Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Laal language

Laal language
Self-nomination, but I will nonetheless blow my own horn a bit and point out that, to the best of my knowledge, this is the most detailed treatment of Laal in the English language anywhere, and - one advantage of dealing with "obscure" languages - I believe I have checked every primary source in existence. - Mustafaa 00:15, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Very impressive. Support, and my personal congratulations on such good work. Everyking 00:41, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Very reluctantly object, although I also give my personal congratulations for the excellent work. My concerns are more about style than substance - this is a superb article on the sort of topic that Wikipedia is inclined to overlook. However, it could really do with a better lead section, and it'd be nice if it were more accessible to non-linguists. It'd also be nice to see information on any preservation efforts (or if not, note that there aren't any) and any legal status. Also, is it a written language, and if so, what script? Ambi 01:09, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * That objection might be answered by a adding a short paragraph to the lead summarizing the fact that it's unclassified, and maybe another on anything about system of writing (either by natives or linguists) and legal status (none, I presume, but we should mention that). Ambi, is there anything else you think should be in the lead? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:20, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, no preservation efforts have been launched; I've updated the article to reflect the absence of schools which leads me to suspect that, as well as a bit more on the lead paragraph. - Mustafaa 02:11, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * The lead section is now superb - nice work! I've struck out three of my five objections above. :) Ambi 02:24, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * And I've added a little "legal status" section. Now the fifth objection might be a bit harder to answer... :) - Mustafaa 03:04, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I've crossed out my objections, anyway - consider this a big support. The work you've done on the introductory few sections has had the effect of making it a lot more readable to non-linguists. It'd be nice if some of the later sections could receive a little bit of similar treatment, but I understand the difficulties considering the content - it's certainly not worth holding up FA status for this excellent article over. Ambi 03:45, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. How deliciously complex!  My suspicion is also that the scarcity and small number of fricatives in the language puts it in rare company.  -- Smerdis of Tlön 02:20, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Support: I do wonder if the possibility of its being a linguistic relic has been getting more support or less as time has gone on. Geogre 02:53, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I think more, but surprisingly few authors have commented on it, considering its status. Then again, that applies to a lot of Central African languages; I don't think there's even a reconstruction of Proto-Adamawa-Ubangi yet, for instance, and no one seems to have followed up on Kujarge or Jalaa yet. - Mustafaa 03:04, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:15, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. We want more like this! [[User:Dbachmann|dab ( T ) ]] 11:23, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Support, terrifically professional. Also very interesting, especially the grammar (to me), but I must protest against having neither explanation nor bluelink for the concept singulative, it's fairly arcane. Also I find the information on numbers tantalizing. Numbers "include" one, two and four? Well.. yeah, they probably would, don't they include "three"?--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 14:38, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * There are probably a lot more numbers (unlike in the Andamanese languages!), but unfortunately no others are given in the works published; I've updated it to explain that. Also added an article on singulative. - Mustafaa 13:04, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. I was trying in vain to imagine a culture that would need to talk about four things but not three things.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 20:12, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Object. Very good material and I will support after two things: 1) There are so many small, one sentence sections and paragraphs that it makes the article very distracting and hard to read. It is already on a difficult subject, digging into the linguistics, so this issue doesn't help. Basically the article doesn't flow well.  It is possible to combine some bits and work to make it flow better? 2) Bibliography is such an ambiguous term, that can just be used to list the works on a given topic.  Since you have used them for material, do you mind calling the section references? - Taxman 16:31, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) will take some thought; I can see your point, but on the other hand, I can also see an argument that they make navigation through the contents page easier. But 2) is actually intended to list every known work on the language, and if there are any out there that I've missed, I'd love for them to be added at some stage; so to that extent, I kind of think the term "bibliography" might be appropriate. - Mustafaa 13:15, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * For 1, the issue is also just that one sentence paragraphs are bad writing style. If someone navigates to a section from the toc and see only one sentence, would they not be dissapointed? 2) Listing all the works on a subject is a good goal, but somehow you need to specify what sources you actually used in the writing of the article.  The featured article criteria suggest a 'References' section for that.  That is the ambiguity I was referring to.  If is important to know which works were actually used by the author for material or checking facts. Otherwise, with only a list of works about a subject, an article has no references. - Taxman 13:52, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * For 1: Not me! I would just love it if any of the works referenced had had even a one-sentence chapter on interrogatives, or numbers...  But other may disagree.  For 2), I see your point, so I've changed the title. - Mustafaa 14:18, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with Taxman, I think it would be a lot harder to navigate in this article if the one-sentence sections and paragraphs were joined together. They're separate in content, and if they were combined, the reader would need to do the extra job of distinguishing them. It seems to me that for grammatical description, this is good writing style. There's a reason grammar books have this kind of layout. Now, if the paragraphs could be made longer by putting more info into each of them, that would be great, but my understanding is that Mustafaa has already scraped the barrel.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 20:12, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * For some, if there really isn't more information available, I'll buy it. But for others, especially one sentence paragraphs in larger sections, the information is already there, it just needs to be merged together with good style.  If this is all the information available on the topic, it still can be made to flow a bit better in parts without losing anything. For example many paragraphs are very choppy, and not knowing the subject, it is hard for me to improve them. As an aside, what is the chance you can get an ogg encoded file with a sample of the language for us to hear? :) (Certainly not objecting on that basis!) - Taxman 00:32, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I've merged together the headings under "Speaker"; I'm not sure I can see ways to do something similar for the 1-sentence grammar headings. Do you have any suggestions?  As for the soundfile - I wish! Give me a nice travel grant and I'll go get one, though... ;) - Mustafaa 00:54, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * For the sections that are very small but need to be distinct, there might be nothing better if no more information can be found. The only ones left are the one sentence paragraph at the end of 'Nouns' (can nothing more be said about that to merge it in with the para above or expand it?) and the one just below that in the personal pronouns section. Otherwise see what you can do to improve the flow within paragraphs and I'll be happy. Sorry, don't mean to be a pest, I just like to see great articles. - Taxman 03:55, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think my recent edits may take the article towards addressing these issues... - Mustafaa 13:55, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. Mustafaa has been doing very good work on endangered languages, and this one is superb. Like dab says: we want more like this!  &mdash; mark &#9998; 18:12, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. Can someone drop word on my talk page as to how I can ensure all those IPA characters are on my computer/browser. About half of them show up as blank squares.--ZayZayEM 01:53, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I really think this article should have an additional image (a picture of one of the villages or so) and a sound sample, but I realise these would probably be hard to come given the obscurity of the language. Therefore I will not object, but remain neutral. Jeronimo 07:59, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Support: I'm impressed! - Ta bu shi da yu 08:32, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Support: Fascinating. BanyanTree 17:56, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)