Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic


 * 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   delete. Keep arguments are assertions or suggestions to find some sources. Neither is policy based. Delete argument cite strong policy based reasons. Spartaz Humbug! 04:10, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This article is unreferenced original research. A genealogy of a language group is not appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia as it presumes that the genetic relationship between languages is fixed and known, and accepted by most or all linguists. In fact genetic relationships between languages are often very controversial, and there may be many different competing theories. An article like this cannot accomodate all theories, and is inherently biased to one particular theory. BabelStone (talk) 20:21, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep - This is useful and encyclopedic information. It's exactly the sort of information one would wish to learn from an encyclopedia.  The article has proved popular in several other language editions as well.   The information mostly isn't all that controversial, and where it is, the controversies are noted (or easily can be, if not already).  It isn't really original research, either - all of this info can be sourced, reflects scholarly consensus, and note that we have an abbreviated form of the same chart on one of our templates.  I would rather see the sources and notes improved, than have this information simply done away with. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 20:32, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep it is not about languages it is about scripts. It is a very useful appendix to History_of_the_alphabet. All that is needed is some time for improvement with references.149.254.61.162 (talk) 23:27, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete I have myself criticized the article on its Talk page because of a totally spurious suggestion that Cherokee and Vai have a genetic relationship to Proto-Sinaitic. This article pretty much stinks of Original Research, and without external references, can't be checked or even discussed. This is just a list. I agree with Babelstone, this needs to be deleted. -- Evertype·✆ 22:15, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Amateur linguistics and original research at it's worst. The giveaways are the paragraph Much of the information here was compiled from the "Ancient Scripts" and "Omniglot" websites, which do not always agree. and the complete lack of references to original peer-review sources. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:40, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 02:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Nothing in the article seems to be in blatant, large-scale contradiction to established scientific consensus, though of course better sources could be used and some details may need correcting. I don't understand the nominator's rationale at all, as (1) in fact the genetic relationships between languages is pretty well fixed and accepted by most linguists, and (2) this article says nothing whatever about the genetic relationships between languages anyway. This article is about the genetic relationships between writing systems, which is a completely different matter. —Angr (talk) 05:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment The "article" has no sources at all. It appears to be OR, devised by people who made the infobox for language classification. -- Evertype·✆ 08:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Which "infobox for language classification" would that be? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Template:Alphabet -- Evertype·✆ 15:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. The concept of genealogy applied to scripts is ambiguous in some cases. The presentation of the genealogy itself make it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish "normal genetic evolution" (phoenician > greek > latin) from more distant links (Cherokee for some letter shapes, Hangul.) The definition of "a writing system" itself is inconsitent across the tree (New Korean Orthography distinct from Hangul, Abkhaz alphabet distinct from Cyrillic). Furthermore, the tree is difficult to read and is essentially unsourced. It might be possible to make a good article out of this one, but in its current shape, it is an invitation for badly sourced OR, with an unclear purpose. Frédéric Grosshans (talk) 12:40, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment The reason given for the AfD is spurious: the list has nothing to do with "genetic relationship between languages". It's about scripts, as should be obvious from the title. That said, there are problems with the article, esp. with inadequate notification of controversial or provisional classifications. However, IMO that should be addressed by fixing the problem, or at least tagging them; cn tags will fit on individual bullet points. Consistency can be addressed on the talk page; that's what we have talk pages for. — kwami (talk) 13:28, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I am sure that Babelstone meant "genetic relationships between scripts" which is what I understood this AfD to be about. This article is a poor one, and is nothing but OR. Look at its footnotes. It's editors making stuff up themselves. -- Evertype·✆ 14:58, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * On each of the individual script articles, we also list that script's "parent scripts" in an infobox, as far as possible - with the same information. Not many are controversial, but none were made up or invented by editors here - they can all be sourced to reflect scholarly consensus, and usually explained in the body of the respective articles.  The article under question may be unreferenced, but that's not the same as what we mean by "original research". Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:34, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Rename and rewrite The idea of a "genealogy" is central to the problems here, with the focus on a uniform tree representation forcing an over-simplification of the relationships. A topic "Scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic" could be developed into an encyclopedic article, which might contains diagrams or trees as supporting illustrations but not as the core subject.  Kanguole 23:32, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep but rewrite It is well known that scripts are "descended" from each other and have a genealogy. The problem here seems to be a lack of references, which could be easily rectified by contacting members of relevant wikiprojects to confirm that the information is valid. I do believe that the information should be presented in a different format and scripts with uncertain ancestry should be marked as such.Hermione is a dude (talk) 10:55, 30 June 2011 (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.