User:E3/Online Discussion on Tunisian Wikipedia

General Discussion

Definition of Tunisian Arabic

Background

1. Tunisian Arabic, English Wikipedia

2. Tunisian Arabic, French Wikipedia

3. Mejrissi, Jihed, On the standardization of Tunisian

4. Discussion of Tunisian Wikipedia on Wikimedia Incubator and Commons

Issue

Proposed problem: Tunisian Arabic is viewed by many people as a dialect of a general Arabic Language. So, it is important to discuss the importance of Tunisian Arabic first. The work of Jihed Mejrissi from the League of Tunisian Scientists is written for this purpose… This work seems to be the literature upon which GeekEmad has made his ideas about Tunisian Wikipedia and Dialect… Although some ideas seem to be important, the structure and some faults which of proof of the research paper made the issue less convincing. That is why it is required to build a new paper about the need of a standardization of Tunisian Language. This new initiative work should be done between LTH Team, Wikimedia Tunisia, Incubator Administrators, sTUNdard Team and the few initial contributors to the project. This time, the work should not be a philosophy paper because writing such paper in a good way requires both a broaden knowledge of the written issue and a research experience. Both facts do not exist in the case of Jihed Mejrissi. That is why his papers failed to have one citation. I think that such paper should be built using linguistic, statistical, economic and sociological knowledge and should be based on experiences and not on simple reasoning. That is why I thought about writing a good submission to Wikimania about this fact. A good paper with a book explaining sTUNdard and how Tunisians can use their dialectal language to write articles that are scientifically correct, involving references, well structured and very precise.

Reply: Having checked the work, the claimed faults need to be highlighted and contact with relevant organizations need to be established. I also actually found citations on the paper and therefore I am not sure about the reason where you say that it does not have citations. If you are referring to citations by author authors, I think it may be because of the low general interest in the topic, but I would still say that both papers (if we are talking about the same ones, I have added links for clarification), show a rather broad knowledge of the topic, also considering other relevant publications. I would suggest amending your statement to be about the paper and not the persons to make sure the discussion remains about the topic and not about personal opinions. On the other hand, User:Csisc, the organization is called "League of Tunisian Humanists" and not scientists, as you wrote, and "STUNdard" in written with a capital "S".

Typing Matters and Issues

Background

1. STUNdard

2. Mejrissi, Jihed, On the standardization of Tunisian Language: http://works.bepress.com/mejrissi/7/

3. Mejrissi, Jihed, Tunisian Words of Amazigh Origin: http://works.bepress.com/mejrissi/6/

4. Mobile Phone Message Typing

Issue

Proposed Problem: It is evident that Tunisian Arabic uses Common Arabic Letters. However, this is not always easy. Computer Requirements for such actions of reading information as well as writing data are very tough. The solution that had been discovered by many young and grown up Tunisians when sending SMS is using Latin Alphabet. The first problem that was faced by them is the typing issues of some sounds not available in Latin Letters. They used 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, ss’ and 9 as a solution. When Tunisian Wikipedia Project was launched, sTUNdard did not exist at that particular moment. So, we used SMS typing. But, in 2013, sTUNdard has been created and I think that the substitute of 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9 are hard to write by a medium user of Computer or Internet Device. So, the solution for this problem is to propose to Incubator Administrator to add ɛ and ħ into the automatic typing section below the edition form Furthermore, għ can cause harmful ambiguity between users as it can mean ɛ and g7 at the same time. So, it is important to return to avoid this għ for ɛ typing. Moreover, I think personally that simplifying vowels may lead to several ambiguities. In fact, in common ILO problems, coaches advise their trainees to consider very well vowels because they can affect the terminology and the structure of the sentence. So, Tunisian Arabic does not constitute an exception. For example, The i in Malika may change the meaning of the word from queen /i/ to a common name of girls if stressed /i:/. The same thing happen to the letter a. As for the case of dh, it is important to make a difference in typing between d’dhad, dhah and dhel, ttah and ta2… Furthermore, when sTUNdard solves all these problems, a user’s book should be written to explain how to use this method of typing.

Reply: First, it is not "evident" that Tunisian should use any common or uncommon alphabet, be it Arabic or Tifinagh. As far as I understand, STUNdard differentiates beteen long and short by using an acute apostrophy, or "`". For example Melek is the spelling of the masculine name and Melèk is that of the female name. GeekEmad also suggested using "Melek" and "Meleek", which I find equally feasible.