confusion started when in 1970s Maldivian goverment adopted a system of transliteration called latin, in which 'dh' is used for unaspirated 'd' and 'd' is used for retroflex 'D' or 'Daviyani' in Divehi. In ISO standard 'Daviyani' will be written with 'd' a dot below. So the correct spelling is Divehi according to international standards. Manikfan (talk) 11:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia guidelines we have to respect the common and official usage of the subject in case such spelling clashes occur. Brother Manikfan, you may already know this if you see the Wikipedia naming conventions. Coming to the commonly used term, it is undeniably Dhivehi with an 'h'. Moreover, from the official documents also we see with an 'h'. So that is why we have to use the spelling with an 'h' in Wikipedia.

Coming to the ISO part, on the documentation for ISO identifier for Dhivehi language they have three names for the language. (i.e. Dhivehi, Divehi and Maldivian) The first spelling used is "Dhivehi" with an "H". See from this link: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=div So this means their first priority too is the spelling with an "H" as it is the official as well as the common usage of the subject. Leone (talk) 19:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Move Divehi language and Mahl language to this pagge

Mahl spoken in Maliku (Minicoy), India is not different from the standard Divehi. The Addu, Moloki and Huvadu dialects of Divehi are more different from standard Divehi than Mahl. so why not we change the name like this Divehi (Mahl) language. Manikfan (talk) 11:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I moved it back and merged the page history, which had been stranded. kwami (talk) 09:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• • Mahl dialect is different from the standard Dhivehi. The difference is that there are classical words as well as influences from Malayalam. While we speak to Minicoyans even we can experience the clear differences. I myself have experienced a state that on the first hand what they say could not be understood. It took some time to adjust and understand the speech. It was in a Malayali 'raagu'. And the similarities are much closer to northern Maldives speech than to standard Dhivehi. It has to be understood and respected that Mahl is considered as a dialect of Dhivehi language by researchers. See these links:
• http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Do6yuIER54UJ:mathaaran.com/+mathaaran.com+also+known+locally+as+Maliku+Bas&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=mv
• http://books.google.mv/books?id=cpxjAAAAMAAJ&q=Bas+or+Mahl)+that+retains+some+features+of+an+older+Dhivehi&dq=Bas+or+Mahl)+that+retains+some+features+of+an+older+Dhivehi&hl=en&ei=ppgTTYjtGo7_4AaByZ2GAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAA
  • http://www.maldives-ethnography.com/linguistic.html (Many more links available)

It is a serious mistake that for a particular period the article has been named as so. It's truly a serious and completely unacceptable matter to have used the word Mahl in brackets, synonymous with Dhivehi. For instance imagine, how about the cases of Dhivehi (Huvadhu), Dhivehi (Mulaku), Dhivehi (Addu), etc... For sure there are more speakers of these dialects individually compared to Mahl. There is no language with the name being considered synonymous with a dialect. So please don't use Mahl synonymous with Dhivehi. It is a dialect only and that state can't be changed no matter that the above mentioned change of name by Brother Manikfan has led to this mistake being spread to some mirror sites. Leone (talk) 19:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Move the page to the title Maldivian language

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved per well-argued request. - GTBacchus^(talk) 01:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

---

Dhivehi language → Maldivian language –

• According to Wikipedia naming conventions the English name of the subject from reliable sources needs to be used as the article title. In the English speaking world and in reliable sources of English language usage the name Maldivian is most commonly used to refer to this language. In all the major encyclopedias and famous English dictionaries (such as Ethnologue, MSN Encarta, Oxford dictionary, Encyclopedia Britannica, etc…) Maldivian is used to refer to this language. (Refer the links given below). In most of the reliable sources where the name Dhivehi is preferred over the name Maldivian, still there are indications that Maldivian is the English name of the subject. For example in some sources it’s written “Dhivehi (Maldivian)” and on. Also, the search engine tests even prove this. The search results for Maldivian language are many times more compared to the results for Dhivehi language when searched through the Web, Google Scholar, Google Books... In almost all of the philological works and research works in English language even the name Maldivian is used. Thus, the name of this article needs to be changed to “Maldivian language”. In almost all of the reliable sources giving information about this language the name Maldivian can be seen. So, with respect to the Wikipedia naming conventions the most suitable name for this article is Maldivian language. Useful links:
  • http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Maldivian
  • http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DEEGSDFwMk0J:encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561537068/Maldivian.html+maldivian+msn+encarta&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=mv&source=www.google.mv
  • http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/359932/Maldives/4498/People#ref220997
  • http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=div
  • http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Maldivian
  • http://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=language_detail&uid=2ffgh3ce88
  • http://unicode.org/udhr/index_by_name.html
  • http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=div
    • Leone (talk) 16:55, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move the page to the title Divehi language or Dhivehi Language

Regarding the above argument, Maldivian doesn't only refer to the language, it is the word for the people of the Maldives any thing which is connected to the Maldives, like Maldivian food, because of these reasons the word Maldivian will show more search results than Divehi or Dhivehi. The name of the language is officially accepted as Dhivehi not Maldivian, which is merely just a geographic term. Official name of the language academy is also "Academy of the Dhivehi Language".

• • • Deviathan (talk) 21:43, 03 Janyary 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.176.12.59 (talk)

In case of Malaysian language also the official name is Bahasa Malaysia and it is the common usage among Malaysians when they write English. The same way Bahasa Melayu is used more commonly than "Malay" in Malaysia and Malay speaking countries. However, according to Wikipedia naming conventions the common name of the subject in the English speaking world or in reliable sources of English language usage has to be preferred. That's why Malaysian or Malay is used in cases of the former and Maldivian has to be used for Dhivehi. So no matter the internal sources use the native name "Dhivehi" commonly, in the English speaking world and reliable sources such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, journals, etc... it is very different. Please refer to oxford dictionary and many other sources given on top. When searched through the reliable sources of English language usage "Maldivian" turns out to be the common name of the subject. While a commonly used English name of the subject exists that is the one which has to be preferred according to the guidelines. It is very clear from the reliable sources given on top that Maldivian is not only just a geographic term. It has the same use as that of the words Spanish, Dutch, Russian, etc... Leone (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Clearly should be "Maldivian". Just ask any monolingual English speaker to read "Divehi" out loud, and see what nonsense you get! "Maldivian" is the normal English name, and the only one most people will know, or at least be able to recognize. — kwami (talk) 10:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Concerning the argument that "Maldivian doesn't only refer to the language, it is the word for the people of the Maldives any thing which is connected to the Maldives, like Maldivian food", you could say the same for English, French, Japanese, Russian, or almost any other glottonym. That's why the name of the article is Maldivian language, like probably every other language article. --Thnidu (talk) 04:03, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Minor error in Phonology --> Intonation

It says,

"Take the word ‘possible’ in English. The two ‘ss’ sounds in it are pronounced in much the same way as the single ‘s’ in a word like ‘positive’."

"Positive" is pronounced (by a native speaker) with a voiced "s", as if spelled "pozitive", whereas the letters "ss" in "possible" are unvoiced. Another example needs to be created.

Best regards, Nikevich 09:08, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

A worse mistake than that: there aren't two "S" sounds in "possible", only one. Letters are not the same as sounds. --Thnidu (talk) 04:05, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Letter size and spacing in typography

The few examples of D[h]ivehi that I have seen (such as in the printed Unicode 3.0 manual, and this article) use very small glyphs. As well, inter-letter spacing looks quite excessive. Can Wikipedia compensate for this? (I'm using Mint Linux 11, a derivative of Ubuntu, which, very likely, provides default fonts for Mint. I'm also using the Chrome browser.) Perhaps Arabic shaping and joining is needed; the examples look strange, but that might simply be my unfamiliarity with the language.

Best regards, Nikevich 09:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Possibly an effect of leaving room for super- & sub-scripts. You get a similar effect w Tibetan. — kwami (talk) 09:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: keep without moving. Leone (talk) 12:45, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

---

Maldivian language → Dhivehi language – Dhivehi is the word referred to the language Maldivians speak and the official language of government of Maldives, Dhivehi is the language of Maldives spoken by Maldivians, Dhivehi is the common and official name referred to the language used by Maldivians, Maldivian is not referred or recognised as a language. Article 11 of the constitution states: The national Language of Maldives is Dhivehi language. See Dhivehi language used in local news eg: http://www.haveeru.com.mv/dhivehi/ (Look for definition of Maldivian http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Maldivian) AtefAadd (talk) 08:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose per the argument and sources at the successful move request above. The wording of the Maldivian constitution is irrelevant, as we do not follow official pronouncements for the names of our articles. (Anyway, I suspect that the quotation above was created to support the RM, as I doubt the Maldivian constitution, assuming it exists in English, is that ungrammatical.) Conduct a reading poll of English speakers, and see how many can pronounce "Maldivian" as opposed to how many can pronounce "Divehi".

A few other sources:

• Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics: "The language spoken in the Maldives is Divehi, usually referred to as Maldivian."
• Christopher R (2003) A Maldivian Dictionary. London: Routledge Curzon.
• Mallory & Adams (1997) Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture: "The southwest division consists of Gujarati, Marathi, Konkani, Sinhalese and Maldivian."
• George Cardona (2003) The Indo-Aryan Languages uses "Divehi", but then immediately clarifies that unfamiliar name with "(= Maldivian)".

Specialized sources tend to use Divehi (rather than Dhivehi, at least above!), just as they tend to use Kiswahili, etc. But we don't: We use the name in more common circulation instead. Per our language naming conventions,

Where a common name exists in English for both a people and their language, a title based on that term, with explicit disambiguation, is preferred for both articles, as with Chinese people and Chinese language. This is especially so when borrowed native forms involve different prefixes or are otherwise not transparently related, as with Tswana people and Tswana language, with redirects placed at Batswana and Setswana, respectively.

— kwami (talk) 16:27, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Maldivian is not official or common and never referred as a language, Are you the regulaters of all languages in the world? I have seen your vandalisations on other languages you shouldn't be here and mess with what you're not good at you should mind your own business and go get educated yourself, and then come back to places like these to contribute. --AtefAadd (talk) 19:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - for the move to 'Dhivehi language', because of the unnecessary in-place disambiguation. I would support a move to Dhivehi. Imc (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

What about Dhivehi people? I think that disambiguation is needed. --RJFF (talk) 09:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: the move request of last year has shown that "Maldivian" is the more common term for this language. The constitution of the Maldives is not decisive in this question. (WP:Common names vs. WP:Official names) --RJFF (talk) 23:01, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support OED lists both names equally. Britannica says Dhivehi with Maldivian in parentheses (["speaking an Indo-European language called Dhivehi (or Maldivian; the official language")[1]. I wouldn't use the previous move request as a guide here because there was absolutely no discussion there. Anyone who looked at the list of sources would have noted that (a) OED gives equal weight to both (b) Britannica puts Dhivehi above Maldivian (c) script source and unicode essentially mirror ethnologue (d) wikitionary is not a reliable source (e) sil, which doesn't choose one or the other is another mirror of ethnologue. So, what we have is a situation where everything else is equal and britannica say "Dhivehi but also Maldivian" while ethnologue says "Maldivian but also Dhivehi". Given that google has more hits for Dhivehi than for Maldivian, given that Wikipedia probably shows up in lots of those Maldivians, given that Maldivian is the English name for a native of that island not to mention its airline, a hefty chunk of Maldivian results must be for the airline and the people. I'd say the English language name for this language is Dhivehi. I agree with Imc that Dhivehi is better than Dhivehi language. --regentspark (comment) 02:31, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - Eventhough the name "Dhivehi" which is the native name of the language is used among many of the Maldivians, "Maldivian" is the English name commonly used from the past. For instance take the example of HCP Bell too. Anyway changing "Maldivian" to Dhivehi is like changing "Spanish" to "Espanol", "German" to "Deutch", "Dutch" to "Nederlands" and many more... For people like AtefAadd from the Maldives this might be something new and hard to accept as they have been using the native name while writing English too. But these are internationally accepted norms. Clearly should be Maldivian. Take the example of the famous book written by the famous Maldivian linguist and historian Hassan Ahmed Manik; “Say it in Maldivian". Does it say Dhivehi? Come to commonsense. OED also says it is Maldivian. @RegentsPark: Where in OED does it say it is Divehi? (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Maldivian). Germans speak the German language. French speak French. So do Maldivians? In Ethnologue also it is Maldivian which is used as the name, though Dhivehi is used among the alternative names which include many other names. (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=div)

OED. --regentspark (comment) 13:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - Should be Maldivian according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Even though many Maldivians use the native name “Dhivehi”, similar to the case of “Bahasa Melayu” being used in South East Asia, in the English language it is “Maldivian” and “Maldivian” should be used as the article title the same way “Malay language” is used for “Bahasa Melayu”. Also as one of the users have commented before, changing “Maldivian” to “Dhivehi” is like changing “Spanish” to “Espanol”, “German” to “Deutch” and so on. This is a matter which is out of debate. In Maldives, starting from the earliest available records in English language to this day we see that “Maldivian” is used to refer to this language in the English language. It is used officially as well as unofficially. See the writings of HCP Bell and other linguistics plus the links above (which I gave in my page move request) for reference. As a user has outlined before, even Maldivian linguists like Hassan Ahmed Manik used “Maldivian”. The Government of Maldives also uses “Maldivian” to refer to this language in many occasions. Even though we see that today “Dhivehi” is used very often, in the 1970s it was “Maldivian language” which we see in the report cards of school children as well. Also, the Maldivian translation of the universal declaration of human rights also uses “Maldivian” as the English name to refer to this language. See: http://www.ohchr.org/en/udhr/pages/searchbylang.aspx Leone (talk) 12:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Dhivehi-bas

Dhivehi-bas means "Islanders' language"? --68.103.31.159 (talk) 20:13, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Divehi means an islander. Maldivian also means etymologically the same since "-dives" of "Maldives" and the word Divehi have the same root, Sanskrit "dvīpa" which means "island". Thus calling "Dhivehi language" and "Maldivian language" is the same on etymological grounds. But "Maldivian" should be used in English Wikipedia since it is the name in English. Leone (talk) 12:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, if you want to translate 'Islanders language' to Dhivehi, then a native speaker would translate that phrase to 'Rashumeehunge' bas'. For a native speaker the term Dhivehi = Maldivian. and the term 'Island' = rah. --Jinaakko (talk) 17:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Vocabulary of the Maldivian Language, Compiled by Lieut. W. Christopher, I. N. Communicated to the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (January 1, 1841)

Vocabulary of the Maldivian Language, Compiled by Lieut. W. Christopher, I. N. Communicated to the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (January 1, 1841)

https://archive.org/details/jstor-25207540

Rajmaan (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

misconstructed example

The subsection on loan words referring to actions has the following set of examples:

Book (buk) kuranee = booking

Develop (divelop) kuranee = developing

tharaqqee (develop) kuranee = developing

All the other loanword examples, for all parts of speech, use loans from English, presumably to be clear to the readers of English Wikipedia. The third line is obviously not a case of an English word tharaqqee being borrowed into Maldivian as "develop". I don't know what the person who added it meant by it, but maybe some other Wikipedian will, so I'm going to comment it out instead of deleting it. Thnidu (talk) 04:21, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Common Phrases - Goodbye

Why is goodbye included in the common phrases section despite the very section before it specifically states that islanders don't use hello and goodbye. As I do not speak the language I cnnot contribute to this, but something should be changed!? Alexandre8 (talk) 15:17, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Maldivian language equivalent to Hello is closely 'Ey' which is 'Hey' . Hello though is the same 'Hello' ( commonly said locally ), and Goodbye = 'Dhanee'. Here's a Dhivehi - English dictionary direct link to save time. http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/pdf/maldives_dictionary_1.0.pdf . Maldivian has local phrases for Hello and Goodbye. Mvrelics (talk) 13:33, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Text editors

§ Text editors says

Fthaana, Universal Word, Accent Express, Accent Special Edition are the most common word processors used.

However now most of the people use MS Word to write Maldivian.

These two sentences can't both be right. If most of the people use MS Word, then that's the processor most commonly used.

-- Thnidu (talk) 02:05, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Letter or sound?

In § Spoken and literary varieties the article says:

One of the very important things one has to take into account in written Maldivian which is not so important in spoken Maldivian is the ‘sukun’ on the letters ‘alif’ and ‘shaviyani’. ‘Sukun’ in general is a mark to indicate an abrupt stop on the sound of the letter on which it is placed. However, if it comes within the word, the letter is repeated ...

This seems very peculiar: as written, it means that there is the letter with a sukun, and then the same letter, presumably with no sukun. I am almost certain it should be something like "the consonant sound is lengthened", or in linguistic terms "the consonant is geminated". But I've never studied Maldivian phonology, so I'll refer this question to dv: Page for non--Dhivehi/Mahl-Speakers

Or I would if I could get that damn page to publish when I tap "Publish", instead of taking me back to the Edit/Preview page. And this after spending well over a xxxxxx hour trying, with very limited success, to enter English text, let alone wikicode, on a {{rtl}} page.

--Thnidu (talk) 17:02, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Much to do

[copied from the descriptive comment of my 23:02, 2 October 2019 edit]
This article contains quite a lot of awkward, unidiomatic, or downright ungrammatical English. I cleaned a lot of that up in my edits of 13:37–15:04, 24 August 2019. Subsequent edits have undone much of my work. Unlike (evidently) the author(s) of much of the changed text, I am a native speaker of English with a PhD in linguistics— the work of all my career till my retirement.

I am going to restore my grammatical and stylistic edits, leaving anything else for discussion. Mvrelics especially, please do not revert these edits without discussion here. Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 23:26, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Mulaku (paragraph 1) or Maliku (par. 3)? --Thnidu (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Happy to know the page is in good hands.

Regarding 'Mulaku'. It should be 'Maliku' ( Minicoy ), that's an island in Laccadive. Laccadive was a part of old Maldives, given up/lost somewhere in 1600s. They still speak a variation of the official Male' language ( Mahal ) So Maldivian has 5 dialects not 4 as stated earlier. Mahl ( Official language ), Maliku ( Minicoy ), Fuamulak, Huvadhu, and Addu. Mahl and Maliku are very similar.

I'm not sure if Mahl and Maliku can be classified as two different dialects. If Thnidu could shed some light on this would be great. There seems to be slight differences.

Here's a reference video of Minicoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPPNXsu4YSo 1:28 you'll see a sign on the road in Minicoy. That's in English and Thaana. 1:09 Another signage. It says 'FulisKortu' in Thaana. In Maldives the police station will be called 'FulusGe'. ( Fulus/Fulis = Police , Kortu = Court , Ge = House ) The written system is the same, which is Thaana.

I could not find any book or journal publication stating Thaana to be once a secret language. There are references online.

Mvrelics (talk) 11:50, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Mvrelics, thanks for being willing to discuss these things. I should say right away that I do not know Divehi at all. I am, however, a trained linguist, as well as an educated native speaker of English. I will look for reliable information, though not right now; I know a number of reliable sources I can check.

I am rather skeptical of the description of Thaana as having been a secret script (it is a writing system, not a language) invented by the speakers of Divehi. What are the online sources you mention? There's nothing wrong with online references as such, as long as they are reliable sources.

--Thnidu (talk) 23:37, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Here are two online references.

https://www.endangeredalphabets.net/alphabets/thaana/

https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/yembik.htm

I think the latter link offers some credible insight to how it came to be constructed in secrecy.

Another possible reason of it is in this document. - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.693.6695&rep=rep1&type=pdf

You're most welcome and thank you Thnidu, any help with your expertise would be appreciated.

--Mvrelics (talk) 06:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Mvrelics, for these references.

• Endangered Alphabets is a recent organization; I don't know about their reliability. The page says (emphasis added)

The Thaana alphabet doesn’t follow the alphabetical order of other Indic scripts or of the Arabic script. There is no apparent logic to the order; it has even been suggested this was an attempt to keep it secret.
The script was originally used primarily to write magical incantations, including Arabic quotations, written from right to left. It’s presumed that learned Maldivians, all well versed in sorcery, saw the advantages of writing in this simplified hidden script, and Thaana was gradually adopted for everyday use.

I have just boldfaced the text that outright states that the script's original secrecy is only a supposition. The phrase in bold italics assumes that the theory is true, but still gives no sources.

• Omniglot provides nothing relevant. Yembik is a constructed script for a constructed language, and the only thing on the page that might be thought relevant is

Yembik was developed and originally used as a secret code for writing secret messages to other revolutionaries and Terredaic Nationalists and also other Terredaic people who had mastered this secret code. It was influenced by the letter forms of Burmese and also by the way the Thaana script works, as both of them did encounter Terredae, before, in the 1500s.

But every word of this is part of a fictional history; and even if it were actual history, none of it claims that Thaana was developed as a secret code.

• The PDF at citeseer, according to the page footer, is from Maldives Culture. That turns out to be a blog, whose author describes his purpose as

I am a blogger who wants to give the Maldives the exposure that it so rightly deserves. Everything from its beauty to its culture to its people is amazing and that is why I believe that the Maldives is one of the best countries in the whole world.

The main idea behind this website is quite simple. The only thing that I want to do is make sure that properly highlight everything about the Maldives.
There are very few blogs on the internet that correctly describe the Maldives and that is why I took it upon myself to make the right efforts in the area. I myself have been to the Maldives more than just a few times and this is my personal blog. Everything that you read here is written through some personal experience.

So evidently this is a knowledgeable amateur, not an academic. In support of this hypothesis guess of mine, he doesn't cite any sources. (I say "he", but I haven't found a name or other personal identification on the site.) And the PDF contains much more text than any page currently on the site, as well as including references.

(To be continued...)

--Thnidu (talk) 06:42, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Thnidu: I've made some minor additions. I've also removed repetitions and some which were without citations. My additions are cited from a Thesis about Dhivehi language which will of interest to you. Mvrelics (talk) 05:47, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Dialects

Near the end of this section, there are these two sentences:

“Fritz puts forward this theory based on research into the dialects of Addu and Fuvahmulah. She is yet to do research on the dialect of Huvadhu Atoll, and has to do more research on both Addu and Fuvahmulah dialect.[who?][when?]”

Who has put these silly questions?

[Who?]: Fritz, of course.

[When?]: the reference is given at the end of the previous paragraph. It's Fritz (2002), that's where she wrote that. The question is thus not "when" she has done this research, but whether (and where) the results have been published by now. --Virda (talk) 20:59, 17 November 2020 (UTC)