ܡܡܠܠܐ ܕܘܝܩܝܦܕܝܐ:ܡܕܒܪܢܐ

Style Guide

Guys, I think that it may be a good idea to start working on a style guide that editors can use when posting and editing articles here on the Aramaic Wikipedia. Basically, something similar to what the English Wikipedia has, but altered for our purposes here. For example, some issues I believe we should bring up include:

Use of vowels and diatric marks.
Use of multiple Aramaic Dialects.
- I was thinking of setting up a template system to note which pages are in which dialects.
Spelling conventions.

What do you think? -- -ܐܡܪ ܠܝ- Steve Caruso -- 17:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

- Hey Steve, when writing in Aramaic/Syriac/Assyrian their is no dialects. East and west are one when it comes to writing. the only diffrence is in the vowels used, the way the letter is sounded and font. Overall, if someone were to write something in western Aramaic I would not know, because i would automatically start reading what is written in my own(Eastern). In my opinion, the only problem we have so far is the use of vowels. Should we not use follows in the title as well as the body of the article? When vowels are used that is when the dialect porblem occurs. You automatically split Eastern Syriac from Western Syriac.

One thing that I wanted to add is, Eastern Syriac is used more. It is spoken by a greater number of people around the world and it has been made the official language in certian areas of Iraq.

--ܐܬܘܪܝܐ 04:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

ܐܬܘܪܝܐ, I don't mean to sound rude, but there are -many- dialects of Neo-Aramaic, many of which are not simply confined to a difference of vowels. To make an inventory of prominently spoken modern dialects, we would have to include Assyrian (which of course is what this Wiki was started over), Lishanid Noshan, Western, Bohtan, Barzani, Chaldean, Hertevin, Hulaula, Kou Sanjaq Surat, Mlahso, Lishana Deni, Mandaic, Samaritan, Senaya, Lishan Didan, and Turoyo which brings us to to name most of the dialects that have an ISO code. :-) The dialect differences also include grammar, spelling, idiom, and in some cases, alphabet (most modern dialects use a Syriac-derived script, but all Jewish dialects use the "Hebrew" Square Script, and Mandaic has its own altogether).

My question is: Should we lay down which dialect family this Wiki must be in and potentially discriminate the minority dialect speakers from contributing? Or should be encourage those who know different dialects to add their thoughts and knowledge of the language to our collection of articles and if so, how do we manage these? :-)

I was thinking of setting up a series of templates that we could post at the bottom of each article that state something like "This article is written in the X dialect" along with some way to redirect the reader to the same article in other dialects if it exists.

But this also brings me to another issue between the Syriac-based Neo Dialects: Should we or should we not use vowels or diatrics of any sort (obviously other than a seyame when necessary to distinguish number)? -- -ܐܡܪ ܠܝ- Steve Caruso -- 14:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

About vowels, no question we should leave them out of the titles of articles and I wouldn't mind leaving them out of the actual articles themselves. It would make writing much easier, not to mention the current vowel system used is for the Madnkhaya version of the Syriac alphabet and so doesn't make sense with Estrangela and Serto. However, along with vowels, the same should be said for aspirated letters and Majliyana for reasons I've already explained on A2raya's talk page.
As for Syame, I also believe we should leave them out of the titles of articles but use them in the articles. We all know Syame has to be placed on a resh or daleth in a word, but what happens when you get a word without resh or daleth? What ends up happening is you put the Syame on any letter which alters the spelling of the title when searched. Thus if I make the article on Japanese people ܝ̈ܦܢܝܐ, then ܝܦ̈ܢܝܐ, ܝܦܢ̈ܝܐ, ܝܦܢܝ̈ܐ, etc. all have to be redirects. I find this tedious, we should just compromise and make something like ܐܢܫܐ ܝܦܢܝܐ (literally "Japanese person", but it works out all the same).
Steve, are there any standardized written forms of any of those dialects you mentioned? There isn't any for Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as far as I know, so I often employ old spellings/words that I don't even use in speaking the language on an everyday basis. For example, a while ago A2raya corrected my spelling of ܠܝܫܢܐ to ܠܫܢܐ, even though I pronounce the zlama psheeqa like a kwasa and so my original spelling reflected my particular dialect. However, there's a difference between colloquial spoken Aramaic and written Aramaic. Another example is kha (ܚܐ, one) in modern speech, which is written ܚܕ/ܚܕܐ in the "book language". Keeping this in mind, Assyrian and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic (at least) are essentially mutually intelligible.
As for other dialects, yes it's true that you can't simply understand each other by just removing the vowels and hoping everything will make sense, but that's the reason why there's a German Wikipedia and an Alemannic German Wikipedia. Or why there's only one English Wikipedia instead of having one British and one American Wikipedia. Same language, different dialects. Sometimes the dialects are close enough for complete understanding (English), other times it's not (German). --3345345335534 18:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)