Future of the Semitic Language forums

What kind of Semitic subforum(s) would you like to see?

Poll ended at 2018-03-21, 15:23

Arabic, and Expand Hebrew to include all others
3
21%
Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic (together in one forum), and Other Semitic
1
7%
Arabic, Hebrew, Other Semitic
4
29%
Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Other Semitic
1
7%
Arabic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, Other Semitic
1
7%
Arabic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Other Semitic
4
29%
I have another idea
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 14

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Drink
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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby Drink » 2018-03-13, 15:19

Anyone who didn't vote for Ethiopic languages having a separate forum, I'll remind you that there are over 30 million speakers of Ethiopic languages (based on a quick glance at the Wikipedia articles for Amharic, Tigrinya, and Tigre). That's more than 3 times the number of speakers of Hebrew, for example.
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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby HoneyBuzzard » 2018-03-13, 19:34

The total number of posts in threads with "Amharic" in the title is 301. That's peanuts compared to what's in the Hebrew forum. If there is to be any grouping, surely it should correspond to the level of interest.

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-15, 1:19

I didn't vote because in principle, I don't really care all that much. However, the only viable option I see is "Arabic, and Expand Hebrew to include all others" if level of interest on the forum is a concern. If it's not a concern, then I think the best option is "Arabic, Hebrew, Other Semitic." I also would call it just "Semitic" rather than "Other Semitic."

It might also (and alternatively) be possible to keep Hebrew limited to Hebrew and expand Arabic instead. Idk. But not many people are actively learning any of the other Semitic languages on this forum.

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby księżycowy » 2018-03-15, 8:45

Thank you for your overwhelming concern Vijay. :P

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby voron » 2018-03-15, 19:46

I have a kind of dubious opinion on that. For the Semitic languages, I would be happy with grouping them all under the same subforum, because I am somewhat interested in all of them so it would be nice to check new posts about Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic etc all in one place.

However if you ask me the same question about Kurdish and the Iranian languages - I would say no, because I have a more intimate relation with Kurdish and want it to have a separate subforum. :whistle:

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby Drink » 2018-03-15, 20:27

voron wrote:I have a kind of dubious opinion on that. For the Semitic languages, I would be happy with grouping them all under the same subforum, because I am somewhat interested in all of them so it would be nice to check new posts about Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic etc all in one place.

However if you ask me the same question about Kurdish and the Iranian languages - I would say no, because I have a more intimate relation with Kurdish and want it to have a separate subforum. :whistle:


If you're interested in all of the Semitic languages, there is nothing stopping you from checking all the different forums for Semitic languages. However, if you're only interested in one of them, it would be much more convenient for it to have a separate forum. And even if you're interested in all of them in general, but want to focus on one of them today, it's more convenient for it to be separate.
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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-16, 0:57

księżycowy wrote:Thank you for your overwhelming concern Vijay. :P

Concern concern concern concern!
כנסרן כנסרן כנסרן כנסרן!
!كنسرن كنسرن كنسرن كنسرن
(I'd try using more scripts used by Semitic languages, but I don't know how to type in any others yet :P).

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby n8an » 2018-03-16, 8:02

vijayjohn wrote:
księżycowy wrote:Thank you for your overwhelming concern Vijay. :P

Concern concern concern concern!
כנסרן כנסרן כנסרן כנסרן!
!كنسرن كنسرن كنسرن كنسرن
(I'd try using more scripts used by Semitic languages, but I don't know how to type in any others yet :P).


Hahaha! I had a good old chuckle!

ܟܢܣܪܢ ܟܢܣܪܢ ܟܢܣܪܢ ܟܢܣܪܢ ܟܢܣܪܢ

...yes, I did make the Assyrian script all by myself for my MacBook :D

Don't ask me how I did it. I can't even remember :P

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby księżycowy » 2018-03-22, 0:27

Well, the poll is over. And I'm happy to announce that from the way I'm reading it, 10/14 people voted for options to keep the Hebrew forum as is.

At the moment, I'm not sure what the admins want to do with these polls (if much), so I'm not sure when we'd see any changes regarding the other proposed forum changes this poll expressed.

Not to mention we have a tie.

I welcome any further discussion. :)

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-23, 0:34

I'm a bit concerned about splitting up Semitic beyond Arabic vs. Hebrew vs. everything else. There are not that many Semitic languages still spoken today (so it would seem unfair to split it up a lot while we don't do the same for, say, Iroquoian or even Algic/Algonquian), and the only other one besides those two and Neo-Aramaic that anyone (i.e. me!) has been actually trying to learn on this forum is Amharic AFAICT.

księżycowy

Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby księżycowy » 2018-03-23, 0:45

If it's any consolation, I want to learn Amharic too. But that's neither here nor there. :P

I get what your saying. I suppose it would depend on how far we'd want to go with language families, but I can't imagine that ever we would want to go that deeply. Though a West Germanic language forum has been suggested, so there could be some precedent.

Basically, idk. I think we give it a little more time and discussion.

On a side note:
Considering the size of the Iroquoian language family, personally I'm fine with not splitting it between northern and southern regardless of what we do elsewhere.

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby księżycowy » 2018-06-05, 17:15

After thinking about it for a while (perhaps for too long :P ), I would like to do the following:
1. Keep the Hebrew and Arabic forums as they are.

2. Create a general forum for all other Semitic languages (including all Ethiopic languages, Neo-Aramaic, and South Arabian).

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-06-05, 23:46

Given that this is exactly what I said was the best option if traffic isn't a concern, I have nothing against this approach. :P I don't know whether anyone is currently dying to see Neo-Aramaic get its own forum, though.

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby voron » 2018-06-06, 2:39

vijayjohn wrote: I don't know whether anyone is currently dying to see Neo-Aramaic get its own forum, though.

I'm becoming more and more interested in Neo-Aramaic, in particular the dialects spoken in Turkey, so yes I would be happy to see it have its own subforum. :)

It's ok if we just move it to the general Semitic forum, too. Anything is better than its current place under the "Ancient, Classical and Extinct Languages" subforum, where noone can find it, including myself. :roll:

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-06-06, 2:56

It's hard to find there? It's at the top of that forum. :P

Or are there other Neo-Aramaic threads that I'm not aware of, too?

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby Drink » 2018-06-06, 3:34

I think the point is it is neither ancient, nor classical, nor extinct.
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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby księżycowy » 2018-06-06, 9:09

Drink hits the nail on the head.

And there has been plenty of conversation in the thread lately. Seems we have a native(?) speaker atm.

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-06-08, 0:14

Did not know we had anyone around who could actually speak Aramaic.

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby księżycowy » 2018-06-08, 0:18

I'm not sure if Wingster is a native speaker, but he seems well versed in Neo-Aramaic. Or so I assume from his conversations with n8an.

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Re: Future of the Semitic Language forums

Postby n8an » 2018-06-08, 9:25

księżycowy wrote:I'm not sure if Wingster is a native speaker, but he seems well versed in Neo-Aramaic. Or so I assume from his conversations with n8an.


Seems to be. I have no reason to doubt his claims :D


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