Talk:Joseph Opala

Tone and structure
Have edited the article to make it conform to biographies (in structure) and to make it more encyclopedic in tone. Noted where cites are needed for claims of distinction. In part the article had read as a paean to Opala; his achievements are many, but the article needs to be more factual in tone. More work to be done.Parkwells (talk) 13:43, 2 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Continuing to work to tone this down to have it sound less like a journalism feature piece. It would be useful if it reflected more of the other scholarship on this topic, especially contributions from linguistics, and sources other than the scholar himself.Parkwells (talk) 14:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.courant.com/news/local/northeast/hc-bunce_opala.artapr03%2C0%2C1009903.story
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061001084309/http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0053 to http://newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0053
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.terra.es/personal/inkoak/entlyci.htm
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.projo.com/news/content/BUNCE_ISLAND_PROJECT_11-08-10_TAKL6AP_v39.328b0ac.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061001084309/http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0053 to http://newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0053

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Joseph Opala. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090829221041/http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/07.htm to http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/07.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071213072041/http://www.yale.edu/glc/priscilla/ to http://www.yale.edu/glc/priscilla/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071213072041/http://www.yale.edu/glc/priscilla/ to http://www.yale.edu/glc/priscilla/

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Wiki articles need citations
Wiki articles need citations. All material on WP need citations from Reliable Sources (RS). In other words, second and/or third party inline sources are essential to maintain WP standards. It is unfortunate that so much of the content in the section labelled Two-Way Connection, is devoid of verifiable sources. Readers have no sources for additional information.

Overall, the page reads like an essay of a Wikipedian's personal thoughts and wishes. For example the claim "Some free Gullah people, known as "Black Loyalists," migrated to Sierra Leone after American Independence" is problematic since the inline source provided (after several sentences) does not verify the first part of this assertion. There is a vast array of literature on the Nova Scotian Settlers but never, to my knowledge, have they been linked to 'some free Gullah people among the Black Loyalists'. The arbitrary connection between the two groups (Gullah and Nova Scotian Settlers) is unsourced and therefore challenged. Second and/or third party inline sources are required for verification.

The previous problematic claim ultimately leads to the conclusion "So, both Sierra Leone's indigenous peoples and the Krios can claim family ties to the Gullahs."  Since previous editors has already linked the Gullahs to Nova Scotian Settlers via Black Loyalism, (without sources), this statement implies by extrapolation, that the 'indigenous people' are also somehow directly linked to the settlers. This is unfortunate because unlike the Creole/Krio whose ancestral link to the Nova Scotians is easily verifiable by multiple second and/or third party inline sources, this attempt at a direct link of SL's 'indigenous people' (presumably the Mende, Temne, Limba etc) not only contains weasel words, but appears to be a new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources provided. This is addressed in WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. In other words second and/or third party inline sources are needed to show that the Nova Scotian Settlers were specifically descended from or connected to Mende, Limba, Temne etc.

Apart from John Kizell, a man of the Sherbro tribe of Sierra Leone, and a verifiable Nova Scotian returnee who's ancestors were SL 'indigenous people', no such Mende, Temne or Limba-descended Nova Scotian Settler has been noted in the literature. Sources claiming the ancestors of the Nova Scotians originated from XYZ countries in West Africa are also not enough to verify that they were descended from Mende, Limba, Temne etc since the vast majority of trans-Atlantic slaves originated from several countries in West Africa. Also the ancestral link between the Gullahs and Sierra Leone Creoles is unsubstantiated and unsourced, regardless of similarities in their respective languages. English-based creole languages generally have similar linguistic structures. The Gullah probably have limited Mende, Temne or Limba ancestry due to slavery, but this should not lead to the conclusion that these 'indigenous people' are somehow related to the Krio based on some WP editor's spurious [Gullah→Black Loyalist→Nova Scotian Settler] theory. This is clearly WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Numerous research articles have indicated that the Sierra Leone Creoles are descended from Black Nova Scotians, Jamaican Maroons and Liberated Africans - (mainly Akan, Yoruba and Igbo people) - not Gullah.

I suggest that the sentence "So, both Sierra Leone's indigenous peoples and the Krios can claim family ties to the Gullahs." be removed. Additionally, if no sources are found, the connection between Gullahs and the Nova Scotian Settlers showed also be removed. Inamo11 (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2023 (UTC)