Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ghil'ad Zuckermann


 * 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. Stifle (talk) 10:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ghil'ad Zuckermann
AfDs for this article: 
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Subject does not appear to meet the requirements of notability for academics. Crieff — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crieff (talk • contribs)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.   —Nsk92 (talk) 13:17, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Questions Crieff, I have a few questions about this AfD. To start with, I think this is the first time that I see that the very first edit that someone makes is proposing an article for AfD. Doing so is not that easy for a newbie. Care to comment on that? Further, the article contains quite a few claims to notability. Before I start checking the mentioned sources myself, would you perhaps comment on why you think these sources are not adequate and exactly why this subject does not meet WP:PROF? Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 13:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

What's the point of your first question? That is, how is it relevant to the question of whether the subject of this biography meets the notability requirement? But to answer it anyway: I have often edited wikipedia pages, without ever bothering to create a user name. But to propose a page for deletion discussion requires a user name, so I signed up. I agree the process is a bit complicated, but as an academic myself I think it is important that wikipedia not be used inappropriately by academics.

About notability: I don't see much that supports notability. To be sure, there are various academic distinctions, but those don't seem to me to come close to meeting the standards for notability. There is a new citation reporting that some other academic agrees with Zuckermann on one of Zuckermann's points, but again, I don't see how that confers notability. Moreover, google scholar doesn't show Zuckermann as having many citations, and most of the citations he does have are self-references. He is no doubt a solid academic with a promising research program, but that doesn't warrant a wikipedia entry (least of all one that goes into detail of his theories, as if they were well-known or controversial, and into the minutiae of his non-academic life). -- Crieff (talk) 14:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * First question: I admit to being just curious, nothing else... After all, it took me weeks to get proposing an article for AfD figured out... :-) Second question: I really would like to see some argumentation as to why the claims in the article miss notability. As the nominator, you will have to convince other editors that there is no notability here. Just saying that you don't see much, is not a very strong argument. Have a look at some other AfD discussions for some examples. If the article just consisted of "Dr So and So is an important scientist", then your argumentation would be justified. But this article contains claims of notability that you will have to show are not substantial enough. To start with this, the article lists as an "honor" a DAAD fellowship. These fellowships are relatively easy to obtain and do not really establish any notability. This is what I would call "fluff" and should be removed from the article as it is not really important. I admit that the whole article (as tagged) indeed reads like an advertisement, but being badly written is no reason for deletion... --Crusio (talk) 14:55, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 *  Comment Delete. Neither the article nor the nomination feels quite right.  So far as I can tell, Zuckermann fails WP:PROF in that he is not more notable than your average academic.  I don't see any awards (leaving aside research grants).  His publication record is solid, but not stellar.  But I don't know how he is received in the field. RJC Talk Contribs 16:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. Article is really, really bad, and if kept will need to be completely rewritten (probably as a very short article). However, I did find this source in the mainstream media: (, but you can find the full text of the article here.) I'm having trouble finding a second source in English, and without one, I'd be reluctant to keep. But maybe one's out there, or maybe someone can find a foreign-language source. --N Shar (talk · contribs) 00:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete I'm no linguist, but going out on a limb (PhD in 2003, current ranking of Associate Professor), I'm going to say that he's not "more notable than your average professor." Weak because I cannot assess for the more detailed WP:PROF criteria. RayAYang (talk) 03:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions.   -- RayAYang (talk) 03:07, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. Do not delete. The article is now improved. Impact is apparent. People talk about it. Zuckerman's theory is obviously controversial: SOME SCHOLARS, for example prominent Yiddish linguist Dovid Katz, enthusiastically employ Zuckermann's glottonym "Israeli" and accept his notion of hybridity - cf. Katz, Dovid (2004), Words on Fire. The Unfinished Story of Yiddish, New York: Basic Books; as well as http://www.forward.com/articles/4052/ ("Hebrew vs. Israeli", an Article on Zuckermann by Philologos, Forward, December 24, 2004) and http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/tmr/tmr08/tmr08013.htm ("The Genesis of the Israeli Language: A Brief Response to 'Philologos'", an Article by Zuckermann, The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language, Vol. 08.013, December 28, 2004). OTHERS, for example President of the Academy of the Hebrew Language Moshe Bar-Asher, vehemently oppose it - see http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3333948,00.html (Hebrew or Israeli? Linguist stirs Zionist debate, Reuters, November 29, 2006). That is what I have found in the latter: "Professor Moshe Bar-Asher, president of Israel's Hebrew Language Academy, likened Zuckermann to Noam Chomsky, a renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist who in recent decades became a freewheeling critic of U.S. Foreign policy. 'I think Zuckermann is a very good scholar, but he risks wasting his efforts by mixing up linguistics with politics," Bar-Asher said. "He stirs up a lot of antagonism.'" Daniel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.100.83 (talk) 11:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. There's a lot of detail in here but not a lot of third-party sourcing about the subject nor is there much that I can read as a claim of notability. Subject appears to be a recent Ph.D. with one book. I don't see this as passing WP:PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. Sorry, Crusio, here is more on why I think a delete is warranted. There are many academic honors listed under "Biography", but none of those is a "highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level." (WP:PROF) I think this is likely obvious for such things as the "Scatcherd European Scholar of the University of Oxford and Denise Skinner Graduate Scholar at St Hugh's College, Oxford", or the "Gulbenkian Research Fellow at Churchill College", or the various research fellowships offered by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the British Academy, and so on. Those are honours, of course, but they are part and parcel of life as a good academic. I think the ARC Research Fellowship in Australia is the best of the bunch, but it is an early career research fellowship for promising scholars (http://www.arc.gov.au/ncgp/dp/dp_default.htm), which is part of Australia's funding mechanism for academics rather than a special prize conferred on truly exception academics. Here perhaps I should note that the fellowship is not an "Australian Professorial Fellowship, which is "available for outstanding researchers with proven international reputations."

The other main claim of notability in the articles comes in this paragraph:

"Zuckermann's model is controversial. Some scholars, for example prominent Yiddish linguist Dovid Katz, enthusiastically employ Zuckermann's glottonym "Israeli" and accept his notion of hybridity.[18] Others, for example President of the Academy of the Hebrew Language Moshe Bar-Asher, vehemently oppose it"

I don't think we see here support for the claim that the model is controversial, at least in a way that confers notability. Virtually any thesis defended by an academic is going to be controversial in the minimal sense that some fellow academics accept it and others don't (otherwise, why bother defending the thesis in the first place?). I wonder if anyone here could provide a reference to an academic work that refers to Zuckermann's theory as making what is widely recognized as a major contribution to the field? (Perhaps the person in Brisbane, Australia, where Zuckermann holds his ARC Fellowship, who filled in all the info about his life and work, and who has come to his defense?) I would think if he were notable, this would be pretty easy to find.

Finally, if Zuckermann is notable and has a controversial model, why does he turn up so few citations in google scholar (most are self-references)? Some of this would have to do with working in what I presume is a relatively narrow field in linguistics, but surely if he were notable there would be more than odd citation that isn't a self citation.

Crieff (talk) 18:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete As per the above. --Crusio (talk) 18:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

http://www.mt-archive.info/MTS-2003-Wintner.pdf ; http://cgi.server.uni-frankfurt.de/fb09/ifas/JLCCMS/issues/VARIA_1/JLC_Varia_1_2008.pdf ; http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0388000107000435 ; http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=F6luA5_3H28C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=ghil%27ad-zuckermann+aikhenvald&ots=5dCJW5daxB&sig=76_8HUwoIR7v5Y_Ecr0nRGG-m-M http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FxkobNpxQhwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA371&dq=zuckermann+ghil%27ad&ots=vhq4wSyISw&sig=sh7LZZG7Ogxv0TB0EtwMYj1H2V0 ; Jewish Russian and the field of ethnolect study A VERSCHIK - Language in Society, 2007 - Cambridge Univ Press ; Ethics and Revitalization of Dormant Languages: The Mutsun Language N Warner, Q Luna, L Butler - Ethics, 2007 - nflrc.hawaii.edu ;
 * Comment. Corrections to the claims above. Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship is most prestigious. Check with Humanities scholars. Unlike "Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship", ARC Research Fellowship is NOT "an early career research fellowship", as claimed above. There are numerous citations for the Subject's work by prominent scholars such as Giora, Clyne, Ostler, Haspelmath and Aikhenvald, not only at Google Scholar but also at Linguistic Bibliography and Amazon.com (sometimes more comprehensive than google scholar, for some reason). Examples out of dozens:


 * Moreover, a lot is written on the Subject's work in Chinese, Hebrew and Yiddish. I copied the names in Hebrew and Chinese from the Wikipedia article and googled them (not at google scholar, it's impossible to google foreign names at google scholar, right?) and came up with hundreds of references, including TV appearances in Israel and newspapers articles in the USA and New Zealand. According to http://www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/zuckermanng.html (where you can find Subject's bio, freely available not only in Australia), the Subject published more than one book, unlike the claim above. Perhaps a linguist Wikipedian should be involved in the decision here. Daniel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.100.83 (talk) 21:11, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It is not impossible to search for names in other alphabets using Google Scholar. E.g., here is a successful search for a Japanese name. It may be impossible for someone not versed in that language to read the results, though... —David Eppstein (talk) 04:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment It would be helpful to see a citation on how prestigious the Rockefeller Foundation thing is. Is that one of the one month residencies? That doesn't strike me as particularly prestigious; perhaps someone else can weigh in here?

The ARC Discovery page I cited above does not use the term "early career fellowship", but it does say that the fellowship Zucerkmann holds is for "postdoctoral researchers of exceptional promise" rather than for "outstanding researchers with proven international reputations", which is why I described it as an award for early career researchers.

Regarding citations: I am happy to accept that google scholar is unreliable here, esp. given the academic field/topic. But what would be required is something like "several extremely highly cited scholarly publications or of a substantial number of scholarly publications with significant citation rates". WP:PROF Any half-decent academic at a research institution is going to have a reasonable number of citations, have one's work be referenced and debated, and so on. That's the job. And it isn't enough to warrant a wikpedia entry, per WP:PROF.

Crieff (talk) 21:38, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments. Answers to the questions above. Here are some of the quotes I could find: On p. 268 (see also p. 322) of his scholarly bestseller "Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish" (2004, paperback 2007), Full Prof. Dovid Katz writes "the fresh-thinking Israeli scholar Ghil'ad Zuckermann reasonably insists on calling Israeli..." Full Prof. Elana Shohamy discusses Zuckerman's theory on p. 65 of her book "Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches" (2006). Full Prof. Alexandra Aikhenvald talks about Zuckerman on p. 10 of her book "Grammars in Contact: A Cross-Linguistic Typology" (Explorations in Linguistic Typology, 2007), Robert Mailhammer discusses Zuckerman (2003) at length in "The wolf in sheep's clothing: Camouflaged Borrowing in Modern German", Folia Linguistica (2008) 42 and so on and so forth...


 * Zuckerman wrote a groundbreaking entry entitled "Israeli Hebrew" in the prestigious "Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics" (2nd Ed.), edited by Keith Brown (Elsevier, Oxford). Have you had a look at it? Moreover, what Full Prof. Moshe Bar-Asher, Hebrew Language Academy President, says (in the article discovered by N Shar (talk · contribs) 00:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC) above) is remarkable (see the quote above) and perhaps we should add it to the article, along with Dovid Katz's flattering quote.


 * To answer Crieff's query about the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio fellowships, if they are unimportant as claimed above, why are they mentioned in so many other Wikipedia entries as evidence of accomplishment? To name but few out of dozens I could find in Wikipedia: N. Katherine Hayles (""A Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEH Fellowships, a Rockefeller Residential Fellowship at Bellagio, a fellowship at the National Humanities Center and two Presidential Research Fellowships from the University of California") and Ellen Spiro ("a two-time Rockefeller Fellowship recipient").


 * The current discussion began when an anonymous wrote from Canada "the subject, while no doubt on his way to greater success, is still only ranked as an associate professor". Coming to think about it, in Australia the rank "Associate Professor" (D) is the fourth of five ranks (A-B-C-D-E). In the USA/Canada, it is the second out of three. Most Australian academics only reach "Senior Lecturer", which, in fact, is the real parallel of the US/Canada "associate professor". Messy? Yes but who cares about the rank in the first place? There are Wikipedia articles even on LECTURERs, two ranks lower than Associate Professor in the UK/Australia system, for instance linguist Bert Vaux, and of course hundreds of articles on associate professors (you can simply search). So what? Rank is not the same as impact. It has to do with age, choice of where to live and so on. As a mature student I know many full profs who have not really made an impact (they merely summarized research by others, they might have headed a department, making their way up the ladder). On the other hand, many associate profs (and even senior lecturers and so on) have made an impact. Zuckerman is one of them.


 * Finally, as a doctoral student interested in the history of ideas, I think the article as it is is still much better than many Wikipedia articles, which only list the subject's biography and titles of important papers instead of what I personally believe to be much more useful: to analyse the subject's ideas and to summarize the impact of the subject's theories, for example how Zuckerman's research into "multi-sourced neologization" challeneged Full Prof. Einar Haugen's classic classification of borrowing. As a serious student I don't really care whether a subject received the Queen's honour. What I care about is how a subject contributes to the existing body of knowledge. And you? Punchline: Leave article but improve. Daniel (58.174.100.83).


 * Comment See WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS.... And please don't forget to sign your contributions.... --Crusio (talk) 09:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * More comment Daniel, you are right that the fact that Zuckerman is not a full professor does not mean that he is not notable: it works the other way around: some positions (such as a named chair) implicate that someone is notable, but someone can be notable without having such a position. However, the fact that Zuckerman's work is cited by some other academics is not necessarily a sign that he (or his work) meets WP:PROF. Heck, my grad student's work is cited by at least 10 other scientists and she hasn't even written her thesis yet. In order to meet the "citations" criterion of WP:PROF, you will have to show that Zuckerman is cited above the average of what is normal for his field. Usually, this means that there will be hundreds of citations to a person's work, not a handful. For the moment, the quotes that you have uncovered -however flattring- do not entice me to change my vote. --Crusio (talk) 10:00, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment: What you are saying may well be true for science, definitely not for the arts and non-mainstream linguistics, where scholars hardly co-author papers. Any new comment by Crieff, who initiated the discussion? Daniel (58.174.100.83). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.100.83 (talk) 10:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Response I am not talking about co-authoring, I am talking about citations. Unless his work is cited above average for his field, the quotes that you gave do not establish notability. PS to sign your edits, put --~ at the end (or just click the signature icon at the top of the edit window). --Crusio (talk) 10:31, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Response Some replies to Daniel:


 * Regarding the quotations. There is a parenthetic-ish reference in Dovid Katz's book to Zuckermann, in which he is called "fresh-thinking" and in which one of his claims is described as "reasonable". That doesn't satisfy WP:PROF. Elana Shohamy does not really "discuss" Zuckerman's theory on p. 65 of her book "Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches"; she makes a passing reference to it. Google books won't let me see page 10 of Alexandra Aikhenvald's book, but the name index of her book lists over 300 people; persumably they are not all notable just because she noted them. (I can't access the Mailhammer article online, so have nothing to say about it.) In general, though, I agree with Crusio and others that an academic who is notable by virtue of citations would typically have hundreds of citations.


 * About the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio fellowships: These are two, three, or four week residencies granted by a competitive process to people who apply for them, and they offer room and board at a conference centre. They are certainly worth putting on an academic CV, but are not highly prestigious in a way that satisfies WP:PROF. Moreover, even if they are worth mentioning in a wikipedia entry of a notable academic (debatable, but we can grant it), this doesn't mean that they confer notability, which is what you are trying to claim.


 * About the encyclopedia entry. This is a 14-volume, 11,000-page, 3000-article creature (http://www1.elsevier.com/homepage/sal/ell2/). That Zuckermann wrote one of the entries doesn't make him notable per WP:PROF.


 * Crusio, I think what Daniel is saying when he talks about co-authoring is that the 'hundreds of citations' requirement is much easier to satisy in fields in which co-authoring is common. I think this is clearly correct. For instance, my sister works in molecular biology, and she is required to list as a co-author people who make a very minor contribution (e.g., helping to set up lab equipment one day). In my own field, articles are virtually never co-authored, and it is rare for someone to publish more than one article a year. People who make a very substantial contribution through extended discussions and editing are credited in a footnote, not in a co-authorship. But that all said: even granting for the sake of argument that linguistics wouldn't have the citation numbers that, say, some sciences would, I think Zuckermann still falls far short of what is required by WP:PROF


 * Daniel: I wonder if we are not disagreeing with you about how notable Zuckermann is, but are disagreeing rather about what is required by WP:PROF. For instance, I don't think anyone here would think that Zuckermann is not notable by ordinary uses of the term in English. After all, he has a DPhil from Oxford, and that is notable. He has given lots of talks, and has published a book, and was a fellow of a Cambridge College. That is all notable, by ordinary (non-academic) standards. I bet his parents brag about him and so on (at least they should). But WP:PROF requires something completely different.


 * Overall: I think that once all the fluff is removed from the Zuckermann article (e.g., the scholarship he won in high school), what would be left would be something like: he went to Oxford and Cambridge, wrote a book, currently is an ARC Discovery Fellow, and has proposed a certain theory of modern-day Hebrew/Israeli. And that just doesn't satisfy WP:PROF


 * Daniel: Respectfully, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. I don't know your real identity, but your IP address is in Brisbane, Australia, where Zuckermann holds his ARC fellowship, you appear reasonably familiar with Zuckermann's life and work, and you seem especially motivated to preserve his Wikipedia entry. If you are identical to or personally know Zuckermann, then please take a look at these guidelines.

Crieff (talk) 14:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Response. Crieff, Brisbane is much bigger than you think, it has several million people and three major universities. It's very simple: I went to a public lecture given by the Subject, was extremely impressed by his originality and genius, googled him and read many of his publications (unfortuantely, I'm not familiar with all the languages he writes in). Does this mean that there is a conflict of interest? If it does, then I am off, no problem. I have many other things to do. But please don't expect me to contribute to this project in the future. May I ask who you are? You already know a lot about me but when I click on Crieff, it tells me that "Wikipedia does not have a user page with this exact name." Am I missing something here? Why do I need to expose myself and you, who initiated the discussion, don't? I know the Subject has both admirers and enemies. Simply google and see. Bar-Asher, Philologos... How many linguists did you meet who were interviewed by Reuters (and many foreign language news agencies) other than Chomsky, of course? What interest do you have here? Did I enter an exclusive club by mistake? Adiós, Daniel (58.174.100.83).

— 58.174.100.83 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Response. Daniel, I hope you can understand why a person might think there is a COI in this case, given the points I mentioned. And I hope you can understand why, thinking there might be a conflict of interest, a person might point out Wikipedia's COI guidelines, esp. to someone who appears to be a new user of WP. I am in no position to say whether you stand in a COI to this article, of course, but as I said you might want to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. As for me, I had never heard of Zuckermann before I clicked on his page, which I arrived at because I was looking at people listed as Fellows of Churchill College. My interest is only in helping to ensure that Wikipedia is not used to puff up someone's career inappropriately (whether that be done intentionally or not, by the subject or by someone the subject has never met, and so on). Crieff (talk) 21:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep It obvious that this prof is productive and notable, if not somewhat controversial (the ultimate notability criteria, eh?) in his field. And yes, yes, it needs improvement. WVhybrid (talk) 01:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Response WVhybrid, If it is obvious, then why are so many of us disagreeing? Can you please be more specific about why you think the subject satisfies [WP:PROF]]? Crieff (talk) 01:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Re-Response The subject is prolific, well-cited, controversial inside and outside academia, and has received outstanding awards and fellowships, which, in sum, is notable. I can see that this 3 year old article deserves several improvement templates, but it does not deserve to be deleted.  IMHO, this 3 year old article is worth saving, and should not be dumped in the ol' bit bin. As for WP:PROF, in this case WP:IAR should trump.  Wikipedia is better with this article than without.  Wikipedia will be even better if someone were to improve this article. WVhybrid (talk) 03:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. What you say would be significant, but can you provide any support for this?  He has received fellowships:  precisely which outstanding awards are you referring to?  To what can we direct our attention to verify that he is well-cited (more than the average professor) and controversial inside and outside of academia?  RJC Talk Contribs 03:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Being productive does not make one notable. The number of citations is minimal. This is the first time that I have seen being "controversial" or not as a criterion to determine notability. I can't see what controversiality has to do with this at all. As for fellowships, most academics who get to a career point to have an associate professor position will have had at least one, I would say. --Crusio (talk) 06:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * CommentI concur with RJC re the requests for specifics. But also: the fact the article has been around for three years, which you mention twice, is not relevant here, since what is at issue is whether the subject satisfies WP:PROF. Crieff (talk) 12:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comments/Responses Responding to "To what can we direct our attention to verify that he is well-cited (more than the average professor) and controversial inside and outside of academia?", as described by Reuters in a 2006 article, "Zuckermann's lectures are packed, with the cream of Israeli academia invariably looking uncertain on whether to endorse his innovative streak or rise to the defense of the mother tongue...Professor Moshe Bar-Asher, president of Israel's Hebrew Language Academy, likened Zuckermann to Noam Chomsky...'I think Zuckermann is a very good scholar, but he risks wasting his efforts by mixing up linguistics with politics,' Bar-Asher said. 'He stirs up a lot of antagonism.'", see http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3333948,00.html "Hebrew or Israeli? Linguist stirs Zionist debate. Ghil'ad Zuckermann argues that modern Hebrew should be renamed 'Israeli'", Reuters, November 29, 2006. The Subject's controversial model is well known and often discussed by linguists, especially in Israel. Some scholars, for example prominent Yiddish linguist Dovid Katz (who refers to Zuckermann as a "fresh-thinking Israeli scholar"), adopt Zuckermann's glottonym "Israeli" and accept his notion of hybridity - see Katz, Dovid (2004), http://www.dovidkatz.net/i_1soy.htm Words on Fire. The Unfinished Story of Yiddish, New York: Basic Books. Others, for example prominent author and translator Hillel Halkin, oppose Zuckermann's model. In an article published on December 24, 2004 in The Forward under the pseudonym "Philologos", Halkin accused Zuckermann of political agenda, see http://www.forward.com/articles/4052/ "Hebrew vs. Israeli", an article on Zuckermann by Hillel Halkin ("Philologos"), Forward, December 24, 2004. Zuckermann's detailed response was published on December 28, 2004 in The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language, see http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/tmr/tmr08/tmr08013.htm "The Genesis of the Israeli Language: A Brief Response to 'Philologos'", an article by Zuckermann, The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language, Vol. 08.013, December 28, 2004.
 * Responding to "The number of citations is minimal", that's simply false. There're hundreds of citations. The tool you are using (Google Scholar) is actually inadequate for the arts and should be regarded as fragmentary evidence simply because it doesn't list hundreds of books and articles, where the Subject is cited. This is a common problem occurring when a scientist, all of whose articles being digitized and online, tries to assess a humanities professor. In the arts, most material is not online! To give you an example, the Subject is cited on p. 245 of Michael Clyne's influential book "Dynamics of Language Contact", Cambridge University Press, 2003. You can't find that citation at google scholar. There are hundreds of other examples.
 * Responding to "As for fellowships, most academics who get to a career point to have an associate professor position will have had at least one, I would say", but the Subject has won almost ten fellowships, not just one!
 * The statement above "If it is obvious, then why are so many of us disagreeing?" is circular IMHO. I am very new to Wikipedia but I'm sure there is a good abbreviation to deal with such circularity. Too much misinformation was given above (for example misinforming us that ARC discovery fellowships were for early-career researchers, or that the Rockefeller fellowship was not prestigious), whuch makes me wonder if some disagree simply because they don't really bother to familiarize themselves with the matter. Perhaps you should do what I do: go to a decent library and search for reliable information. But then you risk being suspected (by an anonymous) of COI. How ironic!
 * I improved the Entry, deleted fluff (is there more that should be deleted?) and added the following information that I recently found to the entry: Zuckerman is consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), http://www.oed.com/about/advisers.html, and Editorial Board member of Journal of Language Contact, http://cgi.server.uni-frankfurt.de/fb09/ifas/JLCCMS/issues/VARIA_1/JLC_Varia_1_2008.pdf, http://www.jlc-journal.org/. He wrote the longest known palindrome in Hebrew, a meaningful palindromic story, http://www.zuckermann.org/recreational.html see Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (1998). "Lear’s in Israel", Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics 31 (2), pp. 154-5, as well as the longest known Italo-Hebraic homophonous poem, http://www.zuckermann.org/poetry.html Bilingual Homophonous Poems - see Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), "Shir Du-Leshoni" (Bilingual Poem), Ho!, Literary Magazine 3, pp. 256-257. Daniel (58.174.100.83). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.100.83 (talk) 21:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ReplyI'm going to try to avoid getting into this again (and again and again and again). But just quickly: When I said "if it is obvious, then why are so many of us disagreeing", what I meant to point out was that if something is _obvious_, then that so many of us are disagreeing is inexplicable (it must not be obvious to us). It was a call for that person to provide a bit of argument. Crieff (talk) 02:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * delete per David Eppstein. In case anyone was wondering, a quick google scholar suggests his h-index is 5... Pete.Hurd (talk) 22:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Please see comments above about the unreliability of Google Scholar for the Arts. Also, the Subject made significant impact outside academic circles. OK, I think I contributed enough to the discussion, and more relevantly to the Article (have a look at the new version). Good luck. Adiós, Daniel (58.174.100.83). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.100.83 (talk) 23:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete although this scholar has some notability in being discussed outside of academia he is still not notable under WP:PROF. He is not a full professor.  He has no chair.  He has written one book and many journal articles, but that would put him in the same class as thousands of other academics across Australia.  Also, to clarify, ARC Discovery Fellowships are not that prestigious - even I have gotten one and there is no way I would merit a page on wikipedia. Jenafalt (talk) 09:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep The academic/professor meets one of WP:PROF conditions: "The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity." (Criterion 7). The article itself is informative, factual and well-referenced. It ought to satisfy WP inclusionists at the very least. Jissen (talk) 02:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * — Jissen (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

— 216.27.149.45 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete Obviously, Gilad himself wrote this wikipedia entry, calling his esoteric work "Groundbreaking". This is not wikipedia worthy material. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.27.149.45 (talk) 03:55, 29 August 2008 (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.