Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rendille–Boni languages


 * 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. (non-admin closure) DavidLeighEllis (talk) 05:07, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Rendille–Boni languages

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Polyphyletic wastebasket taxon; the article provides no information other than its proposed existence. The current consensus classification is reported by e.g. Tosco (1994), Banti (2013) to be that Aweer (Boni) is a Somalic variety closely related to Garre. Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 21:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. 21:24, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Kenya-related deletion discussions.  Trɔpʏliʊm  • blah 21:24, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2014 July 9.  — cyberbot I  Notify Online 21:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * OT: what's the Cyberbot time delay for jumping on this? This was bot-handled before I had time to even attempt manually transcluding it. -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 00:02, 10 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Weak keep. Wikipedia is not the place for linguists to work out correct taxonomies. If reliable sources (preferably secondary or tertiary sources) differ on the status of the family, that controversy needs to be noted, with due weight to the published sources on each side. But that does not suggest that the controversial conclusions should be deleted from Wikipedia. True, the stub article currently cites only one source, but that source, Ethnologue, is for better or worse often the key work for such issues. Cnilep (talk) 02:35, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment The current de facto WP NPOV standard for taxonomic articles is to cover units that are either more or less accepted by consensus (e.g. Balto-Slavic), or failing that, otherwise notable proposals (e.g. Hokan). One can easily find in literature thousands of "small" groupings of this kind that were proposed in one or two publications and that have never been subject to closer analysis. These are typically noted, if at all, in articles on the lower unquestioned node (e.g. Sino-Tibetan languages). Do you thus mean to imply that you'd grant Ethnologue (a tertiary source, here contradicted by secondary sources) the role of arbiter on what such groupings are sufficiently notable for an article of their own? (FWIW I suppose for a more fleshed-out article a merger might be a better proposal, but the current article covers literally nothing else than the fact that this grouping has been proposed. Amending the proposal to note this…) -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 19:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Regarding, "you'd grant Ethnologue... the role of arbiter", it was not me that made that (not uncontroversial) grant; it was the International Organization for Standards. Wikipedia need not slavishly adopt ISO 639-3 or ISO 639-6 standards, but those standards do have a certain weight with regard to controversial definitions. (And, lest we forget, although Cnilep claims to be a linguist and Tropylium claims to be a university student interested in linguistics, there is a slim possibility that we are both precocious canines. Thus the deference to published sources, even if we disagree with them) Cnilep (talk) 00:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this is relevant. ISO-639-3 does not standardize classification. Ethnologue being an unambiguously reliable source on what languages exist does not make it one on issues of their history. The disagreement is not between them and me, it's between them and reliable secondary sources.-- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 19:45, 15 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Weak keep - where current social science consensus is mixed, proper weight should be given to the controversies. Here, I am leaning to a keep with the added sources, but a merger to an appropriate target would also be reasonable. Bearian (talk) 16:36, 14 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep per Cnilep. It looks like there are reliable sources (including the ISO standard) sufficient to establish notability and also to support the description of the various POVs in this controversy. --Mark viking (talk) 19:32, 15 July 2014 (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.