Talk:Slavs

Question
Why is the Slavic language family considered an ethnolinguistic group, but the Germanic language family is not? 199.119.233.181 (talk) 03:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Ethnolinguistic grouping
Since User:Evaporation123 did not open a talk page discussion even when requested, I am doing it on his behalf. The hope is to continue the discussion here instead of revert summaries.

I support the removal of "ethnolinguistic grouping" from the lede, as the term is either unclear or misleading. If understood as a synonym for "ethnolinguistic group", it is wrong, since the Slavs comprise of multiple ethnic groups, with different languages, religions and nation states. Another interpretation for the term would be that the Slavs are "almost" like an ethnolinguistic group, but not quite. This is vague statement and best avoided. The leads of other articles on similar topics (Turkic peoples, Tatars, Iranian peoples, Mongolic peoples) also avoid making such a claim.

The lede could be improved per MOS:LEAD by summarizing the history sections of the main text. This would give some motivation for why the term Slav carries some meaning, and is not only a linguistic class, but also a historic one. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 09:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The rule for opening a talk page discussion (as so in to avoid an edit war) is that content must not be reverted more than three times. I frankly see this subject as akin to a debate over whether the sky is blue (given what the ethnolinguistic group article basically says in its lead).
 * Now that you brought it up, however, it seems like a good idea to clarify the weight that the term "Slav" holds historically, in the vein of Germanic peoples. Evaporation123 (talk) 16:44, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the term "ethnolinguistic group" has long been misused in Wikipedia to denote the set of ethnic groups that speak languages belonging to the same linguistic classifcatory unit (either a language family or a subgroup). I've had my share of tough discussions with people who really believe this, against the definition in the article ethnolinguistic group and common usage in scholarship. In short, I obviously support this edit.
 * On a "technical" side note: the rule (or rather: best practce) for opening a talk page discussion is WP:BRD. Going to the limit of three reverts, on the other hand, is not so good practice in content disputes. –Austronesier (talk) 20:06, 7 March 2024 (UTC)