User talk:M. Dingemanse

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Wikimedia Foundation

Welcome to my Talk page.

If you post a message I will usually reply on this page to avoid fragmenting the discussion.
If I have left you a message I will be watching so you can reply on your talk page if you wish.
I dislike having my Talk page spammed with impersonal multi-user messages.

EDIT

My talk archives

Archive 1 (back to August 2004)
Archive 2 (October - December 2004)
Archive 3 (January - February 2005)
Archive 4 (March 2005)
Archive 5 (April - May 2005)
Archive 6 (June 2005)
Archive 7 (July - August 2005)
Archive 8 (September - October 2005)
Archive 9 (November - December 2005)
Archive 10 (January - February 2006)
Archive 11 (March - April 2006)
Archive 12 (May - August 2006)
Archive 13 (September - October 2006)
Archive 14 (November 2006 - January 2007)
Archive 15 (February 2007 - onward)

Confirmation

I confirm my request to be desysopped. I'm too busy at the moment to be of any help as an admin. What little time I have I'd like to spend on contributing content, and I don't need the sysop bit for that. — mark ✎ 11:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You have been desysopped as requested. effeietsanders 12:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that was fast. It's a relief! — mark ✎ 20:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mark; sorry to see you give up your admin bit but I understand your reasons. Please be aware that since you gave up your admin status under non-controversial circumstances, you do not need to re-apply at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship if you choose to be an admin again. You may simply make a request at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and you can be re-flagged as an admin. Best of wishes for you, --Durin 17:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Durin, thanks for the note, and I'll remember to do so whenever I feel the admin tools come in handy again. — mark ✎ 20:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as someone who has been here, I think you've made the right choice. Be well, Banyan Tree 04:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I just followed the example of one of the Wikipedians I respect most: you. Thanks, BT, and see you around! — mark ✎ 16:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fine as long as you stick around. Been seeing good editors disappear, which worries me. --Ezeu 04:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ezeu, that worries me too, and I can't say I'm immune to the, how shall I say it, disentchantment that comes with disinvolvement. But maybe I should just delete my watchlist and see what new stuff I can contribute. It's also plain lack of time, though. — mark ✎ 18:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nigeria-related help

Hi again Mark - I know what you mean about the sysop bit being distracting. I've been trying to write Katsina State geo-stubs like I used to, but I'm just so compelled to go delete things instead ever since my rfa 10 days ago!

Anyways, I'm having trouble with 70.150.50.100 (talk · contribs), which I'm 99.99% sure is a static IP address. He (or she) has been removing information about the man I think is Port Harcourt's mayor over and over for weeks, and I can't get him to respond, in English or French. I think Port Harcourt is mainly Ijaw, but could you try to drop him a line in Yoruba (which I know you speak at least a little of) to see if we can get some reasoning? The user's contribution history suggests they are Nigerian. Picaroon 00:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

African languages map is really nice, but extremely unrealistic for North Africa.

I really like the African languages map, but I find the North African distribution questionable. Total absence of Arabic in the Northwest is misleading. Arabic is not only a second language of the majority, but also the first language of the absolute majority in Tunisia, a clear majority in Algeria and Morocco, and a significant pluraity in Mauritania. As it stands, the map seems to suggest that Arabic is spoken in Egypt and parts of Lybia, while Berber is spoken in the rest of North Africa (which is clearly not the reality). Berber is alive, true, but so is Arabic very clearly. One more thing, what tool did you use to create this great map?--Karkaron 04:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you're talking about Image:African language families.png, which is one of a series of maps. The names on the map should only be taken as some examples of languages to be connected to the four families; if I had wanted to mark the distribution of those individual languages, I would have chosen different colours or shades. Of course I agree with your point about the prevalence of Arabic in much of the Sahel (see Image:Afro-Asiatic.png for a map in the same series which deals specifically with Afro-Asiatic).

I made those maps one and a half year ago in CorelDraw 12. — mark ✎ 17:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering...

Hello, do you by any chance have copies of Maasai language books written by Frans Mol? If you do or know where I can obtain my own copies, please email me [email protected] Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.253.112.164 (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have access to JStor.org? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 09:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try emailing me. — mark ✎ 14:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Lamu_Islands

Hello, I´m beeing bold, and I´m directing you to Talk:Lamu_Islands. Without a map, (or intimate knowledge of the Lamu archipelago) it is not really easy to get an impression of the place. A map over the islands is therefore much wanted. Do you know somebody who feels like filling the gap? Regards, Huldra 17:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Huldra, I agree that Lamu Islands could use a map. However, I'm in serious lack of time right now so I won't be able to do it. As a faster solution, have you tried finding a satellite photo of the area? — mark ✎ 18:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation

{{WP Africa Invitation}} Belovedfreak 18:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I'm aware of the new WikiProject Africa. However, I won't join; chiefly because I simply lack the time (see above), but also a because I'm afraid Africa is too broad in scope for one overarching Wikiproject. — mark ✎ 18:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tips on resources for free maps?

Hi there Mark,

I've been noodling about over at Rama language, and I'd like to make a map of the (few) places where it's spoken. As I'm sure you know, I need a free (traceable) map of Nicaragua to use as a basis for an SVG. But it's quite a small language, so the resolution has to be high. A simple line map of the Atlantic coast would suffice for labeling the locales where it's spoken, but I just can't seem to find one. Any tips on what I might use? Best regards, babbage 23:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found one :) babbage 18:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good, I didn't look into it yet. Good luck with making the map! — mark ✎ 08:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tonal languages

No, sorry, I'm not, because it's a category that needs to exist, and which I would use often--and which is severely lacking. Whoever created most of the Bantu language articles, for example, doesn't even mention whether the languages are tonal or not. That's unacceptable in an encyclopedia like ours that purports to cover all the bases. I don't agree that a "tonal languages" category is problematic in any way. Mandinka is tonal, Fula is not. Swedish is tonal, English is not. It's very clear and the category needs to exist. I'm very familiar with delete-happy editors who haunt "Categories for deletion" and usually their arguments, if they are presented at all, don't make much sense as they are not qualified in the subjects they vote "delete" on. Thanks for your interest, though. Badagnani 07:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Replied over there. — mark ✎ 08:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of your pages on French-speaking Wikipedia

Hi Mark,

As you requested, I've deleted your user and user talk pages on French-speaking Wikipedia, so that you can spend all your time right here, on English-speaking Wikipedia. Please feel free to tell me if you ever want to see them back.

Friendly,

benji 14:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! — mark ✎ 16:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Akan deletion request

Done ([1][2]). G.H e 19:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! — mark ✎ 07:39, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edit conflict on Nafaanra

Sorry about that; I'll stop now. Let me know when you want me to have another look. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK; I'll wait for you, and have another look when you're ready. Looks good, though. Too bad it ended up on the list, but it was probably quite a chore to go through over 1,000 articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mark, I hesitate to work on some of these without your input. For example, I would change:

Delafosse (1904) was the first linguist to mention Nafaanra, calling it 'a much dispersed Senufo tribe'.[10]

to

Delafosse was the first linguist to mention Nafaanra, calling it 'a much dispersed Senufo tribe'.[10]

That is, I would remove the inline reference to the date of the cited source, since it's given in the actual footnote. Is that OK with you? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly, that would be fine. — mark ✎ 16:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the way it is now ('Delafosse was the first linguist to mention Nafaanra, calling it 'a much dispersed Senufo tribe' in 1904') is good; it is notable that the first mention of Nafaanra dates back to only 1904. — mark ✎ 07:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And I realize only now that I wrote the first version of the article (the first good publicly available source of information on the language) exactly one hundred years after that! — mark ✎ 08:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice job :-) I usually wait for Marskell to concur before removing items from the list. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I keep getting stuck here: not sure if this is a or b. Jordan (1980:D.1.4) I hope I don't do more harm than good. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a 1980a, because of the funny page numbers. That document doesn't have page numbers, only sections. Sorry, I should've cleared this up before; the problem is that I only got hold of 1980b after I had written the bulk of the article. — mark ✎ 17:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Donjunctive

As usual, you're completely and utterly wrong, marc. Though their verbal complexes are written conjunctively this does not seem to be consistently applied. At least in Kiswahili (iirc) the concords and prefixes (such as conjunctive "na-") are not attached to the rest of the word. I did take your advice and changed the wording from "almost all" to "many." Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 14:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess this simply shows how unnatural and unscientific the word division is, though I did try to explain it (the Sesotho version) a bit in the article. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 14:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Swahili, the conjunctive na isn't a concord (it agrees with nothing) nor a prefix (it associates two noun phrases and can't really be said to be more related to one than to the other, hence not an affix to either of the two). Because na doesn't consistently pattern with nor agree to some other word, it seems quite natural to me to write it as a separate word. In general, Swahili orthography strikes me as natural and neat.

And yes, as mentioned in word (an excellent article by Gareth), it is notoriously difficult to define just what makes a word a word, so it is actually not surprising that difficulties like this arise. I wouldn't rush to call the result unnatural or unscientific though; somewhere, choices have to be made and these will always give rise to disagreements. — mark ✎ 17:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking Doke's side when he says that "na" (Sesotho "le") is a proclitic. How do you indicate possession in Kiswahili, "X wa Y" or "X waY"? I think I'll quickly take a look in the meantime. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 19:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The concord is separated from the possessee. I think the neatness comes from the simplicity of the language (it doesn't have a million concords and parts of speech). Remember that Doke based his opinions from comparisons of numerous languages, though his definition of the word (used in the Sesotho articles) may also be utterly arbitrary... Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 19:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A proclitic it may well be, but that needn't be a reason to not distinguish the word boundary. Words are often phonologically joined in natural speech, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the most useful or meaningful orthography is one where the word boundaries in such cases are not marked. — mark ✎ 19:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I read the word article. IMO the most useful analyses for Bantu languages are

Pauses. Though they seem to disappeare in multi-verbal conjugations.
Minimal free forms. Like the example I provided in Sesotho language.
Phonetic boundaries. Vowel harmony and penult stress.
Semantic units. Another analysis by Doke.

Basically Sesotho is S (plus elaboration) V (+e) O (+e), in his case every proper word serves a definite syntactic function (thus the 6 major Sesotho parts of speech divisions). I think that since "na" has 0 syntactic function (a conjunctive at the word level, which may be used without the first word) it's a modifying clitic.

Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 09:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HELL!

Could you please revert my accidental blanking of Talk:Sesotho language? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 20:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frozen over. — mark ✎ 19:40, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

:-) Actually, I really don't see how I could've blanked the page since I was adding a section with a blank heading (like this one)... Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 21:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That was meant to be a smiley :-) not an indentation. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 21:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I read the Hamitic article. Apparently it was actually Meinhof who came up with the crazy ideas of connections between "Hamitic," "Hottentot," "Bantu," "San," and "Negro" "races." Do you think 100 years from now people will look back on us and think that WE were a bit not-right in the head?

Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 21:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Meinhof was not the only one of course. This kind of thinking pervaded nineteenth century scientific thought. The intriguing thing is of course that while one is in it, the Weltanschauung of one's contemporary culture generally doesn't strike one as utterly mistaken. Only hundred years later the stupidities become clear for all to see. — mark ✎ 06:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MotsamyaMesong

You might like to take a look at "DawnTreader"'s "contributions". I really do not have the patience or temper to deal with this incredibly rude and disrespectful know-it-all high school (school ends at 14:00 -- 12:00 on Wikipedia) kid. That is, if you think there's a problem.

Enjoy. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 13:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I got rid of my adminship for a reason! — mark ✎ 14:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about:

"Hey dude. Though you may indeed be 102% correct about your views and it is perfectly acceptable for you to implement any changes you feel necessary to Wikipedia content; going about and harassing other contributors (patronising them, questioning their intelligence and knowledge, and making disparaging and mildly racist comments about them on talk pages) is probably not the absolute best way to go about it.

etc. etc. Blah blah. etc.

"All the best, marc."?

Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 15:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the good cop tone of voice. But why not just steer clear of things you don't like? Not every comment merits a reaction. — mark ✎ 16:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay... If you say so, dude. I just don't have much patience with blatantly retarded people -- as I'm sure you've noticed by now...

What is this, the Great Disjunctivitis Plague of the early 21st century??

Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 17:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the problem is not the airhead remarks, but the edits. Take a look at his edit history and at that of User:41.208.227.188 -- haven't you noticed that Sesotho language and Sesotho phonology look like crap?

If YOU revert him and show a commitment to protecting the integrity of Wikipedia content (since I find it very difficult to do so) then he might feel inclined to stop trolling and take up some extramural activity (like getting a girlfriend and some real friends).

It would also make me feel less like the people here have very strong views on minor issues like article titles but are disinclined when I need their help to improve content or fight vandals.

Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 19:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And Sesotho nouns and Sesotho concords. I'm also done reverting his changes to articles which are sourced from the constitution.

Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 19:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would also make me feel less like the people here have very strong views on minor issues like article titles but are disinclined when I need their help to improve content... I don't think the current edit war is about improving content; it's much closer to being a minor issue just like you mention. If you think it needs intervention, try asking someone who hasn't been as heavily involved in this dispute as I have been.

Besides, I prefer to stay cool when the editing gets hot; I usually simply turn to something more worthwile to avoid fanning the flames. — mark ✎ 20:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's not exactly a "pointless" or "minor" dispute since several perfectly acceptable articles have been converted into useless heaps of redlinks.

I wonder how many people (apart from Angr a few days ago when he checked my edit to Template:Language phonologies, as well as you) have actually bothered to read and learn from this stuff? The articles don't seem to have done any good at all.

Did you look at the "contributions" and histories? Does this not look like trolling, vandalism, and mild harassment? And while he continues to find this entertaining (his 2 weeks aren't up yet) how much further damage will we allow him to do?

Yes, I know that I can ask for someone else's help, but I'm sure you understand why I'd much rather prefer your assistance.

Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 20:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Away

I will be away for the next two weeks, so I'll not be able to continue any open conversations. See you in May! — mark ✎ 18:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MOVE FEST!!!! YAY!!!!! :-D

Only kidding!

Tebello TheWHO!!?? 18:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ewe Wikipedia

Hello, please delete the ee:Category:Candidates for speedy deletion on the ee:Main Page Ewe Wikipedia. Best regards, --MF-Warburg 10:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks for notifying me. — mark ✎ 16:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Yoruba playwrights

A tag has been placed on Category:Yoruba playwrights, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a blank article providing no content to the in the current revision and past revisions would have been candidates for speedy deletion. Please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. If you plan to expand the article, you can request that administrators wait a while for you to add contextual material. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the page and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. --Android Mouse Bot 2 16:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't remember why I created it; I suppose it wasn't empty at the time. It is now, and I don't protest its deletion. — mark ✎ 16:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support needed - Ewe Wikipedia

Hi Mark Dingemanse,

I hope you can support User:Natsubee's sysop application here. Thankyou. --Jose77 09:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ewe Wikipedia Edittools and others

I have placed a request for some additions here. Could you kindly get round to it whenever you are able to? While you are at it, there is an article here that most probably should not be there and needs some action. Thanks.--Natsubee 23:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yoruba Wikipedia

Hallo Mark,

Op de Yoruba Wikipedia zou Demmy, die het Yoruba machtig is, de navigatiekolom links graag vertalen (zie yo:talk:Main Page). Kom je even langs? Groet, Belgian man 17:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support needed - Wolof Wikipedia

Greetings Mark Dingemanse,

I hope you can support User:Ibou's sysop application here.

Thankyou very much. --Jose77 21:57, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

hey hey

Just wandering by and thought I'd drop you a line to note that I do occasionally check to see if you've returned. Best, Banyan Tree 09:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

responded over there — mark ✎ 18:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

hey hey hey

How nice to see you around again! How are the two-dozen-speaker languages doing? Bishonen | talk 07:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Pick your brain

Yo! I thought I might just squeeze this in when I could. Do you know of any sound laws that might change the sequence C1V1C2V2 to C1V1V2C2V2?? I found the following in Sesotho:

lerole to lerwele (dust, PB *tudi), lengole to lengwele (knee), lekote to lekwete (clod), kgole to kgwele (rope), lesofe to leswefe (albino). I speak the second way but I know there are people who speak the first way. Basically, the two vowels are the same height and (I guess) the 2 vowel is copied to after the 1, which labialises the 1 consonant. Look familiar?

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 13:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't your formula be (CV₁)CV₂CV₁, as the C's don't seem to matter? I don't know much about sound laws in Bantu, though. But I can always try to tell a story. If you find it only in syllables which have /o/ as V2, that would support the idea that this involves labialisation under influence of the articulatory features (esp. roundedness) of [o]. This labialisation eats away at the syllable peak, which leads to a phonotactic vacuum that must be filled according to the syllable requirements of the language; this leads to an /e/ coming into being (epenthesis, if you will). It would be very nice if /e/ was the unmarked vowel in Sotho, which I don't know. — mark ✎ 10:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in the cases I've found the two vowels are at the same height. In most of them it is [o] and [e] but with lerwele it is [U] and [I] (we have the Sesotho orthography to blame for any confusion). You seem to be saying that the vowel is epithentic but based on the data I think that the second vowel is being copied (or sucked by your peak vacuum). Of course, I'll need to find more examples before I know for sure... Your scenario of the first vowel triggering labialisation even though it is not immediately followed by another vowel sounds better the more and more I think about it... Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 20:12, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

summaries

Hi. I can understand why you would like me to add edit summaries but when simply assessing an article i think this is, not so much a waste, but more of an expense of my time. To date, I have assessed 700 articles in the WPZimbabwe Scope and Im sure you can appreciate how long this must take. By putting an edit summary to each and everyone of these articles as I do it, it would take that much longer and if you work your way through the various edits on other articles throughout Wikipedia there are even smaller edits that havnt been summarised. Mangwanani 17:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not asking you motivate your review in the edit summary; using a standard edit summary (e.g. "assessment") would be fine. The point of edit summaries is that they enable others to quickly determine whether they need to check out something or not, and for this reason they are recommended for all edits. In short, if you don't use them, you're wasting the time of other editors.

In Firefox (and I believe IE too), things you fill in in a one-line edit box (such as the edit summary box) are usually remembered and can be retrieved in one mouse click or by typing just the first character. Or else you could consider copy-pasting. I've done repetitive editing like this and I didn't feel that using a standard, informative edit summary absorbed much of my time.

Finally, I hope you agree that the fact that there are even smaller edits that aren't summarized isn't going to be a good reason to not use edit summaries yourself. — mark ✎ 07:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. My apologies. It would appear that my little brother has been using my account and it was him who wrote "my" last response. Only picked up the message you wrote initially when it told me about your I would appreciate a reply comment. So here is a reply from me, Mangwanani, and not my brother. I shall as of now make use of the edit summaries box when assessing articles and can appreciate your view of why they are necessary.

Also, apologies for my brothers waste of your time in his replies to you on my account.

The real Mangwanani 15:31, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yo

Did you receive the last email I sent you, on the 22nd of September? Huh?

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 11:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let me check...

Yes, and I forgot to reply! I'll look into it. — mark ✎ 08:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so very much!! :-D

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 08:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

Do you speak pedi? if you do please tell me why it is named pedi. Is it really intended to mean "two"? if it really is - then why should it be intended to mean "two"? thank you in advance. Eliko (talk) 23:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Eliko, I hope you're watching this page.

If you would go to the Sesotho article and go down to the section talking about its dialects, you will see that the woman who gave birth to the founders of the wider Basotho peoples named one her sons "Mopedi", and his people adopted his name calling themselves Bapedi, and calling their language Sepedi.

In this way, the name is the name of an ancient hero we talk about in our praise poems, but, like so many legendary names, nobody knows for sure what it meant. It most probably has nothing to do with the number 2 (even though the root is pronounced EXACTLY like the number 2). I imagine that if the name had come from the number, the number root would not have been nasally permuted, thus resulting in the name Mobedi or Mmedi (with assimilation).

Moshoeshoe I's half brother was named Mopedi, in honour of this ancestor, and there is a Charles Mopedi stadium, obviously named after a guy whose family had adopted the name as a surname.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 07:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for sorting that out, Zyxoas! — mark ✎ 18:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pleasure! Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 22:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Request for adminship at yo:

Please Support my requst as admin

http://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/demmy_2 195.251.239.177 (talk) 00:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I made a conditional support to User:Demmy2's request because I am still not 100% certain that he is a native Yoruba speaker (since most of his edits were in English). Therefore if he is able to help me translate those Christian texts into Yoruba, then it shows/proves that:

He is a competent native speaker in the local language.
He is a good, kind, and friendly person who is willing to help others.
He is not a hoax or sockpuppet of another wikipedian.
He is not anti-Christian.

I have used the same tests on other wikipedias such as Wolof, Ewe etc.... and the majority of them have been willing to help (it is nicknamed by one of them as the "Adminship Exam"). In fact, all of those Admins later proved to be very effective, productive and helpful to their local Wikipedias. --Jose77 (talk) 20:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that makes sense. Thanks for responding! — mark ✎ 11:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion of Image:Life expectancy in some Southern African countries 1958 to 2003.png

A tag has been placed on Image:Life expectancy in some Southern African countries 1958 to 2003.png requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I8 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is available as a bit-for-bit identical copy on the Wikimedia Commons under the same name, or all references to the image on Wikipedia have been updated to point to the title used at Commons.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[ Talk:Image:Life expectancy in some Southern African countries 1958 to 2003.png|the talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Optigan13 (talk) 05:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move for an African language entry

I have just minutes ago requested a move for the entry, Djerma, having followed the procedure prescribed at WP:RM. Please see Talk:Djerma. Please help me spread the word to other interested Wikipedians so that a well informed decision may be made. At WikiProject Africa, I didn't find a subproject on African languages. That is why I have brought this action to your personal attention. I am not in a hurry on this. I hope not to have to rely on quickly schooling myself on the subject in order to make the move, and of course I would not even wish to make the move if there is a preponderance of opposition to it. Thanks. Hurmata (talk) 07:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, it was a false alarm. Sorry, Mark! I did not look carefully at the Djerma article, so I failed to realize it is about a people, not their language. In fact, Wikipedia *already* has an article, Zarma_language. I have removed the move request from the Djerma talk page AND from WP:RM. Hurmata (talk) 03:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Acholi page

On the Acholi page you inserted the following "... Starting in the late seventeenth century, a new sociopolitical order developed among the Luo of northern Uganda, mainly characterized by the formation of chiefdoms headed by Rwodi (sg. Rwot, 'ruler'). ..." I just want to know what "sg." means. LindaNowakowski (talk) 05:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Linda,

It means 'singular', i.e. Rwot is the singular form of Rwodi 'rulers' in the local language. — mark ✎ 07:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]