User talk:Justinrleung

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WT:Tea room/2026/February#Taoism (pronunciation)

This wasn't really important enough to ping anyone, but I thought at least one person who knows more than I do should check whether I was making sense with what I wrote. I only chimed in because people without much knowledge of Mandarin were talking about whether "voiced" d or t were "phonetic", as if the Wade-Giles t and the Pinyin d were different sounds. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:22, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

粿 and 粄

Do you think these two belong in a dialectal synonym table together? I've noticed that Hokkien and Teochew 粿 often correspond to Hainanese 粄, and I believe Hakka uses 粄 as well though I'm not sure if it's conceptually the same thing. The dog2 (talk) 07:48, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

@The dog2 Perhaps. I'm not sure what the best title to give this, though. In Cantonese, this might correspond to 糕 (a more general term than 粿/粄, since it can include food items made of wheat flour) or 糍 (a narrower term for certain types of cakes made of glutinous rice). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:43, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if an equivalent concept exists in Mandarin. 糕 is definitely more general, so it's not a synonym. I think 粿 exists in Cantonese but it is only used in 粉粿 and not on its own.

Speaking of which, according to this clip, the 本字 of 薏粑 is 薏粄, so do you think that's accurate, and do you think we should move it over? The dog2 (talk) 06:10, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

@The dog2: Yes, I do think the 本字 of this Hainanese word is 粄. I'm not exactly sure about the etymology of the first syllable though. There's some speculation here. If we know people read the Mandarin as yìbā, then the Mandarin entry should stay at 薏粑. The Hainanese entry probably requires a little more research to decide which character we should use for the first syllable. 薏 seems to be the most common, so we could have 薏粄, but we probably should look around a little more. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:22, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, Mandarin speakers do say it as yìbā, at least if you look on Douyin. 薏粑 is the most common way of writing it even in Hainan itself, but that ma also be because most people don't know the 本字 of the second syllable. The dog2 (talk) 07:48, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Based on this page, it seems like the first character might actually be 燕. What do you think? The Baidu Baike article does provide some soirces. The dog2 (talk) 06:39, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

@The dog2: I don't think it's saying anywhere on the page that it's etymologically 燕, but rather 憶. But I'm not sure about using speculative etymological characters without attestation. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:55, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

You may be an eligible candidate for the U4C election

Greetings,

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) seeks candidates for the 2026 election. The U4C is the global committee responsible for overseeing enforcement of the Universal Code of Conduct. Elections are held annually, if elected a committee member serves for two years.

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Nominate /fun on mahjong

食 (shí) and 吃 (chī) are (para-)synonyms on various senses such as to eat, (board games) to capture, but on mahjong:

	Cantonese	Mandarin
chow ()	上 (soeng5, verb)	吃 (chī, verb)
win	食 (sik6, verb)	糊 (hú, verb)

Notice that these terms are also common to be yelled in the game, so if someone goes outside 粵港澳／粤港澳 (Yuè-Gǎng-Ào) (or vice versa) as a beginner in such location, they may spit the wrong word thus being unfun instead of fun. Beefwiki (talk) 10:17, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Hanyu pinyn qǐ chuáng

How to request to delete this unnecessary Hanyu Pinyin? don't know the appropriate place to request to delete. Kethyga (talk) 15:02, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

@Kethyga: RFD in the same way, as I've just done. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:58, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

YGM

Hello there, I have sent you an email. Please check your mailbox, thank you! --LuciferianThomas 05:01, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

@LuciferianThomas: Thanks for your email. I'll try to get back to you soon. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:44, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

"-irn" and "-ern" in Yongchun, Nan'an, and Hui'an

So I noticed that the Hokkien module allows Yongchun, Nan'an, and Hui'an dialects to have /ən/ for both -ern and -irn. For example, for the character 根, if you add "kern" or "kirn" to these dialects, it's all the same /kən/. Shouldn't we have just one as a standard? Maybe just "kirn"? Anyway, the one we've been using for the Taiwanese Sanxia dialect has always been "-irn", though I'm not sure whether it's /ən/ in the Sanxia dialect. Also, for the Klang dialect, the module only allows -ern. What do you think? Standardize everything to -irn? Mar vin kaiser (talk) 12:08, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Thanks for raising this issue. I think it's probably time to introduce symbols like <ṳ>, so something like <ṳn> for this rime would be good. What do you think? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:36, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Is there no standard one used in POJ? --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 02:07, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: <ṳn> is what's used in ChhoeTaigi, but the various sources that try to account for Quanzhou vowels don't agree. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:09, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: To be precise though, what ChhoeTaigi uses is:

1. /ə/ - -o̤ (e.g. 飛)
2. /ɯ/ - -ṳ (e.g. 居)

As for what ChhoeTaigi writes as "-ṳn" (e.g. 根), I wonder whether what they want to transcribe is /ɯn/, because based on the above, /ən/ should be o̤n. What do you think? — This unsigned comment was added by Mar vin kaiser (talk • contribs) at 02:23, 28 July 2026 (UTC).

@Mar vin kaiser: They represent it as <ṳn> because it's probably from the tradition of Douglas and 台日大辭典. I don't think any of these dialects actually distinguish /ən/ from /ɯn/, right? They should all be represented the same way IMO, with the phonetic details only in the IPA. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:49, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: So I tried looking at what has been used in different publications. For /ə/ and /ɯ/:

1. Carstairs Douglas - ö and ü
2. Chhoe Taigi - o̤ and ṳ
3. Zhang Yuhong - e· and i· (used in his 2001 book Pe̍h-ōe-jī Ki-pún-lūn)
4. David Li-Wei Chen – er and ir (used in his 2017 book Handbook of Taiwanese Romanization)

As for /ən/ or /ɯn/:

1. Carstairs Douglas - -ün
2. Chhoe Taigi - -ṳn

So I guess it seems right to use symbols like symbols like <ṳ>, <o̤>, and <ṳn> for POJ. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 06:45, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Southern Pinghua Pronunciations

So I recently was going through Nanning dialect content in Wiktionary. I noticed that a lot of the pronunciations were wrong, different from what's in 南宁平话词典. I noticed they seem to be typos made by 沈澄心. Might need some time to correct all. Just letting you know. Mar vin kaiser (talk) 23:35, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Thanks for letting me know. Do you have some examples? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:59, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Several. Btw, there's a slight off chance that a few of my corrections are due to multiple correct pronunciations, but a lot seem like typos to me. Examples include 經, 前, 病, 癆病, 身, 女. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 00:04, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Thanks. BTW, I think you tried pinging 沈澄心, but it wouldn't work unless you actually link to their user page like this [[User:沈澄心]]. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:08, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Zhenan Min

@Justinrleung Any opinions on adding Zhenan Min (Lingxi dialect) into the Hokkien module? The phonology seems to be totally Hokkien, aside from the lack of checked tones. Mar vin kaiser (talk) 02:29, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Will have to look a little more into it. I'm not sure how well POJ works for it. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:34, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Looking at 苍南方言志, looking at the phonology of the Lingxi dialect, my observations are:

1. Initials are Hokkien, though they still have the l/j split that was lost in Quanzhou but still present in Zhangzhou
2. Finals are also Hokkien, more old Quanzhou (they have "erng" sounds)
3. Due to the loss of checked tones, they seem to distinguish [ɐ] (near-open central vowel?), [uɐ], and [ie] in originally checked syllables, versus [a], [ua], and [i] in non-checked syllables.
4. It's weird for me that they differentiate [ã] (for 馬) and [ə̃] (for 敢) when those would both be [ã] in Quanzhou Hokkien.
5. For tones, no checked tones. Same with Quanzhou where the 去 tones are only differentiated by sandhi.

So basically, there are some differences, but seems to be adaptable to POJ. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 02:57, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Would you like to work out the details of how these might be represented in POJ? It's sort of low priority for me. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:05, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: I made this. What do you think? --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 07:53, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Thanks. I think this is a good start. A few comments and questions:

• I don't think we should be labelling post-sandhi tones with the tone numbers, i.e., there shouldn't be a tone 9.
• Are the entering tones' sandhi completely merged with 陰上 and 陽平?
• What's the distribution of [ã] vs. [ə̃]? From the limited examples, it seems like [ã] goes with nasal/voiced initials (馬, 雅), while [ə̃] goes with non-nasal/voiceless initials (敢, 囝)? Are there minimal pairs?
• What do the asterisks in the finals table mean?
• What other words use the [əu] rime? It looks like iou [iəu] corresponds to io in core Hokkien (腰, 小), so it feels funny to use iou for this rime. (But of course, at the same time the romanization should probably be more catered towards the sychronic phonology rather than the historical.)

As a general comment, it feels like due to various drastic differences between core Hokkien and Zhenan Min (no entering tones, different vowels), it doesn't feel right that we subsume this under Hokkien/POJ. (The same to a lesser extent for Longyan Min, actually.) — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:00, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Thanks for the reply:

1. Yeah, for the "tone 9", I was just doing the same thing 闽南方言大词典 did with the Zhangzhou dialect where they called a post-sandhi tone as "tone 9". Anyway, that's not an issue.
2. That's what the source says. And definitely there are no stop consonants (even glottal stops). And looking at the characters I know that are originally check toned, they do correspond to 陰上 and 陽平. And their tone sandhi also works the same way as the tone they merged with. So I'd say yeah. Actually though, One thought that came to my mind was that if the unique vowel finals in Zhenan Min are just from the checked tones, maybe marking the syllables' tones as checked would serve as the marker for some vowel final spellings, to make it more similar with typical Hokkien (maybe). But I'm gonna look more into that.
3. I only found one minimal pair. 拿 nã24 and 林 nə̃24.
4. Regarding the asterisks, I just reedited the page given new information I saw. Basically the asterisks are the finals where I couldn't see paired with a non-nasal initial. Since in POJ, if we have a nasal initial, we don't indicate the nasal in the final anymore. So that means, if the Zhenan Min final is only paired with a nasal initial, then we won't need "uⁿ", just "u", for a word like 奴 (nû).
5. Yeah, you're right. iou [iəu] seems to be just iou [iəu]. So let's just spell it as "io". I'm gonna change that in the page.

Oh, is Longyan Min phonology more similar to Hokkien than Zhenan Min? Anyway, if ever we don't subsume this under Hokkien, a modified POJ system still seems to work for Zhenan Min. I'm still gonna see if maintaining the checked tones in the romanization would systematically regularize the finals into more core-Hokkien-like. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 03:09, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

WT:WDL

• Hello. I have observed your editing since you were appointed as an admin in 2017, but we have never interacted before.

• Since you are managing FWOTD, which depends on WT:WDL, line five (perhaps among other things) at WT:WDL seem(s) outdated (seeing that Marathi is not WT:WDL at diff). See:

Wiktionary_talk:Criteria_for_inclusion/Well_documented_languages#Request_for_cleaning_up

• For example, Gujarati and Marathi and probably Assamese, Nepali annd Odia are well-documented on the Internet.

• I understand that these particular languages may not be within your scope, but previous attempts at discussing WT:WDL at Beer Parlour have failed. At the aforementioned discussion, User:Prosfilaes said this changes the rules for handling many, many entries.

• So, would the lack of further discussion imply that unilaterally changing WT:WDL would not advisable?

Kutchkutch (talk) 11:00, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

@Kutchkutch: Hi, thanks for reaching out. I think this should definitely be discussed further, but I'm not familiar with the relevant editors for these languages. I also don't think we have set up a good system/definition for what counts as well-documented, so community consensus seems to be the only thing we can work with here. Do you have links to previous discussion on this topic for any of the languages you listed? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 13:28, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response.

• I also don't think we have set up a good system/definition for what counts as well-documented
  • Yes, I agree that the definition of “well-documented” is not so clear (even if you may not be familiar with the relevant editors for these languages and our areas of editing do not usually coincide).
• community consensus seems to be the only thing we can work with here […] Do you have links to previous discussion on this topic for any of the languages you listed?
  • Here is the link to the lacklustre Beer Parlour discussion: WT:Beer_parlour/2021/September#Modifying_the_page_WT:WDL
    • User:Inqilābī: I had proposed a cleanup of the arrangement of the languages at Wiktionary talk:Criteria for inclusion/Well documented languages#Request for cleaning up some while ago. Someone might want to edit the page accordingly or continue the discussion
    • User:Inqilābī: @Kutchkutch: Hi. I think no one cares about making minor changes to the list; you can go ahead and change it.
  • WT:WDL was originally set up by this vote.
    • There have been very few edits to the original list since 2012 as per the page history
      • (On line 1, Scots was removed by a Beer Parlour discussion.)
      • (On line 3, the Arabic lects were replaced by Modern Standard Arabic by a Beer Parlour discussion.)
      • (On line 6 Cantonese, Hokkien and Standard Mandarin were merged into Chinese (Standard Written Chinese) by a vote.)
  • However, despite all those changes, line 5 about Indo-Iranian and Dravidian languages has remained the same.
    • User:SinaSabet28: why isn't marathi a well-documented language? on Discord
  • So, do you think that the lacklustre Beer Parlour discussion is sufficient consensus, because no one cares about making minor[?] changes to the list, or that it should [still be] discussed further?

Kutchkutch (talk) 14:47, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

@Kutchkutch: I would be careful, since adding a language to WDL means more entries at risk of failing RFV with many of those who contributed them no longer around to add the extra quotes. Someone would have to spend the time to add them in order to prevent good entries from being deleted. Of course, it also would make it easier to get rid of junk, but for some languages the negative impact might be substantial. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:56, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz

• Thanks for noticing this query and pointing out that such a change would also affect RFV besides just FWOTD (which was the reason for asking User:Justinrleung).
• It seems you are suggesting a cautious approach (and waiting for further discussion with a potentially larger editing community), because some entries would not meet WT:CFI anymore. In fact, WT:WDL was not changed after that lacklustre Beer Parlour discussion five years ago for the same reason.
• Adding a language to WT:WDL would mean that the treatment of entries in CAT:Requests for verification by language (and perhaps CAT:Requests for deletion by language) would change, in addition to those that transclude T:nomstub for FWOTD.
• Although excluding certain languages like Bhojpuri may be understandable (not used as an official language), the rationale behind omitting other languages like Assamese, Gujarati, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, etc. is not so clear (especially when some appear in List of languages by number of native speakers.)

Kutchkutch (talk) 16:28, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

@Kutchkutch: Thanks for the points above. Chuck is right that additions to the WDL list will result in a more stringent CFI for the new languages added to the list. It seems like the discussion above didn't get much attention because 1) the relevant editors were not notified and 2) some of the discussion was for the formatting of the list, which is a separate issue. It would be worth a new BP discussion if we were to consider adding Gujarati and Marathi (and perhaps the others) to WDL. However, just for your consideration as well, high number of native speakers doesn't necessarily equate to a language being well-documented. For example, Cantonese is 12th on the Ethnologue list, but it is not considered well-documented by the community - this is because the unmarked written language for Cantonese speakers is not Cantonese, but Standard Chinese (based on Mandarin), resulting in a dearth of publications in colloquial Cantonese in proportion to the number of speakers. Essentially, the community of relevant editors will have to discuss whether they think they want a stricter CFI for these proposed additions to the list. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:42, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

@Kutchkutch We need to remember that "WDL" stands for "Well-Documented Language". It's not how important a language is, but how easy it is to document usage using online resources. Of course, it's not like everyone in India is illiterate and has no access to the internet, so it may very well be time for this. It's just that it will add more work to defend rfv's, so the people who are going to be doing the work need to have their say. Another thought: I wonder if this would be the kind of thing that should be discussed at WT:LTR. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:11, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks for following up with additional input, especially from your perspective(s).
• This is nice way to characterise the situation:

• it's not like everyone in India is illiterate and has no access to the internet, so it may very well be time for this for certain languages
• And, the comparison to Cantonese is helpful.

• As Chuck Entz suggested, maybe WT:LTR would a better place for further discussion (when it happens). As you said, more users should be pinged and made aware of the implications of a stricter CFI.
• Although there may be no current RFDs or RFVs for Marathi, Chuck Entz himself added a RFV for Gujarati દાખલ (dākhal).

Kutchkutch (talk) 10:50, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Cantonese Module Notes for 懶音

I saw that words like 愛 and 毆 have a auto-generated note now for the additional ng- sound. Maybe we could do the same for the other characteristics of 懶音? Like /n/ becoming /l/, or ng- initial words getting rid of ng-. What do you think? Mar vin kaiser (talk) 10:12, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Yeah, eventually those could be added as well. I'd prefer it not be a note because it will be cluttery very quickly, but actual pronunciations listed, similar to how "cot-caught" is dealt with. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 13:29, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

The Headword - Issue 1

Issue 1 of The Headword is out: read it here.

In this issue:

• The future of Foreign Word of the Day
• Interview with Juwan
• Reconstructing language stages into the future
• Traffic report
• The International Symbol of Access

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The Headword - Issue 2

Issue 2 of The Headword is out: read it here.

In this issue:

• In an IDeal world
• Interview with Justinrleung
• Editors to start leaning
• The International Symbol of Parking
• What people are looking at
• Linguist praises Wiktionary for promoting etymology, and more

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Question on Dialectal Synonyms Chart

Do you think that a label of <口> (colloquial) in 现代汉语词典 warrants the word being placed on the "Formal" part of the dialectal synonyms chart? Maybe labelled as colloquial? Or somewhere else? I was thinking that the chart should at least show that the word is used in Standard Mandarin, despite being of a colloquial usage. Mar vin kaiser (talk) 04:52, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: It's a little odd to call something colloquial formal. I do agree that we should show colloquial usage in Standard Mandarin. I think we need to add a little more infrastructure for this, though. Also, what is considered formal in Mainland China might not be what is considered formal in Hong Kong. I think we need to sort of have a way to decentralize formality/standardness so that we allow for regional flavours of standard Chinese. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:14, 5 October 2026 (UTC)