Talk:James Evans (linguist)

Origin of Cree Syllabics
Most historical sources identify Evans as the inventor of Cree syllabics. His Wikipedia page however states that "there is some evidence to suggest that the Cree people already knew the writing system and Evans simply adapted it for print." The source for this claim is a creeliteracy.org page, which quotes a remark by John Murdoch, who wrote a master's thesis on Cree syllabics. Murdoch's remark concludes "A more complete history can be found in my 1981 thesis, Syllabics A Successful Educational Innovation." The creeliteracy.org site includes a link to Murdoch's thesis, which seems to say something different. For example, on page 14 of his thesis Murdoch writes of the term "Cree Syllabics," ":This name is applied to the writing system invented by James Evans to write Cree." The entire document seems to treat Murdoch as Cree syllabics' inventor.

Insofar as John Murdoch's research is being used as a source, should Wikipedia not give weight to what his master's thesis itself says, not his conflicting remark, which appears to have been made decades later? If so this would justify changing the page to credit Evans as syllabics' creator.Porphyry Jones (talk) 21:04, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Untitled
I don't understand, did Evans shoot Hassall, or was did Hassall shoot Evans in the hand? I'm guessing it's the former, but I don't know Evans' history well enough.

disambiguation

 * James Evans is a reasonably common name.
 * It is obvious that most of the links to James Evans in Wikipedia are currently correct.
 * There are currently only the two articles on James Evans (and one for James Evans, Sr.)
 * I cleaned up 4 links to this James Evans today:
 * Exit Strategy: James Evans (actor)
 * Ontario general election, 1867: James Evans (politician)
 * Berkner High School: James Evans (actor) - not sure if this is the same actor
 * Wakefield Trinity Wildcats: James Evans (rugby league footballer)
 * I also added a note in the talk section of Abolitionist Society, since I don't know whether this is the same James Evans that article refers to

I think that a disambiguation page for James Evans is needed. It would make sense to me to move this article to James Evans (linguist) and set up the disambiguation page here, so that as people indiscriminately add James Evans links to new entries they point to a disambiguation page instead of needing to be changed.

I can't find the standard for this, but if someone could point me to it, I would be appreciative.

What do others think?

BigrTex 06:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)