Talk:Kusaal language

Untitled
Language name is _Kusaal_

In 2013 this entry was moved from _Kusaal language_ to _Kusali language_.

The people are called _Kusasi_, the language name is Kusaal.

http://www.ethnologue.com/language/kus

Not sure if this is helpful.

Other comments — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.189.161.32 (talk) 13:53, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Good to see that someone knowledgeable has been reworking my stub article on Kusaal!

(I think possibly I can guess who? if I've guessed right, thankyou for the Fulani goat cheese ... and the IT terms in Mampruli ... and the loan of Manessy's book ...)

The original stub was largely based on my own (unpublished) work from when I lived in Bawku in the 1990's. Unfortunately I am not a professional linguist and could not do justice to this beautiful and fascinating language.

M pu'us ya bedugo.

For what it's worth (not much, given your expertise and my amateur status) I disagree with your analysis of inflecting verbs as having five forms:

(a) the "irrealis" -in(e) is, I would say, an enclitic particle -n(e), the -i being the reduced final vowel of the preceding word (cf object pronouns). It can follow the imperfective -d(a) flexional form as well as the perfective. It can also follow the otherwise uninflecting stative-type verbs. The tonal behaviour supports this analysis too.

(b) I'd say the "gerund" formation belongs to derivation rather than flexion, but YMMV.

86.128.167.211 (talk) 22:45, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Another point re the palatalised velars of Mampruli and Dagbani: I think Kusaal and Moore in fact preserve the original pattern, and the palatalisation in the former two languages was occasioned by originally following front vowels. This is concealed by e.g. the fact that short 'e' has consistently shifted to 'a' in closed syllables in Mampruli and Dagbani:

cf Kusaal keng(e) 'go' with Dagbani changi and many similar.

There is a separate series of palatal stops in more distantly related Gur languages like Gurmanche but the the corresponding reflexes in cognates in "Western Oti-Volta" are just s, z.

cf Kusaal saan(a) Dagbani sana "guest, stranger" with Gurmanche caano id.

Manassy's account of all this in his (generally wonderful) book on the Oti-volta languages is completely off the mark; he ends up setting up three series in the protolanguage because he doesn't recognise the secondary nature of the palatals in Mampruli and Dagbani, and distinguishing dentals, alveolars and palatals in a threefold system found in none of the extant languages along with some extremely implausible phonetic changes to give the modern forms.

Kusaal vs. Kusasi
As the initial comment above shows, someone moved this article back and forth between Kusaal and Kusasi. As I write this, it's at Kusasi. It's not clear to me, who probably never heard of the language till today, whether Kusasi (or Kusaasi) or KusaaL is the better name for the language in English, but in any case, a decision should be made and then the form used in the title should match the form used in the text. At the moment (2021.12.07) the title says Kusasi but the language is consistently called Kusaal within the text. --Haruo (talk) 00:18, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 1 February 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (non-admin closure) BilledMammal (talk) 08:47, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Kusasi language → Kusaal language – Ethnologue and all the currently cited sources in English use the name "Kusaal" and not "Kusasi". Several people on the talk page suggested "Kusaal", too. FYI, @Kwamikagami. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 06:40, 1 February 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. ASUKITE  18:09, 9 February 2023 (UTC)


 * ?. We have Kusasi people, and per WP:NCLANG we normally name the language after the people or the common root. E.g. we have Swahili people and Swahili language, not Waswahili and Kiswahili. That's partly because it can be taxing to readers to be expected to remember separate names for a people and their language when they likely don't know either.
 * If "Kusaal" by itself does not mean the language, and we move this, then per COMMON we should also move Kusasi people to "Kusaal people". Indeed, Joshua Project does call them the "Kusaal people", but they're not a RS. The SIL Kusaal phonology speaks of "la langue kusaal" and "le peuple kusaal" but in the next line "les Koussasi". That suggests that kusaal is an adjectival or attributive form and that we should move our article to "Kusaal people" (just as we wouldn't want an article on "Englishmen people").


 * — kwami (talk) 07:05, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Isn't it much simpler than that, though? I'm not sure about the ethnic group, but the language appears to be usually called "Kusaal" in English-language sources.
 * Various ethnic groups speaking Bantu languages indeed have an inconsistent naming pattern in English—some use the prefixes for ethnonyms and glottonyms, some don't, and some use a mix. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:02, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * But we should be consistent, unless we have a good reason not to be. These names aren't common enough in English to be an exception. If "kusaal" is an attributive form, it should work with 'people' as well as 'language'. — kwami (talk) 09:21, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Requested too Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 05:30, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Languages has been notified of this discussion. ASUKITE  18:09, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Africa has been notified of this discussion. ASUKITE  18:09, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Also pinging @Haruo who commented on this topic above in 2021. ASUKITE  18:11, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Since ISO 639-3 and Glottolog, as well as multiple language lists over time (Ruhlen 1991, Voegelin & Voegelin 1977, Klose 2001, Dalby 2000, Bright 1992, Bendor-Samuel 1989, etc.) use "Kusaal" without exception as the name of the language, then that is the standard that Wikipedia should follow no matter what the ethnonym is. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 08:07, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, but is the ethnonym a nominalization of "Kusaal"? — kwami (talk) 09:33, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't know, but it shouldn't matter. The question is the same answer that we have for all the articles in Wikipedia:  WP:COMMONNAME.  In other words, once we have answered the question, "What is the most common name used for X in English language sources," then our job is finished.  That's why it's "Swahili" for the language and not "kiSwahili"--English language sources use the former to the virtual exclusion of the latter (Darby 2000 is the exception that proves the rule).  But to satisfy your curiosity, here is a link to one of the rare published grammars of Kusaal.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 10:37, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It matters for consistency with the other article. It looks like we can move both to "Kusaal". — kwami (talk) 19:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * But that whole issue of "consistency" is a red herring that violates the inherent principles of "no original research", "use the common name in English", and "rely on reliable sources". If the common name in reliable sources for the language differs from the common name in reliable sources for the speakers, then that's just the way it has to be.  There shouldn't be any debate about it.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 01:12, 11 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Weak Support. I am always wary of academic types that try to impose unnatural foreign appellations rather than use simple English terms - they tend to assume that their specialized readers understand the nuances of foreign languages, and how prefixes and suffixes are used. But the Wikipedia audience is a general audience, not specialist, so I would generally ignore what scholars prefer. That said, Kusasi and Kusaal are unfortunately obscure topics, and it is hard to find references to them in English-language general works. So I can't find enough evidence to oppose the proposal. Walrasiad (talk) 15:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Exactly, that's why we have to rely on what terms the experts use and that's universally "Kusaal" for the language. (I'm not an anthropologist, so I don't know what the usual term for the people is.) --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 23:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.