Talk:Morse code

Little mistake at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code#Alternative_display_of_common_characters_in_International_Morse_code?

Hello, I think there is one little mistake in this (apart from that in my opinion fantastic, clearly arranged and very helpful) Morse code tree, isn't it? '-.--.' leads to 'Ĥ' and '-.--.-' leads to '(' and ')'. But I think '-.--.' means '(' and '-.--.-' means ')'. At https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Morse_code I found '----' media:CH, Ĥ, Š Morse Code.oga. What do you think? But I don't know how to change it. Thanks in advance for your help. Yours, --2A02:810B:8C3F:EA08:70A3:2ED0:4E9B:732F (talk) 23:25, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I dug into this a little. It looks like it's not technically incorrect but I agree the diagram should be changed.

Ĥ comes from Esperanto, and the chart on Esperanto Morse Code article says either -•--• or ---- can be used for Ĥ. Another random web page[1] also lists both but notes -•--• is only used sometimes because it conflicts with the bracket '('. Esperanto Wikipedia also points out that Esperanto Radio Amateurs often don't even use any of the extended characters, and use a transcription (Zamenhof method or H-system) instead, where Ĥ is written/sent as "hh".

So, Ĥ is sometimes sent as -•--• but it's only found in a constructed language, where it appears to be the least popular encoding out of three alternatives. —Pengo 23:17, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Separating extensions from standardized codes

Sourcing for non-latin extensions seems weak, and there is no apparent standard as I understand. In the table of codes we list numerous codes that are not part of the International Morris Code standard, some with the footnote "The character or symbol encoding is not in either ITU-R M.1172 or ITU-R M.1677-1 .", and none referenced. The result is a large table that is confusing and unverifiable.

I propose separating the codes actually in the standard from the rest, and those all need some reference or be removed; there is no way to tell if they are incorrect, as demonstrated by the issue @Pengo points out with the characters ż ⇄ ź Strangerpete (talk) 12:57, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

While you are about it, I'm in favour of removing all the audio files from the table. These have been a long standing issue making the page slow to load. The reader is not really getting any more information than already in the visual renderings. It's all just more dits and dahs after all. The file of the complete alphabet is enough. SpinningSpark 17:17, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with that as well, my only concern would be whether it affects vision impaired users, but I really don't know. Strangerpete (talk) 22:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Spinningspark I did a test with my browser (Opera/Chrome) and for me, none of the audio was actually loaded until played. Perhaps the audio player itself is part of the issue? But much of the loaded page size seems to come from all the images, totaling 724kB for the whole page, in particular the VFR map is 166kB alone. I will also admit the audio files overall have more views than I was expecting (1 year- A: 3566, X: 1200) -- do page statistics only count a person visiting the 'File:xxx' page, or also when someone clicks 'play'? Strangerpete (talk) 15:07, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

All those unverifiable codes should be removed from the table. This article is highly likely spreading misinformation.220.100.57.58 (talk) 04:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Morse code is a living communication system with more in common with spoken languages than with any data protocol. The "unverifiable" additions are largely from other language cultures, and often do have references or they can be found readily, e.g. in other language Wikipedia Morse code articles. A column identifying which codes exist in which standard would be good, but the suggestion of deleting every addition beyond the published standards is absurd. It would be like if Wikipedia only allowed article text to contain words found in the first edition of Webster's Dictionary from 1828. —Pengo 04:20, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 January 2022

the line for "K" in the table is malformatted, and needs to be fixed 2603:6080:4E00:AA8:5126:E872:C9AD:C77B (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: It's unclear what is malformatted in that line of the table. Could you please specify what should be changed in the form "please change X to Y"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fiwec81618 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

"Non-Latin" extensions

These are (mostly) not "non-Latin", they are perfectly normal latin characters not used in English. Is this really what they are called in the wider world? Bagunceiro (talk) 17:27, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I have changed to read "Diacritics and non-Latin extensions". I don't speak Morse, so would a more expert editor please review my change, please? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 September 2023

Suggest to change ‘a through z’ to ‘a to z’. Using ‘through’ this way is not standard/traditional English (this usage is only found in recent American texts and is not widely understood or accepted outside the US). In standard English, using ’through’ in this sense is unnecessary and wrong because the original ‘to’ performs exactly the same function. 2001:E68:5404:44CB:88FD:BCB7:5713:6B54 (talk) 16:21, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree and have changed. I don't believe that this is a MOS:ENGVAR issue. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:46, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 October 2023

I would like to request a change of the word "identifcation" to "identification" in both occurrences in the "Aviation" section. Both Wiktionary and web searches suggest that the former is a misspelling, not some technical term that could be mistaken for a misspelling, like "ordnance". 166.181.80.186 (talk) 03:09, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

 Done Tollens (talk) 03:44, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2024

In the part 'speed in words per minute', they state that the speed for a dit might be 50 milliseconds. I don't know how long it would realistically be, but 1/200th of a second seems really short. It would mean that you could type 100 e's in one second, which seems a lot to me. 2A02:1810:4F27:3A00:5476:75CA:86EB:1B2C (talk) 21:04, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

50ms is 1/20th of a second. Hyphenation Expert (talk) 22:28, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

50 ms "dits" is 24 WPM Morse code, fast but not exceedingly so--it's a professional speed and code faster than that is heard on the amateur bands now. The FCC exam for the First Class Radiotelegraph license required 25 WPM. Dkazdan (talk) 23:13, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

inverted question mark missing from table

The inverted question mark ¿ is missing from the table; it has encoding ..-.- according to the tree diagram. But I don't care to fix it. Jurjen B (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I meant: I don't _dare_ to fix it. Jurjen B (talk) 13:51, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

It is also the prosign for "please repeat" Jurjen B (talk) 13:53, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I was wrong about the code: it is ..--.-

A dash got lost somewhere Jurjen B (talk) 13:57, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Missing AR Prosign

The AR (EOM - End of Message) is missing from the Morse code table 181.105.151.204 (talk) 18:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

"In addition, applications are now available for mobile phones that enable short messages to be input in Morse Code"

This line doesn't make sense, the citation just talks about Nokia patenting the ability to do that. Source? Dany0 (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

and even if true, it's WP:TRIVIA so I will delete. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:13, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

and would be contrary to WP:NOTDB if I could find it? So I haven't deleted it but I have deleted Some Nokia mobile phones offer an option to alert the user of an incoming text message with the Morse tone " ▄ ▄ ▄  ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄  ▄ ▄ ▄ ", which is just as trivial. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Accented letters

I want to talk about the "Accented Letters" that are in this article, as it's all a bit of an unsourced mess.

To give some background, the very first ITU standard for Morse code (from 1865) contained the accented letters É, Å, Ä, Ö, Ü, Ñ, and the digraph CH. You can see them on pages 48-49 of this pdf file: https://search.itu.int/history/HistoryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/4.1.43.fr.200.pdf. That document is available from the ITU website (http://handle.itu.int/11.1004/020.1000/4.1).

By 1938 (https://search.itu.int/history/HistoryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/1.35.48.en.100.pdf, p39-41), À has been added (with the same code as Å), and all of the accented letters and digraphs are described as "optional" except for É. Later, the ITU dropped support for all of the optional letters/digraphs, as the most recent ITU standards only contain É.

Apart from the above letters (and perhaps the Esperanto letters), I don't think there was any sort of international convention when it came to accented letters. I suspect it varied from country to country, and there were probably multiple incompatible conventions. The most common convention was probably to omit accents altogether, although that probably wasn't an equally acceptable solution for all languages.

By putting non-ITU accented letters into a single table in this article, we're probably implying a level of standardization and uniformity that didn't exist. I'm tempted to remove them, particularly as they're unsourced.

I also don't think we can hope to include every possible Latin alphabet in this table (unless it gets much bigger). For example, there was also a Vietnamese Morse code (according to the Vietnamese alphabet article). Should we include that?

Apart from the ITU letters, the letters in this article seem to fall into five categories: Esperanto, Polish, Icelandic, French, Danish/Norwegian, and Other. I'll discuss each of them below.

ESPERANTO

The letters Ĉ, Ĝ, Ĥ, Ĵ, Ŝ, Ŭ come from Esperanto, the "international" language invented by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. Esperanto had its heyday around the same time that Morse Code had its heyday, so I expect these letters actually were in use, and they probably were quite standardized due to fact that there was a central organization overseeing the language.

However, are these letters notable enough to be in this article? The Morse Code codes for these letters are already adequately covered in the Esperanto alphabet article, so I think a simple "See Also:" might be enough.

POLISH

The letters Ą, Ć, Ę, Ł, Ń, Ó, Ś, Ź, and Ż come from Polish. As has been noted before, the encoding of Ź and Ż in this English article are the reverse of what they are in the Polish version of this article. Both are unsourced, so I have no way of knowing which is right, and I'm tempted to remove them. I think we should put in a "See Also:" and let the Poles figure it out.

ICELANDIC

This article contains the letters Ð (Eth), Þ (Thorn), and Æ, which come from Icelandic. (Æ is also in other alphabets, like Danish and Norwegian.) The letter Þ is notable for the fact that it is not derived from any Latin letter, so you cannot simply "drop the accent". That is, it requires a distinct representation in Morse Code. Although Eth derives from D, it is considered a distinct letter in Icelandic as the voiced counterpart of Thorn, and thus also demands a distinct representation.

The Icelandic version of this article gives codes for all of the Icelandic letters: Á, Ð (eth), É, Í, Ó, Ú, Þ (thorn), Æ, and Ö. The code for É matches the ITU code for É. Curiously, the Icelandic article gives the same code for O, Ó, and Ö, and the code for Ö does not match the ITU code for Ö, and I wonder if that is an error. (The article is unsourced.)

This raises a question. If we include Ð, Þ, and Æ in this article, shouldn't we also include Á, Í, Ó, and Ú? Or are Á, Í, Ó, and Ú omitable while Ð, Þ, and Æ aren't? And if we do include them, does it become a problem that the code for Ó in Icelandic is different from the code for Ó in Polish?

FRENCH

The letters Ç and È are from French. (The French letters É and À are already ITU letters.) As someone who speaks French myself, I can see why Ç and È would be desirable letters to have, but I can also testify that French is quite legible without them, and I'm skeptical that they were ever widely used in Morse. One of the references cited in the article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code#cite_note-dik-archive-81) gives a code for Ç that is different from the one in this article, which increases my skepticism.

DANISH/NORWEGIAN

The letters Æ, Ø, and Å are from the Danish and Norwegian alphabet. The code for Å is from ITU, while Æ and Ø apparently reuse the ITU codes for Ä and Ö. Not much to say about them except that they're unsourced.

OTHER (Š and Đ)

This article also gives codes for Š and Đ (D with a stroke, not Eth). I'm not even sure what languages these are supposed to be for.

Š could be for Czech, or Serbian, or Sami, but in each case, it's weird that there's no corresponding code for Ž, which is also a letter in all those alphabets.

Đ could be for Czech or Serbian, but again, coverage for those languages would still be incomplete. The code given here for Đ is also not the same as the code for Đ in Vietnamese, according to the the article on the Vietnamese alphabet. It's also weird that the code for Đ in this article conflicts with the ITU code for É, since É is not an "optional" letter in the standard. And all of this is unsourced.

So, yeah. I'm tempted to remove all the non-ITU codes from the table, and just have a short word about "National variants", with maybe some links to articles about the other alphabets.

阮阿蘭 (talk) 00:06, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Support as this all makes sense to me. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)