Talk:Mooré (language)

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--Amazonien (talk) 23:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Intelligibility
Moore is absolutely *not* mutually intelligible with Dagbani.

I used to live for some years in Bawku, in Ghana, and myself know a bit of Kusaal, a closely related language in a number of ways intermediate between the two.

My work involved frequent interaction with speakers of all these languages, helped by enviably multilingual Ghanaian colleagues. I'm here to tell you that if you try to make yourself understood to a Mossi person who doesn't know Dagbani, in Dagbani you will get on just about as well as if you speak Swedish to a German who doesn't speak Swedish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bargainsale (talk • contribs) 00:32, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that. — kwami (talk) 01:19, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Mossi vs Moore
At WP:VPP, I mentioned this language, referring to it as 'Mossi language', and user:DrMennoWolters has noted that name of the language isnt Mossi. From a quick look at the various references sites, esp. http://www.ethnologue.com/language/mos, DrMennoWolters appears to be correct. I note that in 2010 user:Kwamikagami renamed this article from Mòoré language to Mossi language with a reason "root, per name of people". Kwamikagami, could you explain that rationale in a bit more detail? John Vandenberg (chat) 00:43, 23 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Whenever there's a simple name for a people, you can use it in English for the name of their language or dialect as well. For ease of access, on WP we prefer to use a common name for the people and their language, assuming there is one, unless there's good reason not to.  (See WP:Naming conventions (languages).)  There's no reason not to in this case that I can see.  Both the ethnonym Mossi and the glottonym Moore are commonly used for the language; as E17 puts it, "other spellings [may] reflect pronunciations of nonspeakers" – such as English-speakers.  There's no need to use the native term in English; we don't do that for German or Chinese or any of hundreds of other languages.  Doing it for relatively obscure languages often has the effect of making them even more obscure.  — kwami (talk) 07:02, 23 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, there actually is a good reason to in this case. The speakers of the language itself only refer to their language as "Mooré." It would not be accurate to say that "Mossi" is commonly used for the language, most academic work also refers to it by its proper name "Mooré". 65sugg (talk) 07:02, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The discussion started in the context of Babel and this Babel is not in English. In fact, every label is in the language it refers to, so that for example the Dutch language is not labelled "Dut" or so, but "Nl", which is short for "Nederlands". So for the language of the Mossi, the Babel label should reflect the language's name Moore. DrMennoWolters (talk) 22:41, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It refers to the ISO code. In any case, it's independent of the name of this article.  — kwami (talk) 23:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The ISO code is a point, of course, but not a very strong one. If you check the list of ISO codes, you'll find the options closer to Moore, i.e. MOO and MOR, occupied by other languages for which no good alternative seems available. Given this competition, it is understandable that the coders used MOS from Mossi for the language of the Mossi(s). This can, however, not be an excuse to eradicate the name of the language as such. DrMennoWolters (talk) 09:26, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As it comes to the thesis that "Whenever there's a simple name for a people, you can use it in English for the name of their language or dialect as well", there are numerous notable exceptions. The Romans spoke Latin, not Roman. The Jews do not speak Jewish and the Israelis do not speak Israeli; their language is Hebrew, but we rarely refer to the people as Hebrews. The Indians of India do not speak Indian, but Hindi, and their Moslim country fellows speak Urdu, but are not Urdus. Ghana is an anglophone country, because all schooling is in the English language, but the Ghanaians refer to their native languages with the name of a language, not with an English adjective referring to the people. The language of the Ashanti(s) is normally called Twi; the Dagombas call their language Dagban(l)i in English; etcetera. So why could Moore not be an exception to the tendency that the name for a people is also the name of their language? DrMennoWolters (talk) 09:26, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Your first point is irrelevant, and your second is mistaken. (The Latins spoke Latin, the Hebrews spoke Hebrew, the Jews speak Jewish languages, Israeli is a nationality, not an ethnicity, though there is of course Israeli Hebrew; the Indians speak Indian languages; the Ashanti speak Ashanti, a dialect of Twi.) Sure, Moore *could* be an exception, but as you've already demonstrated, it is not. — kwami (talk) 09:37, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You are completely and perfectly right !!! How could I ever think that Latin was spoken by the Romans and Hebrew by the Jews ??? Now we have an important task before us: how to convince those who learned those weird ideas in school? Let's form a task force for that, Kwami! DrMennoWolters (talk) 22:11, 24 December 2013 (UTC)


 * In your rush to be right, you've missed the point. The names of ethnicities are commonly used for the languages they speak.  This is an true of the Mossi as of anyone else.  If you have a rational argument to make, rather than simply objecting with WP:IDONTLIKEIT, then let's hear it.  Otherwise this discussion is pointless.  — kwami (talk) 23:35, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, we agree that this discussion is pointless. Your attitude is I just don't like it DrMennoWolters (talk) 22:39, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

fyi, I have notified Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (languages), as that guideline doesnt give good guidance on this scenario. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:42, 26 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It gives perfect guidance: Since both "Mossi people" and "Mossi language" are used in English, "Mossi" is the preferred term for both articles.  (At least, I don't believe "Moore" is commonly used for the people.  It's a hard term to search for.)  — kwami (talk) 07:09, 26 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Your beliefs are irrelevant. I have lived many years among Mossis in Ghana, communicating in English, and know for a fact that they call their language Moore when speaking English. Likewise, the Dagombas call their language Dagban(l)i, etcetera. By the way, if you go to the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, you will notice that the Luxembourg people (the Luxembourgers) speak a language that is called Luxembourgish in English. The name of a language is often, but not always the same as the adjective name for the people. DrMennoWolters (talk) 21:20, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * If beliefs are irrelevant, then you have nothing relevant to say here. — kwami (talk) 23:29, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * (Sticking my head foolishly into the crossfire) ISTM that the examples of Latin/Romans, Hebrew/Hebrews/Jews/Israelis, Hindi/Indians/Hindus, and Urdu/Indians/Pakistanis/Moslems are irrelevant here.
 * Those glotto-, ethno-, and credonyms are well established, and we can and do expect any English speaker to be aware of them and their relationships and differences of usage. Most anglophones – I will conservatively guesstimate > 99.8%* – are unaware of the Mossi people or of their language, whose autonym is Mòoré. Therefore, I think, the existence of those different names is irrelevant for the purposes of naming Wikipages.
 * User:Kwamikagami wrote, "The Latins spoke Latin, the Hebrews spoke Hebrew, the Jews speak Jewish languages, Israeli is a nationality, not an ethnicity, though there is of course Israeli Hebrew; the Indians speak Indian languages; the Ashanti speak Ashanti, a dialect of Twi." This is true, but it is partly irrelevant to most contemporary usage, and largely irrelevant to the current issue.
 * ° The people who natively spoke Latin are most commonly referred to as the Romans, while "Latins" commonly refers to peoples of Latin America.
 * ° Depending mainly on where we live, we Jews as a group speak many languages, some of which (Yiddish, Ladino…) can reasonably be called "Jewish languages". Many of us speak only the local secular tongue. But the one language that belongs to all Jews is Hebrew, and we have not been "Hebrews" for millennia.
 * * guesstimate:
 * English speakers: ~ 333,000,000 worldwide (Ethnologue)
 * Mòoré speakers: ~ 3,000,000 (Ethnologue)
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thnidu (talk • contribs) 2014-01-09T02:52:55
 * This is kind of irrelevant to the Mossi/Moore debate, but the Latins were an Italic tribe. Other Italic tribes spoke related, but distinct, languages. Latin was not the only language spoken in the Roman empire (the other main one was Ancient Greek), but I agree it was the main one (at least in the west). Google for "Mossi language" gives more results than "Moore language", but far fewer than "Mòoré language", but I know that Google is probably not the best source for common usage. πr2 (t • c) 21:50, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

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