Talk:Trans–New Guinea languages

list organization
hi. i would like to have this list split into a few more sections. i would do this myself; however, i am not sure of the difference between some of the terminology. like the differences in superstock vs. phylum vs. stock vs. superphylum. super- refers to the number of languages? or amount of branching? – ishwar  (speak)  08:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No, the distance of the relationship, repsumably as shown by % of cognate vocab. But keep in mind that the entire classification will likely prove spurious. kwami 23:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

title
Moved back to en dash, Trans–New Guinea, where it's been stable since March 2009. This follows the MoS, style guides such as the Atlantic Monthly, and several WP:RSs. (Ross uses a space, "Trans New Guinea", but that is generally avoided for prefixes.)

(Note that en dashes often don't show up in Google Books because they are not generally recognized by OCR. Also, hyphens are used as a substitute by people using typewriters and non-professional typesetting programs such as Word.) — kwami (talk) 23:01, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Any reason not to extend this to the various branches of TNG? — kwami (talk) 01:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Trans-New Guinea classification POV
I see that Engan, Madang, etc. have been removed from Trans-New Guinea, following Usher. However, this is not universally accepted; we should at least put "Trans-New Guinea (?)" and not follow Usher in every single article. We need to synthesize and look at Wichmann's, Hammarstrom's, Pawley's classifications, etc. and discuss how they are different from Usher's. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Minor Problem with the Maps
I just realized the Australia is coloured white on almost every map, when that colour is meant to represent uninhabited areas. If someone else doesn't fix it I'll get to that eventually. -MToumbola (talk) 11:46, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Hyphen vs. en dash
Why is this article name written with an en dash rather than a hyphen? We generally use hyphens for prefixes, cf. Indo-European and Proto-Germanic (and Trans-Neptunian object), but en dash when two names are combined, e.g. Tupi–Guarani languages or Niger–Congo languages. Is there a reason for doing this differently in this particular name? --Lundgren8 (t · c) 14:34, 9 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I believe had named this article with a dash. I also support using a hyphen rather than a dash. —  Sago tree spirit  (talk) 23:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this follows the MOS for hyphenating a phrase, as in "pre–World War II". With a hyphen, "Trans-New Guinea languages" would literally be the trans-new languages of Guinea. Okay, no-one would misread it that way, but by being consistent, readers can understand that when we use a hyphen we actually intend it to be a hyphen. — kwami (talk) 03:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 16 March 2020

 * 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: Not moved — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:55, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Trans–New Guinea languages → Trans-New Guinea languages – Per : We generally use hyphens for prefixes, cf. Indo-European and Proto-Germanic (and Trans-Neptunian object), but we use dashes when two names are combined, e.g. Tupi–Guarani languages or Niger–Congo languages. Trans-New Guinea involves prefixing rather than compounding. — Sago tree spirit  (talk) 00:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Jerm (talk) 14:57, 23 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose per the MOS. 'Trans' modifies the phrase 'New Guinea', not just the word 'New'. This is analogous to "pre–World War II" rather than to "trans-Neptunian object" (where 'object' is 'trans-Neptunian'). — kwami (talk) 03:48, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Aha, I was not aware of this distinction but it makes sense. Where in the MOS is this described? --Lundgren8 (t · c) 07:11, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * MOS:PREFIXDASH. –Austronesier (talk) 16:32, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I'd still like to know more about the justification for this rule in MOS. Most existing literature on Papuan languages uses Trans-New Guinea with a hyphen, not a dash. — Sago tree spirit  (talk) 00:28, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * FWIW Andrew Pawley and Malcolm Ross even spell it "Trans New Guinea" without hyphen/dash, but then they also drop the hyphen in "Proto Trans New Guinea". "Proto" without hyphen somehow is an Austronesiansts' thing (I do it myself unless forced to do otherwise by an MOS). –Austronesier (talk) 11:19, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Many texts also do not distinguish between - and –, writing both Indo-European and Niger-Congo as opposed to Niger–Congo. --Lundgren8 (t · c) 18:16, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That's true not just of language families but of anything. Many sources use hyphens for page and date ranges, for example, while we use dashes. For WP, p. 3-4 means chapter/section 3, page 4. There are occasional complaints from ppl who aren't used to making the distinction (I wasn't aware of it either), but it can be useful, and to be useful it's best to be consistent. We also distinguish hyphens from minus signs in mathematical contexts, where most people don't bother. — kwami (talk) 08:57, 27 March 2020 (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.

Sourcing for this Article
Some of the citations in the article could use some improvement, but I'm not an expert and won't necessarily be able to find the right sources myself. The issue's I've found are below.

Intro section: Cites the | Language Gulper website, which seems to be self-published by | Alejandro Gutman and Beatriz Avanzati.

Wurm (1975) section: A dead link to "Wurm's classification at MultiTree" regarding Stephen Wurm. The MultiTree link points to the "underlying data" at | GitHub. MultiTree was a service of the Linguist List, which is hosted by the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences. This citation is possibly replaceable by the 4th entry in the article's Bibliography.

Foley (2003) section: A dead link to the "DELP: Papuan languages" page at the University of Sydney regarding William A. Foley, who also needs better references in his article. On his University profile, he has a 2003 publication named Endangered Languages: Charting the Way Forward published by the "Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project" (website | here), which may be a good source.

Usher (2024) section: The sourcing leads back to the website | newguineaworld.linguistik.uzh.ch. According to his | Academia.edu page, this website seems to be run by Timothy Usher himself, though hosted by the | Zurich Center for Linguistics at the University of Zurich. His Academia page also notes that he's a member of the Santa Fe Institute's | Evolution of Human Languages project (see the newer link to the | Origins, Evolution, and Diversity of Human Languages Project). Further digging shows that he's a researcher for the | Rosetta Project. My question is: Usher is clearly involved in the New Guinea language research world, but does he have the weight of an expert, and/or are there non-self-published resources for Usher's work?

Dryer (2022) section: This one might just be going over my head, but I cannot find any publication by Matthew Dryer in titled Trans-New Guinea IV.2: Evaluating Membership in Trans-New Guinea. His particle (which also has citation issues) shows that he edits the World Atlas of Language Structures, could that be where Trans-New Guinea IV.2 was published?

External links section: The first link is to | TransNewGuinea.org, which may be self-published by Simon J. Greenhill (formerly?) of the Australian National University. The website asks that any citations be made to his publication | TransNewGuinea.org: An Online Database of New Guinea Languages in the PLOS One journal. He also has a personal website at | simon.net.nz, which shows he is now a professor at the University of Auckland. The other link is a dead link (with a working | archive link) to the Newguineaworld Google site by Timothy Usher and Edgar Suter. AnandaBliss (talk) 18:28, 15 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Sorry if this is not allowed, but I'm pinging three good users I've come across to give some input. AnandaBliss (talk) 13:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Research on Papuan languages is notoriously poor, and our sources show we're a bit desperate.
 * WALS won't be the source for Dryer. It looks like it might've been a presentation. I've asked the person who added it.
 * Usher has published in peer-reviewed journals, but on individual families, not TNG as a whole. He has a new website now, so we can update that. He's the primary but not sole author; there's also Edgar Suter, one of the people cited by Glottolog for its classification.
 * The only advantage to MultiTree, a notoriously unreliable source, was that it displayed graphics of the classifications. Since it's now defunct, there's no longer any reason to use it. — kwami (talk) 19:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I've made a start at reverting from the MultiTree classification to the original Wurm et al. — kwami (talk) 21:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Like I said, I wouldn't know the first thing about finding good sourcing for this particular topic. AnandaBliss (talk) 22:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Updated to Glottolog 5.0. Only difference was that the language count is up by 2. — kwami (talk) 22:30, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I’m afraid I know quite little on this one! I’m more familiar with Polynesian, Semitic, and Scandinavian languages and l my knowledge of Papuan stuff is sadly nonexistent other than a smattering of Tok Pisin! I do know at least one editor here is a Papuan specialist, though, hopefully they’ll come around. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 09:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * On a quick note:
 * Wurm – already handled by kwami.
 * Instead of Foley (2003), we should use Foley (2002). I can take care of this if time allows.
 * Dryer (2022) is unpublished and as far as I can see uncited in other publications, so this section appears to violate WP:UNDUE.
 * Usher has published a number of peer-reviewed publications in this area, and his website has been cited in good academic sources such as Palmer's The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area. So we're in good company when citing his website.
 * Greenhill's project page is ok for an external link. Not a subject-matter expert in TNG, but rather in computational phylogenetic linguistics (a somewhat controversial method in historical-comparative linguistics). The database is reliable raw material, so not citeable for WP, but a link to it is not a bad pointer for interested readers.
 * Only indirectly related to this thread: West Bomberai languages badly needs a clean-up. It makes to much use of OR-ish raw material, and the breakthrough paper is not cited there yet. –Austronesier (talk) 12:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * waiting on that paper to shift over from citing his website. — kwami (talk) 13:25, 20 July 2024 (UTC)