Category talk:Russian letter Г
The subcategories under each letter are named in Russian instead of English (e.g., Category:И буква, Category:И звук and Category:И слова under Category:И). This would appear to run counter to our category-naming policy, and makes the category difficult to use for anyone who does not already read Russian. Accordingly, I suggest that all of these subcategories be renamed.
Note that: ("X" here is a placeholder for each Russian letter)
- "X буква" = "X letter", so rename to "Russian letter X" or "X (Russian letter)" or…?
- "X звук" = "X sound", so rename to somehow use the English word "sound" or "pronunciation"
- "X слова" = "X words", so rename to somehow use the English word "words"
I'm not sure what conventions we should use here, since there seems to be no agreement in such matters across different alphabets — based on a quick spot-check, anyway. Opinions? Can someone point to relevant guidelines, discussions, or an example of a similar category "done right"? - dcljr (talk) 22:29, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
- Perhaps, use the names from Unicode or from the Wikipedia articles about the letters. As for the sounds, there is a tradition among Russists to transcribe them with a Latin-based Czech-like alphabet, if you need some transcriptions for the sounds. Perhaps, you can see such transcriptions in linguistic academic articles on Russian, for example, the ones from the FASL conferences (Formal approaches to Slavic languages).--Imz (talk) 10:07, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
- @Dcljr and Imz: The letter categories themselves are fine, it is the sub-cats under them which are an issue. The contents of them are almost exclusively audio files with pronunciation of Russian words, syllables, and letter sounds. The should be grouped in each letter something like:
- Josh (talk) 03:47, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it looks like the category structure under Category:Russian alphabet has changed quite a bit since I first made my proposal, but (to state this explicitly) many of the Russian-named categories I was talking about still exist — they're now just "buried" as subcategories of subcategories of Category:Russian letters by letter (itself a subcategory of Category:Russian alphabet). I have no objection to the kind of renaming/refactoring that Josh suggests, but I do object to using English letters (in the Latin script) in the category names as opposed to Russian ones (in the Cyrillic script). For example, the subcats about the Russian letter Б are now found under Category:Russian letter B (that's a Latin capital B) whereas the subcats about the Russian letter В (Cyrillic В) are under Category:Russian letter V (Latin V). This seems, well, stupid to me — but unfortunately it does seem to adhere to the relevant policy (see the sentence starting with "Latin alphabets…"). The way I would do it, the "Russian letter" categories would use Cyrillic for the letters themselves but otherwise be in English: Category:Russian letter Б and Category:Russian letter В. But I guess that's not how we do things. (As a result of this, I think I might have to bow out of this discussion, since anything that results from it that is in accord with our policies will presumably be something I don't agree with.) - dcljr (talk) 23:16, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
- @Dcljr: I agree, and I am not sure why this is done. I personally would prefer that we use, as you suggest, Category:Russian letter Б, but as you state that probably takes changing policy at a higher level. Be sure to let me know if such a discussion is launched, I will gladly contribute. Josh (talk) 19:40, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
- @Joshbaumgartner: See Commons talk:Categories#Clarification about non-Latin alphabets. - dcljr (talk) 00:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
- There doesn't appear to be any opposition to changing to Category:Russian letter Б, etc. I suggest the following changes: Josh (talk) 22:45, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Joshbaumgartner: See Commons talk:Categories#Clarification about non-Latin alphabets. - dcljr (talk) 00:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
- @Dcljr: Above is what I make of using proper Cyrillic letters in place of transliterations. Not being a Russian expert, let me know if you see any errors. If there are no objections, I can close this CfD and implement the proposal. Josh (talk) 22:45, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
- I'm no expert, either. (In fact, I don't even "know" Cyrillic, much less any language that uses it as its script.) But one problem I've noticed: it looks like the Russian letters in your table that have the same form as Latin letters are, indeed, Latin characters instead of Cyrillic characters. For example, all the letters in the first row of the table that look like capital A are Latin A characters, and none of them are Cyrillic А characters. And all of the letters in the 6th row that look like capital E are Latin E characters; none of them are Cyrillic Е characters. And so forth. (Apart from that, I didn't notice any obvious mistakes.) - dcljr (talk) 00:48, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Dcljr: Thanks for that good input, I've modified the table above to fix the issue by swapping in Cyrillic letters for their Latin lookalikes. Josh (talk) 19:29, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
- I'm no expert, either. (In fact, I don't even "know" Cyrillic, much less any language that uses it as its script.) But one problem I've noticed: it looks like the Russian letters in your table that have the same form as Latin letters are, indeed, Latin characters instead of Cyrillic characters. For example, all the letters in the first row of the table that look like capital A are Latin A characters, and none of them are Cyrillic А characters. And all of the letters in the 6th row that look like capital E are Latin E characters; none of them are Cyrillic Е characters. And so forth. (Apart from that, I didn't notice any obvious mistakes.) - dcljr (talk) 00:48, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
@Dcljr and Imz: Closed (rename per table above) Josh (talk) 19:29, 23 December 2021 (UTC)