Wiktionnaire:Actualités/036-March-2018
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Wiktionnaire:Actualités is a monthly periodical about Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), dictionaries, words and languages. It is published online since April 2015. Everyone is welcome to contribute to it. You can sign in to be noticed of future issues, read old issues and participate to the draft of the next edition. You can also have a look at Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia. If you have any comments, critics or suggestions, there is a zone a the bottom of each issue and our talk page is open!
A wall painted in a tunnel in Kiev, photographed by Сарапулов. You can click to see the whole picture!
Highlights
- A presentation of the project Français de nos régions [French in our regions] to Quebecers: http://ici.radio-canada.ca/premiere/emissions/l-actuel/segments/entrevue/62328/andre-thibeault-francais-
- The Wiktionary logo now exists in 3D! File:Wiktionnary-logo-3D.stl
- An interview on the use of the Wiktionary within the Zerfa Chaoui Association: https://www.facebook.com/AssociationculturelleZerfaChaouieQuebec/videos/1902029060127765/
- Cathrotterdam has proposed Langage humain as a good article on Wikipedia.
- Futura Sciences reports an article published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences in which researchers studying Creole have found traces of the origin of the descendants of the speakers of these Creoles.
- The program La tête au carré invited on Tuesday 20th Jean Pruvost and Laurent Catach to talk about dictionaries. These two lexicographers were present during the Lexicopoïèse study days and have known the Wiktionary for several years (at least 2015). But Mr. Catach calls us the Wikipedia Dictionary or Wikipedia, despite the fact that we are well quoted under the name Wiktionary in the summary of this program. Anyway, these two speakers review the situation of dictionaries today.
- The BBC website summarises an article by linguists who have studied the proximities between the languages of Australia and concluded that they all come from the same source. Arguments are based on proximities between senses and between sounds. A comparison between sentence structures, although more difficult to establish, could lead to a better understanding of the history of languages in this territory. Linguistic analyses should also be compared with analyses carried out by other specialists such as paleoclimatologists or archaeologists.
A tunnel in Germany, photographed by 5snake5 as part of the monthly photo competition on the theme of tunnels.
New stuff in Wiktionary
The Wiktionnaire francophone celebrated its 14th anniversary on March 22. No celebration in style, but ideas to celebrate with dignity next year!
This month, two tutorials have been written and are already available on the Aide:Tutoriels page. Others are in preparation on page Projet:Tutoriels, with the aim of helping to understand how the Wiktionary works.
Article of the month
Eric Collier published in Le Monde an article entitled “Les sept langues du français : du « disruptif » au « croquignolesque »” which refers to Jean-Michel Delacomptée's last book. He would have found seven “sub-domains” of French: “la haute langue” [the high language], “la langue standard” [the standard language], “les langues régionales ou minoritaires” [the regional or minority languages], “les langues métissées” [the mixed-race laguages], “la langue technique, celle des spécialistes” [the technical language, the one from the specialists], “la langue des rues” [the street language] and “la langue des cités, newcomer” [the housing estate language]. As part of the Francophonie week, Hervé Le Tellier wrote a short history in these seven language registers. Excerpts :
- « Il se tient prostré, sur une chaise, au milieu de la pièce. »
- « Le meskine, ça le fait pas trop dahak, de faire le poireau, il a grave la seum. »
- « Mais il est rien brave, allez ! pour selon qu’il est à barreaux, il sait que c’est pas le moment d’avoir le babaud, alors il tâche moyen de pas trop broger. »
Statistics
- From mid-February to mid-March (from 02/20/2018 to 03/20/2018)
- French entries increased by 2,247 and quotations increased by 2,131. There are now 361,938 lemmas, 534,769 definitions, and 343,811 quotations or examples.
- The three other languages which progressed the most are Esperanto (+ 2,423 entries), Northern Sami (+ 1,494 entries), and Gallo (+ 990 entries).
- Sixteen languages were added in the project (here with their French names): Nding (+2), Mandingue (+1), Mayennais (+1), Pulaar (+1), Dagik (+1), Jedek (+1), Yolmo (+1), Siwi (+1), Tomo kan (+1), Bassari (+1), Tamahaq (+1), Talodi (+1), Torona (+1), Bourbonese (+1), Ghadamès (+1) and Yandruwandha (+1).
- In March 11,181 entries were created for 88 languages!
- Words of the month
External stats provided numbers on:
- Other improvements
- There are 36,538 illustrative media items (pictures and videos) on the French Wiktionary pages, an increase of 265 in a month.
- March 31: the French Wiktionary contains 324 thesauri in French and a grand total of 486 thesauri in 54 languages !
Three new thesauri for French this month: mathématiques [mathematics], couteau (outil) [knife], voix [voice].
- March 31: the French Wiktionary contains 89,667 audio pronunciations in 97 languages (172 more than last month), of which 19,874 are in French.
- The page Wiktionnaire:Questions sur les mots [Questions about words] recorded 46 questions in March and there were 65 questions in February and 59 questions in January.
A road tunnel in Rome, photographed by Nicholas Gemini as part of the monthly photo competition on the theme of tunnels.
WikiIndaba 2018
Benoît Prieur and Pamputt wer at the Wiki Indaba conference 2018 held in Tunis from March 16 to 18. A presentation of the French Wiktionary and its interest in spreading and preservation of languages was given. A Wiktionary tool presentation workshop facilitating contribution (“Créer nouveau mots”, “Créer Trad”) was also organized. These presentations made it possible to establish numerous contacts with speakers interested in developing their mother tongue. Overall, the Wiktionary was very well received; many participants asked questions and wanted technical help to contribute. They were also interested in the sound recording tool Lingua Libre which development is currently underway and should be available during the summer of 2018. A report was published on the Wikidémie (in French).
Fun facts
Danfarid133 asked at the beginning of the month whether there was a French word composed of the 26 letters of the alphabet and without any repetition. After some proposals, programs were written to do an exhaustive search in the Wiktionary. The longest words found are 14 letters long, such as dyschromatique, enschtroumpfai or xylographiques. There is also a proper name: Bricklehampton. Even taking into account the spaces (the dashes were already included in the previous test), no locution stands out. By differentiating the accented letters, a single word of 16 letters appears: psychomagnétique. Finally, when searching in other languages using the Latin alphabet (still in the French Wiktionary), one comes across the 16 letter English word uncopyrightables. The complete results are available in the appendix of the linguistic curiosities. — A column by Romainbehar
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LexiSession on mathematics
Initiated by the Tremendous Wiktionary User Group, LexiSessions suggested monthly themes to simultaneously engage all Wiktionaries. The themes are suggested in advance on Meta and announced every month on Wikidémie, the main community portal.
February LexiSession was on the theme of mathematics which led to the creation of a new thesaurus about mathematics in French!
For April, the theme is mine (like in mining)!
Videos
This section gives a monthly selection of videos related to linguistics and the French language. Do not hesitate to add more videos that you find!
- A group of people speaking patois from Brazey-en-Plaine read texts in Burgundian: Do you understand the patois of the Saône plain?
- Lyokoï, contributor to the Wiktionary and to Actualités (yes, there is a conflict of interest there), offers on his YouTube channel two videos recorded during live contributions, the March 8 on the word malaisant and March 22 on the entry Wiktionnaire. Further online contributions are planned and will be announced on the Wikidémie.
Dictionary of the month
- Collective work, The Wiktionary, 2004-, online.
This is not a dictionary.
The Wiktionnaire is a strange aggregate of pages with lexicographical content. If he (or she!) picks up usual dictionary codes, this unknown object is free from the orthodox norm by respecting neither alphabetical order nor limits of good use! There is no regular publication or even edition for this non-book which can be read on the Internet even before it is finished!
And when will it be over? Probably never since it aims to describe “all words in all languages”! To better understand this crazy project, we went to meet the demented leader who directs this enormous project in the shadows. You may be as surprised as we were because it turns out that the Wiktionary is written without centralized direction, without captain at the helm, and even by anyone, everyone or any new comer!
It would even seem that the volunteers iconoclasts who forge this Wiktionary take a lot of pleasure out of it! It appears they have learn over the years to better think about their practices. Their virtual exchanges would have led them to meet and to the formation of a new elite in the world of dictionaries that is about to overthrow the Académie française, a dispensary that had embarked on the same adventure in the XVIIe century. After its first editions released 20 years apart, the period gradually increased to 30, to 40 years, and now exceeds 50 years. In the age of the Internet, we might as well allow everyone to list their own language observations, making them immediately available to everyone and discuss them at national parties.
It is a widely open work, which fills up progressively, following to the whims and passions of a crew guided by the dream of an aspiring object whose shape gradually comes out of the mist, like a ship splitting the waves of knowledge! Imagine a fleet of lexicographical works which would sail together, carried by the same tinkling wind! Imagine yourself, thanks to an anonymous and needy crew, watching a whole underwater world of meanings and ideas, words and sentences, caught in the nets of these fishermen who disrupt everything in their path! What an adventure!
On April 1st, 2018, it would seem that the Wiktionary has already achieved the feat of having become already something more than a dictionary. — A column by Noé
A tunnel in Switzerland, photographed by GabrielleMerk as part of the monthly photo competition on the theme of tunnels.
Anciens numéros
- 2015 : avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2016 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2017 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2018 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2019 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2020 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2021 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2022 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2023 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2024 : janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre
- 2025 : janvier, février, brouillon du prochain numéro