Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Swadesh lists


 * 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 transwiki all. --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Swadesh lists
Please note that this is an nomination for many identically-formed articles at once. All these Swadesh lists are lists of words. Most have no prose at all and are only lexical information, and there is a strong precedent for transwikiing and deleting lexicons from Wikipedia. Note prior agreement on th ematter at Talk:Swadesh_list, which led to their mass tagging. Note Afrikaans_language/Swadesh_list was already transwikied to wikt:Wiktionary:Swadesh lists for Afrikaans and Dutch and deleted. These are all incorrigible dictionary material, and, per WP:WINAD, should be transwikied and deleted. They will be happier at Wiktionary. Dmcdevit·t 08:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The following articles are propsed for transwiki and deletion in this nomination:


 * Antillean Creole/Swadesh list – Arabic/Swadesh list – Bangala language/Swadesh list – Bashkir language/Swadesh list – Basque language/Swadesh list – Belarusian language/Swadesh list – Breton language/Swadesh list – Bulgarian language/Swadesh list – Catalan language/Swadesh list – Croatian language/Swadesh list – Czech language/Swadesh list – Danish language/Swadesh list – Dutch language/Swadesh list – Egyptian Arabic/Swadesh list – Estonian language/Swadesh list – Finnish language/Swadesh list – French language/Swadesh list – West Frisian language/Swadesh list – Friulian language/Swadesh list – Georgian language/Swadesh list – German language/Swadesh list – Greek language/Swadesh list – Guarani language/Swadesh list – Haïtian Creole language/Swadesh list – Hausa language/Swadesh list – Hindi Swadesh list – Hungarian language/Swadesh list – Icelandic language/Swadesh list – Indonesian language/Swadesh list – Irish language/Swadesh list – Italian language/Swadesh list – Japanese language/Swadesh list – Latvian – Lingala language/Swadesh list – Lithuanian language/Swadesh list – Macedonian language/Swadesh list – Malagasy language/Swadesh list – Malay language/Swadesh list – Mandarin Swadesh list – Polish language/Swadesh list – Portuguese language/Swadesh list – Quechua language/Swadesh list – Romanian language/Swadesh list – Russian language/Swadesh list – Scottish Gaelic language/Swadesh list – Serbian language/Swadesh list – Slovenian language/Swadesh list – Spanish language/Swadesh list – Sranan Tongo/Swadesh list – Swahili language/Swadesh list – Swedish language/Swadesh list – Tagalog language/Swadesh list – Tajik language/Swadesh list – Tahitian language/Swadesh list – Turkish language/Swadesh list – Vietnamese language/Swadesh list – Zulu language/Swadesh list - Quenya Swadesh list -Mandarin Swadesh list - Maltese swadesh list - Cantonese Swadesh List - Cypriot Maronite Arabic Swadesh List


 * Comment - since there is already broad agreement to transwiki these, I suggest you withdraw this nomination, transwiki and then tag them with prod. Yomangani talk 09:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There may be broad agreement, but I'm not willing to prod all of these, hope for the best, and then have to do an AfD anyway if one person removed the tag. Also, I don't really want to go ahead with the transwiki until I have the delete decision in hand. That's a lot of work. Note that there is a queue at Articles for deletion/Old/Transwiki for articles with transwiki decisions like this. It's normal procedure. Dmcdevit·t 09:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete all per nom. MER-C 12:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems like a reasonable nomination to me. Delete all. -- Ghirla -трёп-  13:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * transwiki and delete. dab (&#5839;) 13:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * transwiki per dab, see WP:NOR–♥ «Charles A. L.» 14:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Not even wiktionary has the swadesh lists independent from each other. They group them and even have language family comparison pages.  Would that be more encyclopedic?  It would then be more than a list of words and could even be accompanied by analysis.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 18:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The point is that it needs to be more than lists of words and lexical data. I don't see how reorganizing the lists in any way will accomplish that. Dmcdevit·t 18:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * See wiktionary's Slavic table. Now if they put it in IPA, it would demonstrate very clearly the differences and similarities between the different languages.  This is the point of Swadesh lists. If we made a wikipedia page for different language family swadesh lists, then this deletion wouldn't be nearly as controversial.  Language comparison isn't inappropriate for an encyclopedia.  It's the main reason that pages like list of common phrases in various languages and The Lord's Prayer in different languages are still on Wikipedia.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep: Note that these pages are not independant pages, but subpages of language articles, for most of them. Croquant 19:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * At least transwiki before deleting, in order to save the information included. Croquant 19:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Transwiki and delete. Lim e tom 05:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. These are not incipient dictionaries, but limited (207 words) samples of languages using a widespread standard. As Croquant notes, these are subpages of articles, and are encyclopedic in nature: they are language samples. And is the fact that I'm a professional linguist relevant to mention here? It's what we'd put in an encyclopedia of the world's languages, and is 'very ill suited to moving to a dictionary', which is something quite different.--Drmaik 17:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It's odd that you'd say they're ill-suited to moving to a dictionary, when Wiktionary has already some of these lists itself. I don't understand what noting that they are subpages has to do with anything; that doesn't make it encyclopedic. Note how the Afrikaans article is now, with a prominent pointer to the Swadesh list on Wiktionary. It is more appropriate there. These are still lists of lexical data, for which consensus already exists against inclusion, and which is not encyclopedic. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. Dmcdevit·t 19:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, whether wiktionary has them or not is not really the point. Dictionaries are open-ended volumes which give a range of meanings, instances of use, parts of speech etc. Word lists are not there for people to learn the definitions of certain words, but as a basis of linguistic comparison, which is not the purpose of dictionaries. Language pages have a variety of samples of the language itself, and cover areas such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, so I do not understand why lexis should be moved elsewhere. The very strength of the Swadesh lists is that they are standardised. But rather than putting them within the article itself, because of their size it is better to have them as subpages. So I think the Swadesh lists are better kept within Wikipedia. --Drmaik 07:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a strawman argument. You need to familiarize yourself with Wiktionary, (see wikt:Category:Appendices), for a start, before you propound on the purpose of dictionaries: we're not concerned about those, but about Wiktionary. Rather than asserting that they are inappropriate dictionary articles (you'll want to see wikt:Wiktionary:Requests for deletion to make that argument), please assert why they are encyclopedic. If you assert that is because they are language comparison (which still doesn't explain why it's encyclopedic), this doesn't make sense: these are stand-alone word lists, and they don't engage in comparison. The irony being that Wiktionary's Swadesh lists do make comparisons. Dmcdevit·t 08:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I don't know much about wiktionary. But my point, to summarise what I put above, is that Swadesh lists are composed of a small amount of lexical data, which is appropriate to demonstrate the lexis of the language, just as it is appropriate to have data on other linguistic areas. And in some cases it might be good to have combined Swadseh lists to demonstrate a language family: an argument could be made for that. --Drmaik 09:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The point should not be the relevance of Swadesh list pages per se in an encyclopedia, but there relevance in the whole set of an encyclopedia article dealing with a language. Due to editorial constraints, such an article may be built from various parts : main page and sub- or related pages. You can't fairly separate sub- or related pages from the main part of the article. Croquant 08:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd argue that they aren't relevant by themselves, even if we pasted them into their respective language pages. Swadesh lists are used for comparative purposes and it's much better to group them together.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 18:55, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've created Swadesh list of slavic languages. I invite other editors to create and contribute to similar pages for Celtic, Germanic, Indo-Iranian, Afro-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Romance, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Austronesian, and whatever other language family there's enough information for. For a base table without any words in it, see this edit. Once these pages are significantly filled out, you've got my delete vote.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Er, why? This is exactly what you should do, but at Wiktionary. The point is that you are creatig more lists of words without prose. This is an encyclopedia. Dmcdevit·t 23:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Then we can put prose in. I just started the slavic page so it'll be a little bit before it has good quality but I think that showing the comparison along with a table is more encyclopedic than just the lists by themselves. Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Transwiki first, then relist or PROD I don't want to see this stuff disappear before it is transwiki'd, and I have a bad feeling that the articles will get lost in the deletion process and never moved to wiktionary. I agree with Yomangani's comment. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Transwiki It's a good source of lexical information. Deleting it just like that is not good. It should definitely be moved to Wiktionary, and deleted only after it is confirmed that the Swadesh lists have settled down there. --Agari 15:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, or alternatively, Transwiki. They're absolutely useful, actually I was going to look at them for my Computer Science research work when I found out they're under deletion review. --Angelo 15:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge, what use is transwikiying. How will some of these Swadesh lists be of any help on the English wiktionary. Why would a dictionary include how you say words in different languages. These lists could easily be merged into their respective language articles. T REX speak 23:21, 25 October 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.