Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Musilanguage


 * 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 no consensus. Uncle G makes an exceptional argument for this being a verifiable theory that is being presented almost as OR here. I will tag it for merger with evolutionary musicology -- Samir  धर्म 05:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Musilanguage
This is an article which has been around for a while, without ever being fixed up. The term was coined by one man, and the sources which refer to it all appear to mention it as being his term. Of the 100-odd unique Googles, Wikipedia is the leading resource on this subject. This has all the appearances of a one-man neologism, and in the time since I originally tagged it for cleanup it seems to have become less prevalent not more. Just zis Guy you know? 21:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete - The Woman Who Sold The World 16:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 *  AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.  Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  02:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete This appears to be a non notable term, possible Hoax. doktorb wordsdeeds 09:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The article is, as its first paragraph states, about "a theory that music and language have a common ancestor". The article had several references discussing and analysing the co-evolution of music and language from sources other than Steven Brown, including a detailed discussion in a second book by a different author, until JzG removed them immediately before nominating the article for deletion.  The problem with the article is that it only currently includes material from the first source, not that the theory that it discusses is original research.  Deletion is not the way to fix that, nor is removing from the article the sources that can be used to improve it.  The objection to this article appears to be based solely upon its use of Steven Brown's word for the theory as its title, rather than upon reading the sources to see whether the co-evolution of language and music has been discussed by people other than Brown.  That's a simple matter of article naming conventions. The way to fix the article is to round it out with the discussions from the other sources on the relationship between music and language, including the New Scientist article, not to delete it. Keep. Uncle G 12:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * By the way, if one looks at the references section of Chase's book, one will find that there's an awful lot of source material in the field of Biomusicology on the subject of the evolution of language and music. There are works by Bickerton, Cross, Dissanayake, Falk, Fernald, Geissmann, Hauser &amp; McDermott, Huron, Miller, and Todd that all appear to have relevance to the subject. Uncle G 12:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I removed the ones which were not reliable sources, and having found that what was left was not much I nominated it for deletion. There is no credible evidence of widespread currency of this term. Just zis Guy you know? 15:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * No, you didn't. You removed two articles from New Scientist, some university degree course material, an article by Bob Fink, and a book. It may or may not be the most common name for an article about a theory of the co-evolution of music and language, but that is a simple matter of naming conventions, not deletion.  To warrant deletion, it would have to be established either that this article is unverifiable or that such a theory has not progressed beyond its creators.  The many works on this subject from several authors, both in the article and in the references section that I point to earlier, belie both of those.  Uncle G 16:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't want to pick a fight with you here. I am happy to concede that the concept may be significant, but the title gives undue weight to one man's name for it.  What should it be called, and how widely is the theory accepted among subject experts? Just zis Guy you know? 23:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't think that you were trying to pick a fight. &#9786;  We're having a perfectly fine discussion about the provenances and depths of sources &mdash; the proper study of encyclopaedists.  I've actually been thinking along the same lines as you appear to be.  This article is clearly too narrowly focussed, including material from only one source.  (One of my motivations for adding the other sources to the article in the first place was the hope that an editor would expand its scope.)  But we don't need to delete it to fix that.  A merger, along with The Origins of Music (another article that really is too narrow in scope to stand alone) into evolutionary musicology seems to be the best course of action. Uncle G 11:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Just zis Guy you know? 17:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete 1 hit on JSTOR, which contains 38 music journals. (The hit is a review of the book.) Zero hits on ScienceDirect, but since SD doesn't include music journal this isn't quite as telling. No evidence of widespread usage. ~ trialsanderrors 17:21, 28 August 2006 (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.