Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/English words without vowels


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Mackensen (talk) 01:36, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

English words without vowels

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Even if this were a notable topic, nearly all information in this article is covered in Vowel. Pokajanje &#124; Talk 16:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 *  Redirect  Merge to Vowel. As said, almost all of the useful information that is covered here is already covered in that section of the main vowel article.  The parts that are not are stuff that are not really appropriate for this article to begin with.  For example, about a third of the article is about words without vowels in other languages, which is completely out of the scope of coverage for an article that is specifically called "English words without vowels.  Other parts are just trivia that brings no notability to the concept, like bringing up a poem that uses no vowels.  When you remove the content like that, you really aren't left with much that isn't better included (and is for the most part already is) in the appropriate section of the Vowel article.  On top of that, the only sources being used in the article currently are just to support the trivial facts, which gives the whole thing an air of OR to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rorshacma (talk • contribs) 17:14, 26 September 2012‎
 * Comment: Vote changed from Redirect to Merge. See below for reasoning.  Rorshacma (talk) 17:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Faisal 1918 (talk) 03:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * comment it would be good to link to the no-vowel-letter bit, for people who would add 'nymph' or 'sky' to the no-vowel section of the vowel article. — kwami (talk) 18:04, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Links added - jc37 23:55, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Note - This has been nominated before. - jc37 23:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That AfD was for "Words without Consonants". The previous page was originally named "Words without Vowels", but it was moved. Pokajanje &#124; Talk  00:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Look again, TPH added this page to the nom. And it was indeed discussed there. - jc37 00:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep per my comments in the previous discussion. - jc37 00:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Your comments in the previous discussion really fail to address the fact that there have not been any reliable sources found that discuss the concept as a whole, or that when you remove the information that is out of the scope of the article, what is left is an unnecessary split from the Vowel article. The sourcing is really the main problem.  While you can find books that may mention off hand that there do exist English words without vowels, none of them actually discuss the concept in any meaningful way, nor discuss any of the information that is presented in this article that could be used to support it. Rorshacma (talk) 16:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ...in your opinion... - jc37 19:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Its not my "opinion" that reliable sources discussing the topic have thus far not been found. Nor is it my "opinion" that reliable sources are needed to establish notability for articles.  That is the foundation of our general notability guidelines.  Rorshacma (talk) 20:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:38, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 15:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Rename to words without vowels or merge to vowel (the title doesn't correspond with all the content). I've added a few references, indicating that this material can be sourced, and it's also clear that this is a topic of interest to people and commonly written about, though discussions tend to be in books on trivia and wordplay (or in dictionary FAQ pages) rather than serious linguistics texts. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment I do believe that the article originally was titled words without vowels, but there was some concern brought up in last AFD that an article like that was too broad in scope of coverage, and it was renamed to its current namespace as a result of that discussion. It seems that when the article was renamed, however, the content was not edited to match which caused the current discrepency between the title and the content.  The point that you bring up about the sources is exactly my issue with the article.  The only sources available that talk about this at all are, like you said, merely trivia and wordplay, rather than any discussion about the concept as a whole.  It proves that yes, there are english words that do not use vowels, but I don't think that fact was ever in any doubt.  What they don't show, however, is why they are actually notable as a group.  That's why I hold that your latter choice, of merging to vowel, is the better one, as the only sources being found would only allow this article to just be a collection of trivia, with no sources talking about why the concept of english words without vowels (or in any other language, really) is notable.  I've changed my above vote from Redirect to Merge due to the addition of sources you added.  While I still believe they are too trivial to support an independent article, they can be added to the appropriate section of the Vowel article.Rorshacma (talk) 17:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * To support an independent article? That sounds odd to me. Information is information. Has it been sourced? Yes. And the topic has been shown worth keeping in the encyclopedia. We split info from pages all the time. - jc37 23:40, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The only information being sourced so far is, as I said, trivia. Things like "What the longest word with no vowels?" or "There's a poem in English that uses no vowels!".  None of them actually discuss at all the overall concept of English words without vowels, just singular examples of specific words.  Its pretty common Wikipedia practice to avoid splitting articles unecessarily.  In this case, the subject at hand is already covered quite well at Vowel. Neither that article as a whole, or the section dedicated to this particular sub-topic are so overly long that a seperate article is needed.  Thus my statement that the sources provided are not sufficient to support a split, independent article, but could be useful in supporting the information already present at the main article.  Rorshacma (talk) 01:31, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That information is already present in another page. So we should either delete the information in vowel or delete the nominated article. Pokajanje &#124; Talk  00:08, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not all of it, but regardless, this is the precise purpose of Template:Main. - jc37 00:22, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The only information lacking in the section in vowel is the section "words without vowel letters". That could be covered in a Wiktionary appendix entitled "English words without vowel letters". Pokajanje &#124; Talk  18:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Merge per above. This is a content fork, nearly a textbook example of one. Roodog2k (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope. Actually this page has existed since 2005. I look at the edit history of vowel, and the edit prior to the creation of this page here, is clearly not a fork. - jc37 16:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - Valid Summary style article on a linguistic topic. See, for example, I added references to the article and added a lead sentence. Although the article seems to focus on written words, the article topic is not limited to written words that are in the English language and covers spoken words based on words without vowels that are not yet part of the English language. In addition, you can find references by searching out "vowelless words" instead of "words without vowels." -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 08:05, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Again, most of those added sources only focus on trivia, and listings of individual words, rather than on the actual topic. Almost the entire usage section is just trivia, and most of the sources are not useful for this article because they are about things that are not real words.  Advertisments or license plates using fake words without vowels is completely out of the scope of this article because they are not actually English words, nor ever will be.  In addition, a lot of the sources are not even about the subject at hand, and just happen to mention it very tangentially.  The one of license plates, for example, is just an article about banned vanity plates, some of which just happen to contain no vowels.  That does not actually establish any notability on the topic at all.  A lot of the others are the same way, such as the various articles about Scrabble, or the one that is about random word trivia, that features exactly one sentence that mentions a single word without a vowel.  Even the sources in the lead do not really cover the topic, as they start out by talking about how English words requrie a vowel sound, and then go on to the main topic, which is about words in other languages, which is not what this article is about.  The main point, as I stated several times above, has never been that there are no sources that tell us that these words exist.  We all know they exist.  What the article does not have are sources that actually talk about the overall concept about why, as a group, these words are notable, and why this should be split into a seperate article when the vowel article already very suscinctly discusses the linguistic concept without all the fluff and trivia.  Rorshacma (talk) 16:53, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * To believe that, editors would have to believe that, in the between the time English was first spoken and now, no linguist scholar has ever studied why English predominately did not developed as a language embracing vowelless words whereas other language allow vowelless words. They also would have to believe that scholars have never studied the role vowels play and the absent of vowels play in the English language. They also would have to believe that scholars have never studied the role the absent of vowels play in the English language as compared to languages that do not restrict out vowels words. You indicate that none of the vowelless words millions of people use to send text message are not actually English words, nor ever will be, even though students are turning in written assignments that omit vowels. The only way one can claim this is there must be scholarly research on why such vowelless words will never become part of the English language. It also makes sense that scholars would approach this with an open mind and study the impact of the recent and growing effort of millions of people using vowelless words to send text message has on the English language. There is a strong likelihood that this topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject per WP:GNG. --Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:52, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, I only said that the fake words in licesne plates and ads are not real words and never will be, the sources used to talk about those two things are worthless, and including that information is complete trivia. I specifically did not mention the text messages with them because I actually feel that may be worthwhile to merge.  I also never said that this topic is not notable and should be deleted.  I said that there have been no sources to show that the topic is independently notable of the study of the use of vowels as a whole, and therefore the non-trivial information included in this article should be merged to the main article on Vowels.  Most of which is already there.  Saying that its likely that there are many sources on this, or that it makes sense that there is linguistic work specifically on this subject really does nothing to prove it without actually finding them.  Its not our job as Wikipedia editors to just assume sources exist, its our job to find them and use them as sources to support why articles are notable.  If some are found that actually support why this concept specifically is independently notable from the study of vowel usage as a whole, that would be a different story.  At this point, however, with the trivia removed, it is just an unecessary split.  I'm sure that scholars have "studied the role vowels play and the absent of vowels play in the English language".  Which is why we have an article on Vowels.Rorshacma (talk) 16:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is a classic sort of thing expected to be found in any large encyclopaedia. It is a frequently covered topic, and therefore has Wikipedia-notability. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment - To all those suggesting "merge" because you see this as a split or fork, you should know that this page was created in 2005, and this info was only added to vowel in 2012 by User:Kwamikagami here. - jc37 16:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Really, that's just semantics as far as my actual reasoning for arguing for a merge goes. The article may have been created well before the information was actually added to the Vowel section, however my argument is that it should have never have been a seperate article to begin with, as I am arguing that the subject matter was never independently notable from the study of vowels overall.  I just use the phrase that it is an "uncessary split" as a more concise way of converying that idea, as I can't think of a simpler way to say "it should have never been a seperate article and always part of the vowel article to begin with" each time.  Rorshacma (talk) 17:40, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So in other words, you are offering your subjective opinion, which isn't based on anything but merely your personal preference? That sounds an awful lot like WP:IDONTLIKEIT to me. But then that's merely my read of your comments. I welcome clarification. - jc37 22:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No, I'm basing it off the statement that I have made repeatedly in the above discussion that there have been no reliable sources found that demonstrate that "English Words Without Vowels" is independently notable from the discussion of vowels in language as a whole. That the sources being found are trivia, and when you take that away, you are left with nothing substantial that indicates any sort of indpendent notability.  I've said that numerous times in this AFD, so how you can interpret anything as "I don't like it" is beyond me.  Especially since never once in this AFD have I ever argued for deletion, but instead to redirect and then to merge.  No statement I have made in this AFD would indicate that my opinion is based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT any more than the Keep votes that simply say "Its useful!" or "there has to be soruces somewhere" can be accused of being WP:ILIKEIT votes.  Rorshacma (talk) 22:30, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep I had no hand in writing this article but have had many occasions to use it. It suffers no flaws that would justify deletion. μηδείς (talk) 16:42, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It suffers from the flaw that it is a content fork, and one content or the other must be deleted. Pokajanje &#124; Talk  19:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not a POV fork, and the distinction between the two classes is pretty much a language universal. Doesn't seem problematic at all to me. μηδείς (talk) 19:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Close Please It's obvious there's no consensus to close or merge, the listing is now 9 days old, and that's in it's second recent listing. μηδείς (talk) 19:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per Jc37 and μηδείς. There are sources listed and we're allowed to split articles per summary style. Hiding T 08:55, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep This article is well documented with 29 inline citations, and quite informative, and should be kept. Merger with the suggested part of another article is nothing I could support. --DThomsen8 (talk) 20:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.