Hello! The Wikipedia:Graphic Lab is working on artwork related to Ethiopia, and we need some help to get the proper Amharic language text into the artwork. Please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Graphic_Lab/Images_to_improve#Ethiopia_Scout_Association and see if you can help! Thanking you in advance, Chris 07:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the contribution of this picture! Always a good thing to have more images with free licenses. (I need to make the time to examine the photos my Dad took of his trips to Sudan & Nigeria & to find some worth releasing under CC.) Would you also have one to share for Kemise? -- llywrch 22:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but it appears that I donʼt have so many photos of the town, which really bothers me sometimes because I spent so much time there. The reason is that you don’t think too much about taking pictures of the things you see every day. I only used take the camera when I did a tour to some other places. So what kind of photo are you thinking of? Driss 23:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to Ethiopia -- or subjects my Dad took pictures of? -- llywrch 06:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since I am not a native speaker of English, I didn't exactly understand your last answer, or in other words, what is the connection to my response? What I meant is what kind of photo of Kemise? Driss 07:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies for being unclear -- I was confused because you answered my question completely until that last sentence. When I requested a picture of Kemise, I was thinking of any sort of image that would either accurately portray the town as a whole, or some part of it that would serve to evoke it. As an example, look at the image that accompanies Vernonia, Oregon: it's not really a picture of the city, only a shot of the park in the town. -- llywrch 23:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, it was my fault. I had read your question too fast and forgot the part with your Dad. Than I got confused when you wrote you second question. Sorry, sometimes it would be better to take my time and read carefully. That happens when you do things like this in-between other work. Actually I can try to find a number of different photos. Driss 23:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just uploaded two photos of Kemise: Image:Kemise_market_day_2002_01.jpg and Image:Kemise_shops_2004.jpg. I hope one of the will be usefull. Driss 13:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Both good choices. Thanks! -- llywrch 02:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You have the amh-3 tag on your user page, therefore I would like to ask whether you are sure that it is an "ā" (i.e. a long a instead of just "a", i.e. a short a) in the pronunciation of Ras Dashen, because in some languages the difference between ā and a does not matter, meaning that those two transcriptions would be equivalent. And if you think that it really is an "ā", is there some rule for finding out, which a in the script is pronounced as an "ā" ? Thanks.

Could you please sign your post? Concerning the transcription of Ras Dashen I have to admit that I didn't introduce the long ā. Before my editing on January 18 there was already "rās dejen", which is not a vey well known version of the mountain's name and I added "ras dashen" in Amharic. In order not to confuse with the transliteration which was already there I transliterated "ras dashen" in accordance with this transliteration. But you are correct. There are no long vowels in Amharic. I considered the forms "rās dāshen" and "rās dejen" as transliteration of the written Amharic words and not as transcriptions of the real pronunciation. Those would be: "ras daʃɛn" and "ras dɛdʒɛn" in IPA or "ras dašän" and "ras däǧän" in an Ethiopianists writing. Driss (talk) 08:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...but if you look here for example [1], the dictionary uses the symbol ā in ras in Latin script (head, chief etc.) and also in other words as opposed to a. More importantly however, if you try here http://geonames.nga.mil/ggmagaz/geonames4.asp, they use as their "official" (the call it standard) transcription ā and, analogously, ē (try e.g. Simien - Simēn), as opposed to e or a. For example Amhara is Āmara. That definitely looks like a long vowel. Anonymous (I see no point in inventing a nick :) ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.168.227.102 (talk) 23:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The dictionary you quote is quite old. The modern dictionaries, like "Amharic-English dictionary" by T.L. Kane or "Concise Amharic dictionary" by Wolf Leslau don't use the macron over "a". as I said, there are no long vowels in Amharic. And the transcription which are used on the site you linked to have nothing to do with the actual pronunciation of the language. For instance the ignore consonant gemination and the example Simien or Simēn is also very misleading, the IPA rendering is /sɛmen/ and in transliteration it's "sämen". One of the reasons why there appear vowels with macron seem to be that there were long vowels in Ge'ez . Anyhow, there a two points concerning the transliteration of Ethiopic text: 1. it should be consistent, 2. it is in my view preferable to use a system that is also used in the respective scientific discipline. Driss (talk) 11:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

23:32, 19 March 2015 (UTC)