Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethiopia/Transliteration

New discussion

The discussion below has gotten ridiculously long, so I'm restarting the discussion at the top for simplicity. The only remaining issues are a Ge'ez transliteration system, and a simple consonant transliteration system. The simple consonant transliteration system ambiguities are as follows (per MikeG below):

• p: /p/, /p'/
• t: /t/, /t'/
• ch: /ʧ/, /ʧ'/
• ts: /s'/, /ts/
• sh: /ʃ/, /sh/
• zh: /ʒ/, /zh/
• ny: /ɲ/, /ny/

The proposed changes to remove ambiguity would be to add apostrophes at the end of the first three to show that they are ejective, and apostrophes for the last four for disambiguation. Because the last four situations are very rare (ts, sh, zh, and ny almost never happen), I'll accept an apostrophe separating the two to disambiguate the situation as an alternative. I.e. either system can be used in cases like Yeshaq. (IPA /jɨshak'/ or /jɨsħak'/ - i.e., not /jɨʃak'/). For the first three, I think that such disambiguation in the simple transliteration system may be too much. Perhaps someone could see how often it's actually used; i.e. is Silt'e the exception, the rule, or neither? Some words that could be affected are "Papas/P'ap'as" (Metropolitan), "Pentay/P'ent'ay" (non-Orthodox Christian), "Timqet/T'imqet" (also perhaps "Timket/T'imket," due to the popularity of using "k" to spell this word, despite it being ejective), "Arba minch'/"Arba minch'."

It'd be hard to google for this, but my guess is that Ethiopians rarely use apostrophes for the ejectives and that apostrophes haven't caught on among the community of non-Ethiopians writing about Ethiopia. In Oromo, /p'/ is ph, /t'/ is x, and /ʧ'/ is c, so there's no precedent there for using apostrophes. I guess I'd conclude that Silt'e is the exception and that the informal (simple) "convention" is not to distinguish ejective from non-ejective for [p], [t], and [ʧ]. — MikeG (talk) 03:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see a resolution for the issue of digraphs. I think the most logical thing to do is to use an apostrophe for ejective consonants, and leave the other digraphs ambiguous. As stated earlier, this can be solved with a disambiguating note on the first occurence (e.g. Yishaq -- in Amharic: ይስሐቅ Yis-hāq).

It's true that apostrophes are not generally used by Ethiopians, but I think that names that are transcribed in an encyclopedia should be as accurate as possible without harming legibilty by non-specialists. An apostrophe falls under the category of symbols that may be ignored by readers who don't know what they mean.

As for ny and ñ, I prefer the latter (since it is more accurate, and in general use with Spanish names; e.g. El Niño, Mañana, Isleños) -- but I am willing to settle for ny.

So, what's your opinion? yhever 18:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The other issue we have to work out is Ge'ez consonants (the vowels are the same except first order vowel should be "a"). There aren't really any differences except for the ambiguity with shin (letter), Śat, and Ḍappa (aka Ḍäppä). Shin has traditionally been transliterated as "ś" to show that it represents both "š" and "s," and "s" for śat. Śat, however, derives from proto-Semitic "ś," and I believe represented just "ś," or "s" and "ś" (perhaps depending on the time period). If we are going to continue to use "ś" (which is necessary unless someone here knows exactly which words in Ge'ez had "š" and which had "s"), then I propose every article that uses this has a super-script note to explain its usage, as it is otherwise confusing to have "ś" represent shin, while it is actually śat that represented the actual sound. Regarding ḍappa, it's misleading to use "ḍ" for its transliteration just because it's cognate with Arabic Ḍād, as it sounds exactly the same as ṣaday. I propose we use the proto-Semitic symbol for the letter, "ṣ́." It requires two symbols ("ṣ" and a tick that goes over the letter when parsed), but it get's the accross the letter's origin, difference from "ṣ," yet similarity (on a side note, does anyone know if it was actually pronounced differently when Ge'ez was actually spoken?). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 20:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, according to yhever (at Talk:Proto-Semitic_language), the situation is different. Can you explain it to us, please, Yhever? — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 21:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I have responded to ዮም's questions regarding the phonolgical and etymological values of the sibilants in Ge`ez in my talk page, though I haven't noticed until now that similar questions were also raised here. I will try to sum up the main issues:

Regarding ሰ ፡ እሳት and ሠ ፡ ንጉሥ, these two sibilants are pronounced the same in the traditional pronunciation (i.e. s), though they were supposedly distinguished in the early stages of the language. Nevertheless, there is much confusion between the two even in early manuscripts, and I think that even in the "epigraphic documents" (see the quote from Goldenberg's article in my talk page).

The ሰ ፡ እሳት corresponds to Proto-Semitic *s, *š and *ṯ, whereas the ሠ ፡ ንጉሥ corresponds to Proto-Semitic *ś. I gave some examples in my talk page.

ፀ ፡ ፀሐይ and ጸ ፡ ጸሎት are similar in that matter; both are pronounced as ṣ in the traditional pronunciation, but they are different etymologically. ጸ corresponds both to Arabic ص and ظ (= Proto-Semitic *ṣ and *ṱ), whereas ፀ corresponds to Arabic ض (= Proto-Semitic *ṣ́).

Now the sound ሸ (š) is an innovation of the modern Ethiopian languages. In Amharic it is the result of palatalization, and in Tigrinya also of labialization. Since the pronunciation of ሰ and ሠ had been merged in all of the modern languages, both ሰ and ሸ may correspond etymologically to any of the four ancestor sounds: *s, *š, *ś or *ṯ. In other words, ሸ should not be confused with any of the Proto-Semitic consonants, since it is a sound that was split from ሰ. yhever 02:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

MoS

It occurred to me that we still have some issues to hammer out for the MoS. It occurred to me that for an article on a name that has contains certain letters, that a semi-complex transliteration be used. I'm talking about using a system similar to what's used on Muhammad, e.g., where the first instance of Muhammad (e.g. the bolded one) is spelled Muḥammad (with the dot under the h). This would work in some articles regarding historical figures, historical books, Church terms, etc., where using "h" would be misleading because it's actually pronounced ḥ (e.g. Bahrey). Amda Seyon for instance (Amda Seyon is the most common, but we might want to change "Seyon" to "Siyon" or "Tsiyon," and perhaps "Amda" to "Amde," though the Ge'ez translit would be Amda), could use "Ṣ" to spell the S in Siyon, as the pronounciation is belied without "ts" or some sort of marking on the "s." P'ent'ay, for instance, could be moved to Pentay, but spelled in the oppening as Penṭay (I can't find the capital P with a dot under it), indicating its spelling. That would perhaps clear up the simple transliteration system, with the problem of ejective "ch" remaining. Perhaps we could leave "ch" as the only symbol with an apostrophe after, except when ṣh (or any other "h") and sh occur, when an apostrophe to indicate pronounciation would be acceptable (I'm growing to like it, after realizing that the word for book could be pronounced "met-shaf"). Also, what do you guys think about the transliteration of መጽሓፍ and መጽሓፈ? Using the Ge'ez transliteration, it would be maṣḥāfa, with simple being matshafa or mats'hafa (with the latter of the two preffered), but the Amharic and Tigrinya meṣ(i)ḥāfe, simple mets(i)hafe is also often used. The question is really for using as the title of a book (e.g. Book of Aksum, Mats'hafa Birhan? Mats'hafa Mistir?).

Another issue is that we will have to work to converting cases where the old complex transliteration system was used to the new one and adding complex transliterations to existing articles. This would probably be done best in coordination with an assessment of articles tagged with the {{WikiProject Ethiopia}} template. I'll soon work out the assessment details so that assessors can mark which articles need transliteration (or if you guys want to help out with assessing, then the transliteration could be done in conjunction). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 02:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I am glad to see that the discussion has been revived. I think that the most logical solution for the problem of emphatic consonants and digraphs is to use an apostrophe for emphatic consonants and to leave digraphs ambiguous in the simplified transliteration.

As for ጸ and ፀ, I think that « s' » is better than « ts' ». I believe it is phonetically more accurate, and also saves us from one more digraph. I have noticed that in Seleda Magazine, they use a captial "S" (e.g. meSihaff for መጽሐፍ, dimSawi for ድምጻዊ).

Now, as for the digraphs issue, mes'haf (or: Mas'hafa ’Aksum in Ge`ez) is not a problem, since the apostrophe seperates the "s" and the "h" (and thus it won't be read as መሻፍ), but in other cases the ambiguity is inevitable. The only solution I can see is to add a note on the first occurrence, e.g.: yishaq (to be read: yis-haq). yhever 21:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with yhever on apostrophes, but I'm a little confused about whether we're talking about the complex or simple transliteration. Are we considering apostrophes for the ejectives in both transliteration schemes? (I'd support this; it would make the two resemble each other more, which is something we should be striving for.) Also I agree that "s'" has advantages over "ts'". (BTW, what's "MoS"?) -- MikeG (talk) 14:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

MoS stands for "Manual of Style" (the Ethiopian one is linked in the title if you want to help out). I'm a bit ambivalent about apostrophes: on one hand they're a bit unneeded if otherwise marked, but they do help disambiguate pronounciation in cases where digraphs can be confused (e.g. Mets'haf or Mes'haf). I don't think that using "s" instead of "ts" (whether or not apostrophes are used for "ts") is a good idea, however. From my experience, "ts" is more common than "S" or "s'" for transliterating ጸ and ፀ. I also think it is the best way (ignoring apostrophe use for "ts") to suggest the actual pronounciation for an English speaker. It's generally the digraph used across many languages to represent a similar sound, actually (compare Hebrew "eretz," Russian "tsar"). — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 16:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Status of proposals?

I've lost track, folks. Are we ready to convert existing articles to the simple and complex standards? (I'm too busy these days to do any serious editing, but I could do this kind of mechanical stuff.) — MikeG (talk) 00:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)