Talk:Yolŋu Sign Language

Infobox editing
I don't know how to properly edit the infobox in the article. I would be happy if somebody with the requisite skills would make the appropriate changes:

The ISO code should be "ygs". I just contacted the registrar for the ISO 639-3 codes and was told that this will become publically official in Feb. 2014.

Sceondly, it is not appropriate to classify this sign language as if it were descended from the local spoken languages.

I am editing the facts about the sign language, but somebody please do the infobox.Pete unseth (talk) 22:13, 8 January 2014 (UTC)


 * ISO done.
 * Why do you think the classification is inappropriate?
 * Any idea how many primary deaf speakers there are?
 * — kwami (talk) 06:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I've changed the Infobox to remove the language family. (Question: should it say "Sign language" instead, rather than "Unknown"?) Reason: Sign languages generally have very distinct grammars from the spoken languages used in the same community, so we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that it is in the same family as the spoken language. (Indeed, even if the grammar were the same, the vocabulary would be different, so I'd argue that it wouldn't make sense to say that a sign language is genetically related to a spoken language, since most genetic classification is made on the basis of lexical comparison.) A quote in the article makes it clear that this is a separate language, with its own grammar, not merely a signed code of the spoken language. For other changes, see discussion in next heading. AlbertBickford (talk) 20:21, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Yet, the classification is still there as if it were a spoken language and related to the other languages which it isn't. What is the default terming for infoboxes in such a case? Zylbath (talk) 14:06, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Relationship to Yan-nhaŋu Sign Language
Dany Adone's ISO 639-3 proposal for Yan-nhaŋu Sign Language [yhs] would not have been accepted if there wasn't evidence of it being separate from Yolŋu Sign Language [ygs]. I've removed [yhs] from the Infobox, which had the side-effect of presenting Yolŋu Sign Language as if it were a Macrolanguage. However, in ISO 639-3, both languages are individual languages. I propose that a separate article be created for Yan-nhaŋu Sign Language [yhs]. AlbertBickford (talk) 20:21, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, including [yhs] in the Infobox was generating a link to Ethnologue 18 in the references, but Ethnologue 18 does not have an entry for [yhs], which was added to the standard after Ethnologue 18 went to press. It will be in Ethnologue 19. AlbertBickford (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * reverted my edit described above, but I don't agree with his explanation, and he seems not to have seen my comments here, so I'm pinging him. We've got a factual problem, because ISO 639-3 codes do not overlap except in the case of macrolanguages. That's a key part of the design of the standard. And, unlike 639-2, which does not explicitly distinguish inclusive codes from individual codes (only implicitly by using the plural "languages" in the reference name), ISO 639-3 does--and [ygs] is an individual language, not a macrolanguage. So, the description in the Infobox of it as an inclusive code, which links to the article on macrolanguages, is incorrectly representing ISO 639-3. AlbertBickford (talk) 21:32, 6 November 2015 (UTC)


 * True, the article currently states "inclusive code", which could mislead one into thinking it's officially inclusive. But we can't rely on ISO for such distinctions: whether a code is for a "macrolanguage" has little to do with whether it overlaps with another. E.g., [asw] Australian Aborigines Sign Language is not categorized as a macrolanguage but it includes Yolŋu Sign Language. (Thus your reasoning that it "would not have been accepted if there wasn't evidence of it being separate" does not mean that it's not covered by another ISO code.) This is being gradually cleaned up, but ISO is still often wrong, and we need better sources for our articles. Yolŋu Sign Language is supposedly the sign language of the Yolŋu people, which implies that it includes Yan-nhaŋu Sign Language. I've written Adone to see if Yan-nhaŋu Sign Language is somehow an exception. — kwami (talk) 23:21, 6 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Not getting any response. Our only source says Yolŋu Sign Language is the sign language of the Yolŋu people, so that's all we can go on. — kwami (talk) 00:19, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

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