User:Cpmyrick/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Nahuatl–Spanish contact

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I enjoy linguistics and I am a Spanish major so the relationship between indigenous languages and 'world' languages piqued my interest.

As mentioned in the article, Nahuatl is considered to be an 'endangered' language. Accurate information about the relationship between Spanish and Nahuatl languages is imperative for preservation and education.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The Lead Section is concise and provides a good overview of what the rest of the article will entail, although it does not preface the syntactic change that composes a large part of the body of the article. Moreover, some of the words are a bit too technical and don't go on to be explained in the 'content' section. There are a few statements that require citations, which don't belong in general, but especially in the lead section.

The Content section itself is fine. It provides current information and is cross-tagged/linked to many other pages. Notably, there are still a lot of 'citation needed' markers, which is not good as it undermines the ethos of the article. This section does a good job of addressing the equity gaps by discussing the marginalization of indigenous peoples and the modern consequences of that.

The Tone is relatively neutral and I think does a good job of introducing the conflicts between indigenous populations and Spanish conquistadors. However, I do think the balance is a little off, as discussions about the role of indigenous peoples are not emphasized. This purports these populations as being at the mercy and whims of the colonists and reduces their autonomy.

The sources in this article are poor, lacking specific page numbers or citations. Moreover, the sources are out of date and incredibly biased (coming from just one or two documents. Although the sources seem reputable, the lack of diversity in their references is appalling. This article appears to have been reviewed in 2021 but no significant changes/improvements are apparent.

Although the article is well written, the jargon is too difficult to understand without a deep reservoir of linguistics and related vocabulary. The writing is concise and cogent, but adding definitions would be incredibly helpful for improving the legibility and accessibility of the content. The organization of the content itself makes sense.

There are no images or media attached to the page, but I think a list of Nahuatl loan words would be extremely helpful.

The talk page reveals that this article falls within the scope of two different WikiProjects (Linguistics and Mexico), but is rated as 'Low-importance' for both. It was also last edited in Jan 2022.Overall, the article has a good foundation. Defining specific words and improving the citations would quickly improve the structure of the article. I think the organization is well done and the content is very informative.