Wiktionnaire:Actualités/036-mars-2018/en

The Wiktionnaire francophone celebrated its 14th anniversary on March 22. No celebration in style, but ideas to celebrate with dignity next year!

This month, two tutorials have been written and are already available on the Aide:Tutoriels page. Others are in preparation on page Projet:Tutoriels, with the aim of helping to understand how the Wiktionary works.

Eric Collier published in Le Monde an article entitled “Les sept langues du français : du « disruptif » au « croquignolesque »” which refers to Jean-Michel Delacomptée's last book. He would have found seven “sub-domains” of French: “la haute langue” , “la langue standard” , “les langues régionales ou minoritaires” , “les langues métissées” , “la langue technique, celle des spécialistes” , “la langue des rues” and “la langue des cités, newcomer” . As part of the Francophonie week, Hervé Le Tellier wrote a short history in these seven language registers. Excerpts :

• « Il se tient prostré, sur une chaise, au milieu de la pièce. »
• « Le meskine, ça le fait pas trop dahak, de faire le poireau, il a grave la seum. »
• « Mais il est rien brave, allez ! pour selon qu’il est à barreaux, il sait que c’est pas le moment d’avoir le babaud, alors il tâche moyen de pas trop broger. »

Danfarid133 asked at the beginning of the month whether there was a French word composed of the 26 letters of the alphabet and without any repetition. After some proposals, programs were written to do an exhaustive search in the Wiktionary. The longest words found are 14 letters long, such as dyschromatique, enschtroumpfai or xylographiques. There is also a proper name: Bricklehampton. Even taking into account the spaces (the dashes were already included in the previous test), no locution stands out. By differentiating the accented letters, a single word of 16 letters appears: psychomagnétique. Finally, when searching in other languages using the Latin alphabet (still in the French Wiktionary), one comes across the 16 letter English word uncopyrightables. The complete results are available in the appendix of the linguistic curiosities. — A column by Romainbehar

LexiSession on mathematics

Initiated by the Tremendous Wiktionary User Group, LexiSessions suggested monthly themes to simultaneously engage all Wiktionaries. The themes are suggested in advance on Meta and announced every month on Wikidémie, the main community portal.

February LexiSession was on the theme of mathematics which led to the creation of a new thesaurus about mathematics in French!

For April, the theme is mine (like in mining)!

This section gives a monthly selection of videos related to linguistics and the French language. Do not hesitate to add more videos that you find!

• A group of people speaking patois from Brazey-en-Plaine read texts in Burgundian: Do you understand the patois of the Saône plain?

• Lyokoï, contributor to the Wiktionary and to Actualités (yes, there is a conflict of interest there), offers on his YouTube channel two videos recorded during live contributions, the March 8 on the word malaisant and March 22 on the entry Wiktionnaire. Further online contributions are planned and will be announced on the Wikidémie.

Collective work, The Wiktionary, 2004-, online.

This is not a dictionary.

The Wiktionnaire is a strange aggregate of pages with lexicographical content. If he (or she!) picks up usual dictionary codes, this unknown object is free from the orthodox norm by respecting neither alphabetical order nor limits of good use! There is no regular publication or even edition for this non-book which can be read on the Internet even before it is finished!

And when will it be over? Probably never since it aims to describe “all words in all languages”! To better understand this crazy project, we went to meet the demented leader who directs this enormous project in the shadows. You may be as surprised as we were because it turns out that the Wiktionary is written without centralized direction, without captain at the helm, and even by anyone, everyone or any new comer!

It would even seem that the volunteers iconoclasts who forge this Wiktionary take a lot of pleasure out of it! It appears they have learn over the years to better think about their practices. Their virtual exchanges would have led them to meet and to the formation of a new elite in the world of dictionaries that is about to overthrow the Académie française, a dispensary that had embarked on the same adventure in the XVII^e century. After its first editions released 20 years apart, the period gradually increased to 30, to 40 years, and now exceeds 50 years. In the age of the Internet, we might as well allow everyone to list their own language observations, making them immediately available to everyone and discuss them at national parties.

It is a widely open work, which fills up progressively, following to the whims and passions of a crew guided by the dream of an aspiring object whose shape gradually comes out of the mist, like a ship splitting the waves of knowledge! Imagine a fleet of lexicographical works which would sail together, carried by the same tinkling wind! Imagine yourself, thanks to an anonymous and needy crew, watching a whole underwater world of meanings and ideas, words and sentences, caught in the nets of these fishermen who disrupt everything in their path! What an adventure!

On April 1st, 2018, it would seem that the Wiktionary has already achieved the feat of having become already something more than a dictionary. — A column by Noé