User:This, that and the other/translingual

Some thoughts on Translingual entries.

Challenges

There are currently, broadly speaking, four kinds of Translingual entries:

• Letters of alphabets, Chinese characters, etc.
• Symbols, including punctuation marks, SI units, mathematical operators, E numbers, ISO paper sizes, etc.
• Taxonomic names and epithets (Botanical Latin)
• Braille entries, which seem to draw together entries from several languages (so are not truly translingual as currently laid out)

Rationale

Translingual entries:

• represent names and symbols used across languages
• are intended to eliminate duplication, avoiding the need to create long strings of identical or near-identical L2 sections in entries
• EITHER are terms appearing with identical meaning in texts written in several languages, such that the term can be said to transcend language boundaries OR are letters, numbers, punctuation marks or symbols in a writing system
  • but the term need not be used in all languages (for instance, Б is translingual but cannot be considered an English term)
  • words are not translingual if they share a common meaning and orthography, but exist independently as distinct words in distinct languages. This can be tested by looking for languages where the word's orthography is altered to fit the language's strict orthographic or grammatical conventions (for instance, ananas is not translingual, despite meaning pineapple in many languages - for instance, Portuguese alters it to ananás and Estonian to ananass)
• transcend any individual language, even though the term may originate from an identifiable language (e.g. taxonomic names from Latin)
  • consequentially they do not misleadingly present grammatical information as transcending language boundaries
    • an exception has to be made for Botanical Latin entries - a gender needs to be shown, and for Adjectives, the other gender forms are mentioned
• may or may not be inflected in some languages
  • for instance, the plural of the letter A is As or A's in English
• may have the same pronunciation in all languages (for instance, ICAO alphabet letters such as Juliett), varying pronunciations by language (Homo sapiens), or no standard pronunciation (😂)

"Translingual" is a term of convenience, not the name of a language. Therefore:

• translations to or from Translingual shall not be given, as the term "translation" implies moving from one language to another
  • where this information is required, it should be conveyed through the definition line, usage notes, or some other

Proposals

1. Layout of Translingual entries

Translingual entries differ from standard entries in the following way:

• Pronunciation sections must be divided by language, except in rare cases where there is a truly translingual pronunciation for the term that is necessarily common to all languages (for instance, terms in the ICAO radio alphabet).
• The parts of speech "Diacritical mark", "Letter", "Ligature", "Number", "Punctuation mark", "Symbol", "Noun", "Proper noun", "Prefix" and "Suffix" are widely accepted. "Adjective" is accepted for taxonomic names, but rarely appropriate elsewhere. Other parts of speech, such as "Verb" or "Preposition", are rarely appropriate.
• The headword line must not contain grammatical information.
  • An exception is made for taxonomic terms. Binomial names may have a gender only, and adjectives (specific names) may contain a gender and a reference to other gender forms of the same adjective (or an "indeclinable" qualifier).
• An "Inflected forms" section may appear, again divided by language, in which plural and declined forms may be mentioned.
• Translations shall not be given
  • DCDuring argues that translations should be allowed for taxonomic names. In general I think it makes more sense to host such translations on the entry for the English common name. But I acknowledge that this doesn't work if a taxon has no common name in English but does have a common name in other languages.
  • If alternative terms are conventionally used in specific languages (for instance, PE-HD or tan) the Usage notes section shall be used to convey this information.
• Synonyms, antonyms, coordinate terms, etc. shall be Translingual terms only.
  • If language-specific synonyms exist, the Usage notes section shall be used to convey this information.
• Derived terms, related terms, see alsos, etc. may be in any language, divided by language, for instance:
  • English:
    • A-frame
    • A to Z
  • French:
    • prouver par A + B

2. How other language sections interact with Translingual sections in entries

• A Translingual sense of a term shall not be duplicated under any other language section.
  • The "English" section of A shall not contain a sense "The first letter of the alphabet" under the "Letter" PoS, as this would duplicate the sense under the Translingual "Letter" PoS.

3. How other entries interact with Translingual entries

• Translingual terms may be listed as synonyms or alternative forms of a term in any language. However, the Translingual entry shall not reciprocate except via written-out usage notes.
  • For instance, suppose there was a Translingual symbol XYZ. Exceptionally, in the French language (only), ABC is the more common way of expressing this symbol, although XYZ is also used. In the French entry for ABC, XYZ would be listed as a synonym or alternative form. In the Translingual entry for XYZ, a usage note would explain the situation with respect to French, using {{m|fr|ABC}} as part of the prose.