Talk:家里

Please fix

The definitions were just changed, in this edit, but the problem is that the new definitions 1. and 2. are not nouns. Please fix. 71.66.97.228 01:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Definitions 1. and 2. are still not nouns. Please fix the part of speech headers (as well as at all the other entries that have needed fixing for several weeks now). 71.66.97.228 01:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Mechanically applying the European grammar theories onto an isolating language like Chinese will be disastrous. Wiktionary really should get rid of all these specific part of speech headers for Chinese and group all words under a Chinese language category. To be exact, def. 1 is a "phrase of locality" and def. 2 is basically a noun. Wjcd 02:03, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

We are a real dictionary, and, as such, we do insist that our entries do not have parts of speech applied carelessly. You have left our dictionary littered with several entries presenting verbs as nouns, nouns as verbs, adjectives as nouns, etc., and all were asked to be fixed, and yet you moved on to other entries instead of attending to those. Please don't make a habit of such carelessness. We all check one another's work here, and none of us is perfect. Let's try to get everything right, especially as regards parts of speech, starting with this entry, then attending to the ones you did not fix over the past several weeks, which still have conspicuously mis-assigned part of speech headers. 71.66.97.228 02:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

As I've said, if you don't speak Chinese reasonably fluently, you will not understand what I said. If imperfect rules and unreasonable policies are in force, there will of course be inconsistencies. If factual accuracy is what Wiktionary is after, then those part of speech headers for Chinese should have been deleted long ago and the Chinese definitions should have been amalgamated under one heading, because frankly those headings are useless and misleading and that's not how the Chinese themselves make classifications of the language. The presence of people like you here who are unable to compose at least a satisfactorily well-written paragraph in Chinese and barely have a thorough understanding of the language they comment on while insist on being classified as a knower with their dilettante skin-deep knowledge and are allowed to have their say and decide on what they barely know and hence influence other editors is making editing extremely difficult, as extracting the "Mandarin" component out of a number of written-language-sharing languages and trying to find a header for complementary phrase and the structural particles is simply impossible. Honestly, talking with you and making these explanations have been frustrating and definitely a waste of time, because you have no idea what you are commenting on and are repeatedly inattentive to what you have been told. I've actually prepared some pre-written entries to create today which I think are worth including, but nah, forget it. Let's just wait and see how long it takes before Wiktionary gets full of User:Ddpy's own beneficial and factually correct to the utmost idiosyncrasies and is free of my litter. Wjcd 02:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Fine. We can criticize one another rather than attend to improving our entries. We can insist that native speakers are always right about everything, and non-native speakers or learners are always wrong. Nevertheless, specifics that have been pointed out over the past few weeks, such as the removal without comment of the "noun" definition "home" (as this term is often used to mean, and many dictionaries define as such), or that the 不常 has a bunch of adjectives and adverbs classified under the heading "Noun" (see http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/ ), does not reflect well on one's detail-conscious nature. Insisting that a native speaker is always correct, and that s/he never needs to correct or change anything, is not beneficial to our project, which is based on constant improvement and an insistence on getting things right (with collaboration being an important factor in getting that done). 71.66.97.228 03:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Definition "home" (noun), as attested by many reputable dictionaries, added. 71.66.97.228 03:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

No forever-correctness of native speakers was ever mentioned or implied; it's just that the not infrequent reprehensions of yours do most of the time appear to be baseless and suggestive of inadequate understanding as well as heedlessness. Honestly, I have never seen a proper hardcover Chinese-Chinese dictionary explicitly defining words as nouns, verbs, etc. This is something quite innovative and laughable, really. Besides, I reiterate that any attempts to rectify the inconsistencies of something written on an inherently flawed and inappropriate template will ineluctably fail. Nevertheless the purported "reputableness" of these dictionaries has awed me. Wjcd 03:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Also "wife"?

Can this term also mean "wife," or does it need "de" at the end? If so, is the usage of this term to mean "wife" colloquial, as it is for the term 家里的 (jialide)? 71.66.97.228 01:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Noun

Can't this also mean "home" (noun), as in the term 在我的家里? The definition was just changed to "at home," with the definition "home" removed without comment. 71.66.97.228 01:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The first definition is clearly a sum of parts, with no specific nominalisation apparent. Since the word is polysemous, it is probably acceptable to have that meaning included. Wjcd 01:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/ gives the definitions as "one's home" (noun) (not "at home") or "wife." 71.66.97.228 01:45, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

This type of noun/pronoun/temporal noun/verb/phrase + noun of locality grammatical structure is called 方位词组 (lit. phrase of locality). It functions as a subject, an object, an attributive or an adverbial adjunct. In English one would say "He has lots of money in his family" but in Chinese it's more like "his family-in has lots of money". Wjcd 01:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, this term is also used to mean "home" (not "home-in" or "family-in"), as in 老人在家里 ("old man at home"), but the definition "home" was removed, despite the fact that dictionaries do define this as "home" (noun) or "a home" (noun). This should be corrected. 71.66.97.228 02:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to have to side with Wjcd at this point. First of all, the entry lacks a references section, so when you claim that there are dictionaries that list "home" by itself as a definition, I have no way to verify or assess your claim. Some dictionaries are more reliable than others. Some contain errors and those errors can often spread like wildfire to other dictionaries. Also, grammatically speaking, your analysis of the sentence 老人在家里 is not quite right. In Mandarin, the phrase "在X里" is a gramatical construction meaning "inside X." So for example, if I were to replace 家 with 银行 (bank), we would have 老人在银行里 (the old man is in the bank). It would be just as incorrect to define "银行里" as "bank." -- A-cai 01:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

This is the dictionary that defines the term as "home." 71.66.97.228 06:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Lin Yutang also defines it as "one's home", not "in one's home." 71.66.97.228 06:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I suspected that Lin Yutang was one of your sources. I had found the definition listed there after wondering which dictionaries you had used. I don't have a problem with Lin Yutang in general, but notice how neither dictionary lists any usage examples. This makes it difficult to imagine their line of thinking. While I don't want to rule it out as a possibly valid definition, what I can tell you is that I haven't yet seen an example sentence in which "home" by itself made for a plausible definition.

The other problem, of course, is that neither of the Chinese-Chinese dictionaries that I checked list "home" as a definition. Guoyu Cidian, maintained by Taiwan's ministry of education lists the following definitions: 1. 家中 (inside one's house) 2. 妻子 (one's wife). Hanyu Da Cidian provides the following definitions: 1. 家中 （inside one's house) 2. 指内部 (referring to something internal or domestic) 3. 犹言内人 (another way of referring to one's wife). These are two of the largest and most authoritative dictionaries in existence. Generally speaking, definitions in Chinese-Chinese dictionaries are far more comprehensive than definitions found in Chinese-English dictionaries, so if I don't see "home" as a definition in those dictionaries, I tend to be a little more skeptical of the definition in the Chinese-English dictionary. -- A-cai 01:12, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Good research, but keep in mind that those are definitions from Chinese to Chinese, and the dictionaries I found are ones that are apparently attempting to put Chinese words into English definitions that render their usages in idiomatic English. 71.66.97.228 07:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Touché, but were they successful in their apparent attempt? How do you propose we evaluate that? This is a profound dilemma for Wiktionary in my opinion. Without a sufficient number of Mandarin experts, we simply cannot have a legitimate discussion and adjudication of an issue like this. My dream has always been to attract at least a dozen Mandarin experts to Wiktionary. After four years of toiling away, I must admit that it has been much harder to attract such people than I ever originally imagined. This is one reason why progress has been so agonizingly slow. On the other hand, I feel like we may finally be turning a corner in the next year or so. Tooironic has been doing such a great job, and I really think Wjcd could turn out to be a game changer, provided that we don't scare him off before he learns our sometimes incomprehensible way of doing things :) -- A-cai 02:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I feel that with the language splitting at translations, headers and the acceptance of Pinyin entries and so on, this Wiktionary is heading in a wrong direction. (cf. for example, Wiktionary:About Arabic: "Arabic transliterations (that is, romanizations) are not words. Arabic entries should only be written in the Arabic script.", and the rules on translations) I'm not inclined to think that conforming to these rules is the right thing to do. People here don't want to be changed either, which makes the rules hardly negotiable once established. I'm rather pessimistic about this project in general. Wjcd 11:40, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

response: Wow, where do I begin? First of all, Wiktionary is maintained by a bunch of anonymous unpaid volunteers. We're just people who are interested in the subject. Just like in every other walk of life, some of us are open-minded, some of us are combative, some are experts in their fields, some are ignorant and some are 14 year-old kids that just want to play pranks. Under ordinary circumstances, some kind of societal hierarchy would serve as an organizing principle. Older people and more knowledgeable people would have more sway than younger and less experienced people, for example. That doesn't work on Wiktionary. I have no way of knowing for sure how old you are or how much you know and vice versa. I have found that three things tend to sway people at Wiktionary:

1. Verifiable data - this is the technique you tried to use in your Modern Standard Chinese vs Mandarin debate on Beer Parlour. The problem with that one was that, when one reads the debate you cited at Wikipedia, one finds that there was just as much disagreement over there as there was here. It wasn't like a clear majority favored one approach over the other. Had you been able to cite a source that was clear and compelling, things might have turned out differently.
2. Courtesy and patience - nobody likes a "know-it-all"; the world is full of lonely people who are always right. Sometimes, it's not what you argue about, it is how you argue about it. Remember, everything you ever write on Wiktionary will be documented forever. Each of these things eventually will aggregate to form an impression. If you consistently give the impression that you are reasonable and fair, people are more likely to agree with you, even when your arguments are somewhat flawed.
3. Track record - I have created thousands of entries on Wiktionary. Some of the entries contain detailed information not found in any other dictionary. If people tend to defer to me on matters related to Chinese entries, it is because they can observe my level of commitment to the project. You may have a bunch of great ideas for how to improve Wiktionary, but you have not yet convinced the older editors that you're here to stay. Why should we change the way we do things to your way of liking, if you're just going to leave after a few months? The longer you stay, and the more quality entries you make, the more weight people will give to your opinions.

Anyway, Wiktionary is a work in progress. If you choose to focus on the progress that we've made, you will be optimistic about the project. If you choose to focus on all the work that remains to be done, you might become more pessimistic. I choose to be optimistic. I'm kind of like that saying, 愚公移山 :) -- A-cai 13:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I initially focused on adding entries from Wiktionary:Requested entries (Chinese), added about 100 entries, but was threatened with blocks, one indefinite, and was blocked once. And the general attitude shown by the editors here in that discussion. That's enough reason for my misdoubt of the prospect of this project, especially of the Chinese language presence here. Wjcd 14:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I read some of the initial discussions on your talk page. This has been a problem at Wiktionary for some time. Basically, an enthusiastic new editor, such as yourself, starts to create entries. Usually, they have not yet mastered our formatting guidelines, so their entries look strange or incomplete. Then, a trigger-happy administrator slaps them down. It happened to me when I first started. On the other hand, you did come off as rather confrontational yourself. You had all but said flat out that you thought Wiktionary's policies were stupid, and that you were going to do whatever you felt like. Being that you were new, and had not yet established a reputation as a trusted contributor, it is not hard to imagine how some administrators might be worried that you were going to vandalize the site. You may or may not be aware of this, but vandalism is a chronic problem here at Wiktionary. Don't worry, as long as you are willing to discuss things and abide by the outcomes of the votes, people will generally leave you to add words to your heart's content :) -- A-cai 14:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, peer review from native speakers is important. But details in entries created by those native speakers can and should be double-checked by anyone interested in the topic, using "Discussion" as we are. 71.66.97.228 07:00, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it depends on how you interpret it really. It could be treated as a noun as in the definition or as part of the circumposition as in 在...里 (in, inside) to form 在(我的家)里 (in my home). I tend to swing towards the circumposition more. I've never officially studied Mandarin grammar, so I don't know how a grammar specialist would treat this. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 05:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

家裏

Why do several of the examples use the word 家裏, instead of the actual title of this entry? 71.66.97.228 01:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

裏 and 裡 are often used interchangably. But I haven't figured out how to change the template. Wjcd 01:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be much better to feature examples using the spelling "家里," not some other spelling. 71.66.97.228 01:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. 71.66.97.228 02:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Also "household"?

Can 家里 also be translated as "household"? 71.66.97.228 02:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Matching of simpl. and trad. entries

The simplified and traditional entries for all words at Wiktionary need to match. See 家裡. 71.66.97.228 03:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

too many cooks spoil the broth

I don't want to get involved in this directly, but whoever is making the changes, could they please synchronise them with 家裡? That would help things significantly. Cheers. ---> Tooironic 21:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC) Oh, and Atitarev's edit is correct - 家里 is both simplified and traditional in some scripts. ---> Tooironic 21:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I just said the same thing just above; you could have posted your comment under that header. 71.66.97.228 22:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

If nobody does it, I will do it later. It's much harder for me to do it from work these days :). --Anatoli 02:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's more important to make sure the definitions are right. The editor who changed them yesterday has added some strange definitions and part of speech headers, and also removed accurate definitions. 71.66.97.228 02:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

未習文而對文法一竅不通者，竟能仗半瓶醋招搖過市，強不知以為知，四處無端指摘。——屢聞至論，本極佩服，昨日之說，則更五體投地。Wjcd 05:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

translation: For someone that has not studied a language -- and doesn't have a clue about its grammar -- to be able to pontificate on a subject he knows nothing about.-- despite having had the issue explained to him numerous times -- I find that truly remarkable. As for your remarks from yesterday, I'm even more in awe. (translated by A-cai)

Correction: "强不知以为知" (to pretend to have much knowledge), "四处无端指摘" (making groundless reproaches everywhere), "半瓶醋" (half (skin-deep) knowledge). Wjcd 04:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

response: Not that it matters, but since you brought it up... The word pontificate has an implied meaning of making grandiose statements about something you know nothing about. The phrase "making groundless reproaches everywhere" is a bit awkward in English. This is why translating can be so challenging. In Chinese, you don't sound like you're repeating yourself, but if I were to literally translate it into English, it does sound a bit repetitive to me (my subjective opinion). That's why in my English translation, I combined your two phrases (強不知以為知，四處無端指摘) into one English phrase. Of course, since you are the author of the original statement, you have every right to clarify what you meant :) -- A-cai 04:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Wjcd, I'm sorry, but your above statement strikes me as a blatant violation of our WT:AGF policy. I realize you were probably frustrated when you wrote it, but sarcasm (especially in a language 71.66.97.228 does not understand) is not helpful. Even if your argument that Chinese speakers make no such distinctions were correct, English speakers do make those distinctions and need to understand Chinese in the context of their own language in order to help them in the learning process. You may not understand or agree with this approach, but then again, you're not trying to learn or understand Chinese, which is the point of including Chinese words on English Wiktionary. For what it's worth, I have seen at least one Chinese dictionary →ISBN that includes part of speech information as part of their entries. -- A-cai 03:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I simply find his/her accusations of falsities and assertions of reputableness, accurateness and strangeness very repelling. Unless the headers are radically changed to account for the incompatibilities, verb-object phrases like 吃饭, 打酱油 and complementary phrases like 跳出, 逐出 of course have to be erroneously classified as verbs, locality phrases like 岸边, 家里 of course have to erroneously classified as nouns or adverbs. Individuals are not to be blamed for the inconsiderateness in the style guidelines. Wjcd 04:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I realize attaching western style parts of speech to Chinese words can be very difficult. Sometimes the same word can be described in multiple ways. It's not always the case that one is right and one is wrong. Language is not like math, where everything is neat and tidy. It's messy. That being said, I have adopted an approach that has (mostly) worked for me. I will attempt to describe it. When attempting to assign a part of speech to a Chinese word in a wiktionary entry, I ask myself, "How would I phrase this in idiomatic English?" I then ask myself what part of speech I would use to describe the English word or phrase. Let's take one of your words as an example: 吃饭. Yes, in Chinese, it is technically a verb-object construction. However, I can convey the meaning of that verb-object construction with the English verb "to eat." Therefore, I can justify calling the Chinese word a verb, because that's how it would function in an English sentence. Of course, you could argue that an equally legitmate translation would be "to have a meal," which is also a verb object construction, and therefore should not go under the verb label. Whether or not that is true, that doesn't mean the "to eat" definition under the verb label is any less valid. Does that make any sense? Look at it this way, if it were easy, everybody would be doing it :) -- A-cai 05:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

RFV 1

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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家里 - home

See Talk:家里#Noun for initial discussion. -- A-cai 01:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

[Disclaimer: I know absolutely no Mandarin whatsoever.] I wonder if one point of confusion here is actually to do with the English word home, one of whose uses is as an intransitive preposition meaning "in/at/to one's home" (as in "Honey, I'm home!" or "I want to go home"). The Chinese-to-English dictionaries that the anon mentions — do they specifically say that 家里 (jiālǐ) is a noun? Or do they just translate it as "home", without specifying which POS of "home" they have in mind? —Ruakh_TALK 01:37, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Lin Yutang's Dictionary provides the following definition: "家裡 [jia1li3], n., (1) one's home; (2) wife." The problem is that no example sentences are given for either sense. The second definition (wife) can easily be verified in other more comprehensive dictionaries, but not the first. Without an example sentence, it's hard to determine what they had in mind by including the first definition. It literally means, "at home" or "inside one's house." I'm having a hard time thinking of a scenario where one would be justified in dropping the preposition in the English definition. -- A-cai 01:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it depends on how you interpret it really. It could be treated as a noun as in the definition or as part of the circumposition as in 在...里 (in, inside) to form 在(我的家)里 (in my home). I tend to swing towards the circumposition more. I've never officially studied Mandarin grammar, so I don't know how a grammar specialist would treat this. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 05:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the sense "home", but kept "at home". - -sche (discuss) 06:03, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

RFV 2

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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家里 - wife

I'm moving this to a separate section to avoid confusion. -- A-cai 13:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

On a side note, the definition of wife is historical/literary. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 05:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

response: fixed. -- A-cai 13:05, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The sense of "wife" is not literary. It's not obsolete or archaic either. Nor does it necessarily mean "my" wife. This sense exists in many modern Chinese dialects, for example Suzhou (宿州) dialect, and much of Shanxi (山西) and Hebei (河北) dialects. I'm speaking from my personal experience. Please, do not make conjectural edits like this. Wjcd 13:24, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

response: I have "unfixed" it for now, and have removed the "my" in front of wife, pending the outcome of this discussion. -- A-cai 13:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Wjcd, personal experience is great, but it generally doesn't hold much water at Wiktionary, since we cannot verify something like personal experience. That makes this a rather thorny problem. I don't suppose you have a book on the Suzhou dialect hanging around that backs up your claim? I'm being facetious :) But seriously, assuming what you say is true, would you agree that the term is more of a literary one in Modern Standard Chinese, as you have described MSC in previous forums? If so, one possible compromise would be to add a "usage note" to the entry. -- A-cai 14:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather label it as "colloquial/dialectal", if the header were "Chinese", since modern written Chinese has a standard, and this is not quite MSC. However, since the header is "Mandarin", and the group of Mandarin dialects does not have a specific de jure written or literary standard, no tag is necessary really. This sense is as Mandarin as the Mandarin from Beijing. Wjcd 14:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, maybe there is no law on the books, but wouldn't you agree that what you are calling MSC is the de facto standard? In any case, Wiktionary's current policy is that anything under the Mandarin label is presumed to be modern standard spoken Mandarin (Modern Standard Chinese, by your definition), unless otherwise noted. -- A-cai 14:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I have a workable solution for this one. Please take another look and see if you can live with it. -- A-cai 20:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is a long-term solution. Language headers refer to standard forms of the language by default, eg. a German header refers to Standard German, a Japanese header refers to Standard Japanese, a Korean header refers to Standard Korean ... unless otherwise specified. "Standard Chinese", according to Wikipedia, equates to the "Mandarin" here. Therefore, similarly, it is legitimate to refer to modern standard written Chinese ("Standard Chinese") as "Chinese". MSC is simply a literal translation from Chinese 现代标准汉语, or a disambiguated version of the current Wikipedia title. Wjcd 14:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It also seems legitimate to refer to Standard Mandarin (a.k.a. Standard Chinese) as ==Mandarin==, no? —Ruakh_TALK 14:53, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is a quote from The "Mandarin Chinese" article:

• Mandarin dialects, particularly the Beijing dialect, form the basis of Standard Chinese, which is also known as "Mandarin".

Here is a quote from the "Standard Chinese" article:

• Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin, is the official language of mainland China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore.

"Standard Chinese" or "Mandarin" can be used. After much discussion here at Wiktionary we have decided to use "Mandarin" as the label. The reason for this is that we have agreed on a policy at Wiktionary that says a level two language header needs to have a corresponding ISO-639-3 language code for an individual (as opposed to macro) language. This was a way to avoid Wiktionary getting into the business of setting standards, which is not our role. Neither is original research. The level two language header shall use whatever the ISO-639-3 describes for that language. It was further agreed that we should use "Mandarin" rather than "Mandarin Chinese" or "Chinese Mandarin" for simplicity's sake. Thus, cmn = Mandarin, yue = Cantonese, nan = Min Nan etc. I had at one point argued that the Min Nan language header should really be Amoy, but was overulled on the grounds that there is no corresponding ISO-639-3 code for Amoy. Likewise, there is no corresponding iSO-639-3 code for Standard Chinese. There is a code for the macro language "Chinese" (zho), but macro languages cannot be used as language headers. Since you used Arabic as an example previously, you may be interested to know that there is in fact an ISO-639-3 code for "Standard Arabic" (arb). The latest list can be found at: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/iso-639-3_20100707.tab. The explanation can be found at: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/download.asp. That's also not the point of this discussion. The point of this discussion is to decide whether the "wife" definition, in its current form, is acceptable to all parties. Is it? -- A-cai 15:43, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

There isn't a Wiktionary policy relating language headers to ISO codes. The decision regarding language headers is based solely on the zusammengesetzt perceptions of that language by Wiktionary participants. ISO also lists Arabic, Azerbaijani, Estonian, Persian, Serbo-Croatian, Hmong, Kurdish, Malagasy, Mongolian, Malay, Norwegian, Quechua, Albanian, Sardinian, Swahili, Uzbek, Yiddish as macrolanguages, and almost none of them have ISO 639-3 codes corresponding to standard languages, but none of these language headers have to be compulsorily changed the way Chinese headers are. The Arabic language header was allowed not because of the presence of an ISO 639-3 code for standard Arabic, as evidenced in the code in Category:Arabic language and Category:ar:All topics. The separate treatment of Chinese is apparent. Besides, ISO 639-3 mainly draws its codes from Ethnologue, which is well-known for its factual errors. In its cladogram of Sino-Tibetan languages, Bai is listed as a branch of Tibeto-Burman, a view that has been challenged for about 60 years. Its classification of Chinese languages is also quite unusual, different to both the traditional and modern common classifications (compare, for example, 汉语方言, List of Chinese dialects and Spoken Chinese). It used to have specific codes for Yinglish and Moldovan as well, which is absolutely ridiculous. Wjcd 05:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

You brought this argument up where it might be appropriate, and then you decided to close it when you weren't getting a good response. Please don't bring it up on RFV, where it definitely doesn't belong.--Prosfilaes 06:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)--Prosfilaes 06:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Because in that discussion the same old arguments were repeatedly brought up by opponents, and the discussion isn't leading anywhere. But here there is some new argument. Anyway, as long as there is people who'd fervently participate with superficial knowledge, this proposal is going to fail. I give up. Wjcd 06:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Wjcd, if by giving up, you mean to say that you have no intention of lodging objections to the "wife" definition as currently written, I will consider rfv "wife" discussion closed. If you wish to further debate the language header policy (or non-policy de facto agreement made by myopic tyrants, if you like :), feel free to post another message at Beer Parlour or on my talk page, but not here. -- A-cai 23:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Struck as resolved ("wife" kept as a sense). - -sche (discuss) 06:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)