Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Languages of the Indian subcontinent


 * 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 redirect to Languages of South Asia. Content can be merged from the history as desired.  Sandstein  08:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Languages of the Indian subcontinent

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

As made clear from this discussion, there isn't scope for a separate article from Languages of South Asia. This should be redirected there. – Uanfala (talk) 18:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Afghanistan-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bangladesh-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Maldives-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Nepal-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Pakistan-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sri Lanka-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Pings to participants in the last discussion:, , , . – Uanfala (talk) 18:24, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Thank you, Uanfala! The original author said that they were writing about Indic languages which they say include only two of the language families of "South Asia". I don't have the expertise to comment on that. But I would think such an article, if it's a good idea, should be written at Indic languages. That is if it would be necessary to split it from Languages of South Asia which, one assumes, would devote a large proportion to the same Indic languages. Languages of South Asia currently has sections on countries but nothing else though the lead image shows the language families of South Asia which do not adhere to national boundaries. Perhaps that article needs expanding or reorganising to make it into a proper language article. Otherwise, Language families of South Asia would appear to be the missing counterpart to the existing article, which would likely again make Languages of the Indian subcontinent redundant. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:05, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The article that covers the language families of South Asia is Languages of South Asia (I wouldn't even recommend creating Language families of South Asia as a redirect: we don't have any other redirects of this kind ). – Uanfala (talk) 14:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete or redirect as an unnecessary WP:POVFORK. In many definitions, South Asia and Indian subcontinent are coterminous, and if they are used differently, this only affects (roughly speaking) the inclusion of Afghanistan. This potential difference in range does not warrant a separate article, especially since Afghanistan linguistically blends into the Indian subcontinent (in the narrow sense). As I have observed in the preceding discussion, the article somehow heavily leans on the concept of "Indic languages". This is however a vague term, ranging from an alternative name for the Indo-Aryan languages to a collective term for the languages of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, and is also employed a term for a "language grouping" in the fringe dabblings of Subhash Kak (an academic without credentials in linguistics) cited in the lead of the article.
 * The lede also contains untenable errors such as the statement excluding Austro-Asiatic languages (which are firmly entrenched in the areal linguistics of the Indian subcontinent). There is no scholarly definition of Indic that makes them "less Indic" than Indo-Aryan or Dravidian languages. –Austronesier (talk) 21:46, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗  plicit  00:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep or move. Like Usedtobecool has pointed out above, there is still confusion as to what the title of the page should be. Since South Asia and Indian subcontinent are almost considered the same, I understand the point that the page feels like an unnecessary fork; moving the page under a better title could be a good option. My major point of concern is that all our discussions still do not answer the question of why there is a lot of good literature mentioning Indic in the context of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian instead of just Indo-Aryan, as can be easily seen by browsing https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=indic+languages . I think that the discussions are not yet concrete enough, and should continue on the Talk page before converging about the redirection or moving to another page, especially to ensure someone does not come-up with this confusion again and recreates the same thing. Thank you! BawaseerKhwaja (talk) 05:09, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Most citations for "Indic languages" in Google Scholar are from papers in Computational Linguistics written by Indian scholars. I can't see that these papers explicitly restrict "Indic" to Indo-Aryan (IA) and Dravidian. Their actual scope might indeed eventually turn out to include only IA and Dravidian languages, but that's because they apply their methods to the most widely spoken languages in the subcontinent. Tibeto-Burmese (TB) and Austro-Asiatic (AA) languages simply cannot numerically compete with the "big ones" like Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu. So the apparent "exclusion" of TB and AA languages from papers about "Indic" is just a demographic artefact. –Austronesier (talk) 20:56, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Probably you are right. I have made an edit in the article now mentioning other related families as well as a possibility. Please feel free to edit. BawaseerKhwaja (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 11:17, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete for multiple reasons. (1)Per nominator, the article can be merged with Languages of South Asia, which is more general in nature. (2) The title is not neutral. It is focusing on India. If kept, it will be a potential source for vandilism. I suggest to avoid the phrase "Indian subcontinent" in general to describe other neighbouring countries. (3) Article is incomplete because it fails to list cover all the  "indic" languages. (4) The article is erronous; for example Nepali is spoken in Bhutan and China(sothern Tibet) as well. nirmal (talk) 10:50, 20 January 2022 (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.