Nobody said that they were.

We also have "male speaker" and "female speaker" in case you need them.

I wonder if we couldn't have a search filter that removes sentences with certain tags by default. To see sentences with those tags, you'd have to manually tick an option in "Settings". Of course, we could explain this in our introductory tutorial (which I hope is still in the planning process).

We really shouldn't avoid using colloquialisms. Personally, I tag (in some way or another) ALL sentences I contribute that either have words not registered by the RAE (or use alternate definitions), or that do not follow the rules according to the DPD.

Admins, user yinp is at it again; adding Portuguese sentences translated with Google Translate. I sent a message to user TatoebaAdmins before, but no action has been taken.

Rendben, ¡felicidades! :D

Parabéns! :D

People, don't forget to reach out to our newest members! Many people only create an account because they believe they need to in order to browse through the site, but I believe that with a little kind welcome, they could be motivated to contribute sentence in their native languages.

Browse through:
COMMUNITY >> LIST OF ALL MEMBERS
Click on "Member since" and go to the last page.

You'd be surprised at how many people we're letting slip by, some of who speak languages not yet added! Welcome some of the users who haven't contributed anything, introduce yourselves and maybe a handful could become active :)

I would normally say, "It is better to have more options." But, I must side with sacredceltic on this one. Such a search option will invariably be abused.

How shall we tag our Spanish sentences by country?
"(Blank) Spanish" or "Spanish from (Blank)" ?

For example:
"Mexican Spanish" or "Spanish from Mexico" ?
"Guatemalan Spanish" or "Spanish from Guatemala" ?

We currently have tags in both formats. Maybe the admins could help us convert all the tags depending on what we decide.

If we limit ourselves to countries, then what should we do when a dialect within a country resembles more the language of a neighboring country? Looking at Mexican Spanish, for example, we notice that the majority of Mexicans do NOT use 'voseo' and so, in theory, we wouldn't want to see 'voseo' in a sample of Mexican Spanish sentences. However, in the state of Chiapas, they DO use 'voseo' and their language overall sounds more like central Guatemalan Spanish than it does Mexican Spanish. So would Chiapanecan Spanish be considered Mexican Spanish or Guatemalan Spanish?

We are thinking of mostly the "popular" languages. With languages like Portuguese or Spanish, we can generally limit ourselves by countries. But, what about Malay, for example?

Ethnologue gives us the following dialects:
Coastal Terengganu, Inland Terengganu, Kelantan, Pahang, Southeast Island, Orang Hulu, Orang Kuala, Jugra-Muar-Melaka-Johor, Sarawak (Sarawak Malay), Tamiang, Deli, Riau Mainland, Lubu, Akit, Sakai, Riau islands, coastal Jambi, Belitung, Northwestern Kalimantan, Upstream Western Kalimantan, Southwestern Coastal Kalimantan.

What will we use as icons identifying these variants? Would we use something like tags? Also keep in mind that Ethnologue's classifications often clash with native classifications of dialects and languages. (Also, Tatoeba doesn't distinguish between Malay (Standard) with ISO 639-3 ZSM and Malay (Vernacular) with ISO 639-3 ZLM. We have them mixed under ISO 639-3 ZSM)

Another thing to keep in mind is that some users will come, contribute a few sentences, and disappear forever. If they are in a more obscure language, it may be extremely difficult to tag which dialect of the language they were in. At present, users must identify that they speak a language in order to contribute in it. When will these users have to identify what variant or dialect of that language they speak? Should it be as they are creating their account? Or, should that part of the profile be kept optional?

I am not trying to be negative; I am just brainstorming. I DO think such a system CAN be implemented, even if it is not perfect as you say, but we cannot be too hasty. Let's think things thoroughly :)

+1

Right, EACH country has a wide range of linguistic varieties. Even in different parts of Mexico, there are sentences I could deem correct that someone from somewhere else (also in Mexico) would consider incorrect, and vice versa. There are varieties of Spanish spoken in the state of Chiapas that are closer to central Guatemalan varieties than to what I speak at home.

The idea is noble at its core, but it quickly becomes impractical in use and very messy...

Thank you for all of your hard work!

My request this time is for search filters in lists.

For example, there is a list called "What do animals "say" in your language?" (List 657). This is a very convenient list, as this is a question that is extremely often asked on language forums. It'd be amazing to be able to search, for example "perro" ("dog" in Spanish), within the list, as well as filter out other languages.

It is true that it is not as well documented as Latin or Ancient Greek, but it is definitely not as unknown as Khitan (which was previously requested here). We DO have a fair share of inscriptions, as well as bilingual inscriptions in Sumerian and Akkadian (which we have MUCH more documentation of). All I have been doing is copying the inscriptions we have available, as well as creating very simple sentences based on structures of which we have many examples of.

The newest iOS includes a really nice font for it. I use the app CuneiformEdit to type it. (The creator is Japanese, and he gives it an input method similar to that of Japanese through Romaji. It is still missing several possible readings of the characters, but it is quite amazing nonetheless.)

There are a few fonts available online, but I use the ones available on http://gmalingue.free.fr/

Ekamawir omo ian Tatoeba!

You don't need to leave comments on EVERY sentence, but if you want to add comments clarifying something about Nauruan, be it a grammatical concept or word not present in English, you are more than welcome to! Also, don't forget that you can translate a sentence more than once, so if there is more than one way to translate something (in a natural way), feel free to do so.

That's good! I wonder if we could that explanation across as new users are adding the languages that they speak. Then, when they click on one of our languages, there would be some sort of notice beside the selection box explaining that this "language" encompasses such and such varieties.

The Tatoeba project has grown considerably, and will continue to do so. As we add more and more languages, the issues become more apparent, and more complicated. The SIL has done amazing work in categorizing exactly WHAT is a language and WHAT is a dialect. If we use any categorization, it is imperative that we at least use their work as a backbone. This does not mean, however, that their work is perfect. In fact, there are a lot of ad hoc classifications they have created due to a lack of research. This is very true in Colombia, where over 50 years of conflict impeded linguistic research in the area. Even in Mexico, to give an example, I've seen a dialect of Zapotec classified as ISO 639-3 ZAB, when it resembles more ZAW (in fact, the speakers of this dialect CAN'T understand what is considered the standard for ZAB, but they understand a considerable amount of ZAW). Amastan has given good examples of bad classifications for Algerian languages as well.

If we do choose to strictly follow the SIL's ISO 639-3 codes, we should at least be lenient in our naming conventions: "Catalan/Valencian" instead of "Catalan", "Namtrik" instead of "Guambiano" (ISO 639-3 GUM: an issue I brought up some time ago), definitely using what natives call their language, rather than a misinformed classification imposed on them by linguists who hadn't done all their research. We should also consider changing our names for languages when users of certain variants emerge. Take for example, Emilian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilian_dialect). I don't think any native Emilian speakers call their language that. All of our Emilian sentences are currently in the Reggiano dialect, and so there hasn't been any problem. But, what if a very diligent (capable of adding thousands of perfectly good sentences to our corpus), yet very closed-minded Piacentino speaker insists on contributing in Piacentino, which is part of the Emilian dialect-continuum? Will we really deny them and lose them? But, then again, renaming ISO 639-3 EGL ("Emilian") as "Bolognese/Ferrarese/Mantovano/Modenese/Parmigiano/Piacentino/Reggiano/Vogherese" is pushing it, isn't it?

I agree with sacredceltic about the "flags". As per my original example, simply changing the language icon of ISO 639-3 CAT to something more neutral and naming the language Catalan/Valencian would solve this problem. As a language-enthusiast, I am not at all fond of the idea of separating Catalan and Valencian into two distinct languages (and neither is our native Valencian user, by the way). Now, CK is definitely on to something with the new icons, but we may have to stylize them somehow: maybe with an algorithm derived from the actual 3-letter ISO 639-3 code, or something. The flags we have now are very pretty; anyone who walks behind me at work and sees all the flags (and characteristic green header) does a double-take. If we are to replace the language icons, we need something just as flashy. But, as TRANG has mentioned: what better to identify "popular" languages than flags?

Isnamar, our native Valencian user, would prefer to have a system in which multiple "language icons" are displayed, showing us in what varieties of the language such a sentence is allowed. He gave the following three examples:
1. El gos és meu. (CAT, VAL)
2.1. El noi fiu això. (CAT)
2.2. El xiquet va fer això. (VAL)
I let him know what sacredceltic has made so painfully obvious in his comments: defining linguistic varieties is a very political process. Even for Spanish, how would we divide dialects? By country? Chiapaneco Spanish in Mexico is closer to Guatemalan Spanish than the Spanish spoken here in Sinaloa, Mexico.
This may be why the ISO 639-6 classification died, as gillux put it so well. So, the hierarchical classification of languages may be impossible.

> Carving political borders doesn't define a language... I think flags are not helpful on Tatoeba.

Political borders SHOULDN'T define a language, though we still have the SIL (the ISO people) classifying languages by "country of origin". If everyone had yours and CK's point of view of the flags, there wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, it's not the case, and so the Valencian variety of Catalan ends up being grossly underrepresented on this site. (I checked... we didn't have any clearly Valencian sentences before this new user isnamar)

> Flags also help the bullying and erasing of minority languages.

True. But, removing flags here on Tatoeba is not an option... at least not for now. We must do something though; your opinion is important too. Otherwise the Catalan flag we have now could very well "bully and erase" the potential to have a large Valencian corpus.

@Ricardo14, I think CK may be on to something. We certainly shouldn't add new languages without an ISO 639-3 code, but the split "Catalan/Valencian" with split flag to suit COULD work. It's better than nothing, and these changes are revertible if we for some reason discover a problem with the change. Let's run it past Trang and see what she thinks.

@CK, I think most of us are used to seeing the Union Jack representing the English language. As a more fitting comparison, it is probably a tad bit more irritating than British people seeing the US flag representing English (which happens a lot here in Asia).

We do. New user: isnamar

He was the one who brought the issue to my attention.