Hello,
This is the weekly update from the Search Platform team for the week
starting 2019-02-18.

As always, feedback and questions are welcome.

== Discussions ==

=== Search ===
* A new Korean language analyzer has been configured for
Korean-language wikis,[0] however it won't be activated until after we
finish the upgrade to Elasticsearch 6, which is ongoing.
* SDC [Structured Data on Commons] wanted to know if we could add in a
'inlabel search keyword' and after lots of discussion, it was merged
into the new WikibaseCirrusSearch extension that has yet to be merged
into the beta cluster [1]
* Erik and the team worked on how to measure mutation latency across
the newly split elasticsearch clusters and decided that default
timeout was good at 30 seconds [2]
* Mathew and Gehel worked on testing the spicerack elasticsearch
module with quite a few patches that are linked in the ticket [3]
* Gehel worked on getting CI set up for search/glent (maven project)
to be set up with same options that we use for search/extra [4]
* A bug was found where a link-breaking typo is in automatic API
documentation for action=query&prop=cirrusbuilddoc, and Erik fixed it
by correcting the api docs for cirrusbuilddoc [5]
* As we now have different APT components to differentiate the
elasticsearch versions, we need to create a new component for the new
version and Gehel fixed it all up [6]
* David worked on preparing a debian package with search plugins
compatible with elastic 5.6.14 in which Gehel merged [7]
* Davis also did quite a bit of work to fix and add integration tests
for several language analyzers [8]
* Erik worked on updating the ttmserver for elasticsearch 6 and
removed elastic 2.x compatibility [9]


== Did you know? ==
Grammatical gender [10] often confuses speakers of English and other
languages without a similar system. “Why is a bridge feminine in
German (Brücke [11]) and masculine in Spanish and French (puente [12]
& pont [13])?” they ask—though usually without links to Wiktionary.

Grammatical gender is really just a system of noun classes [14] where
there are two or three classes, and most things classified as male or
female end up in different classes. Other languages have noun classes
based on whether or not the nouns are animate, whether they are human
or animal, by shape, and sometimes just arbitrarily groupings;
languages can have nearly two dozen noun classes, like some of the
Niger–Congo languages![15]

Now hold on while we veer off on a brief tangent: diminutives are
words that convey a smaller, lesser, or more intimate sense of their
root form.[16] They are common in American nicknames, often showing up
as a -y or -ie ending (Billy vs. Bill, Peggy vs Peg, Bobbie vs
Roberta). Sometimes diminutives, especially when applied to small cute
things, can become the main or only form of a word. For example,
English baby [17] from babe, or kitty from kit.

Diminutives and grammatical gender collide in German Mädchen [18]
(“girl”) which is historically from Magd (cognate with English “maid”)
plus the diminutive suffix -chen; all diminutives formed with -chen
have neuter gender in German. Over time, Mädchen became the
predominate term for a girl, despite the fact that the word is
grammatically “neuter”.

[0] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T206874
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T215967
[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T215969
[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T207920
[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T216599
[5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T216256
[6] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T216047
[7] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T215932
[8] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T215594
[9] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192680
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender
[11] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCcke#German
[12] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/puente#Spanish
[13] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pont#French
[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_class
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_class#Niger%E2%80%93Congo_languages
[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive
[17] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/baby#Etymology
[18] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/M%C3%A4dchen#Etymology

----

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The archive of all past updates can be found on MediaWiki.org:

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Interested in getting involved? See tasks marked as "Easy" or
"Volunteer needed" in Phabricator.

[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/qW51XhCCd8.7/#R
[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/5KEPuEJh9TPS/#R

Yours,
Chris Koerner (he/him)
Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation

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