Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Nabataean Aramaic/archive1

Nabataean Aramaic

 * Nominator(s): Benji man (talk) 08:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

This article is about the Aramaic language used by the Nabataeans. It's a topic I've been researching professionally for the past several years, but I have made sure not to cite my own research or include any original research. At the moment, this article stands as probably the most elaborate Wikipedia article on any Aramaic language. I hope that achieving FA status will give a boost to related topics as well. Finally, this is my first FA nomination, so I apologize in advance for any instances where I don't follow the procedure correctly. Benji man (talk) 08:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Alright, Syriac language is longer, at least :) Benji man (talk) 08:58, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

First-time nomination

 * Hi, and welcome to FAC. Just noting that as a first time nominator at FAC, this article will need to pass a source to text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing to be considered for promotion. Good luck with the nomination. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:31, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Do I need to do anything to organize this? Benji man (talk) 12:00, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Image review

 * Suggest adding alt text


 * >Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods


 * File:Cooke's_Text-book_of_North-Semitic_Inscriptions,_Nabataean_and_Palmyrene_01.jpg: what is the author's date of death?
 * 1939. Benji man (talk) 19:22, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Needs a review for WP:WTW. For example, (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:13, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Images of inscriptions from countries without freedom of panorama should include an explicit tag for the original work. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, what kind of tag do you mean? Do you have an example somewhere? Benji man (talk) 08:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Driving by: usually, or : I've gone and added this or the equivalent to all of the photographs of ancient works of art used in the article . UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:38, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! Benji man (talk) 12:00, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Buidhe—comments
 * avoid "notes" as in "Cantineau notes that it cannot be established whether this also holds for Nabataean" or "Michael O'Connor... noted that loanwords are largely restricted to technical terms" (also try to stick to one tense)
 * it's not verifiable what he thinks/ knows so "Cantineau is unsure" and "the examples known to Cantineau" should be rephrased
 * Thank you, I hope to go through the article for other WTW issues soon! Benji man (talk) 08:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for addressing my comments, but it's not considered good form to strike someone else's comment. I wish you good luck with this FAC. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  01:11, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't know that. Will unstrike them. Benji man (talk) 12:26, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Airship
An excellent example of the first-time FA nomination—bags of potential, but a fair few issues of varying magnitude, if you don't mind me saying. Let's start with the stuff that caught my eye first (bearing in mind that I'm not in any way a language specialist). Like always, these are suggestions: feel free to decline with justification
 * I feel like the lead could be better organised. The article is two thousand six hundred words, not including tables/notes/captions; perhaps an introductory short paragraph, a paragraph on history, and one on phonology/morphology/syntax?
 * Minor point: shouldn't it be "was" in the first sentence?


 * Always try to minimise short, stubby sentences or paragraphs, of which there are rather many.
 * Is it possible to remove the lists and put the whole syntax section in prose? In any case, I can't see any need for subsections in that section—the latter two especially are not nearly long enough to deserve a separate heading. I do find that language articles are always rather MOS:OVERSECTION-heavy.
 * It's also seemingly dependent on one inline citation, which I think is further justification for the above suggestion.

Let's start with that and see how we get on. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:05, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
 * See MOS:SA for guidance on the See Also section. Specifically, take a note of MOS:NOTSEEALSO: "As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body."
 * If you use CS1 templates for the Sources section, you should probably use them for the Further Reading section too.
 * Some images need citations, including the coins, the latter part of the Tayma inscription, and the tracing, as they contain higher analysis.
 * I am extremely confused about the hatnote at the bottom of the sample texts section.


 * Thanks a lot! Will try to address these soon! Benji man (talk) 13:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, how are you doing with responses to these? I ask because the time out clock has just started ticking. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:48, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Gog the Mild, thanks! I think I've covered most of them, just haven't been able to go through the whole article for WTW issues as I was hoping to. Would you like to take a look at the article? Benji man (talk) 09:10, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Benji man. If you have addressed all of 's comments, it is a good idea to ping them to let them know. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Gog the Mild
Recusing to review. I am a little doubtful as to whether this is currently FAC ready, but ping me once you have wrapped up Airship's comments, or are about to, and I'll go throuhg a couple of sections in detail and we'll see where we are. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Having just read (only) the lead, I get a niggling feeling that this may no longer be a living written language. But then again it starts "Nabataean Aramaic is the Aramaic variety used ...", not was and has no dates for when it flourished. So I assume that it is still in regular use.
 * Citation 36: I would suggest putting the note in a note, rather than a cite.
 * In sources, all books should have either an ISBN or an OCLC.
 * I assume that you have not had a FAC mentor while working on this, that it has not been through PR and that it has not been to GoCER?


 * Thanks! Just in response to your first point, MOS:WAS gives me the impression that "is" is correct for a dead language with extant records. It's also what's used in e.g. Akkadian language. Is this wrong? Benji man (talk) 13:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Your tweak resolves this one. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:59, 30 June 2023 (UTC)


 * "With the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire (330s BC), the Aramaic language increasingly lost importance as the lingua franca of the Near East." This seems to start in the middle and begs for a preceding sentence along the lines of 'With the rise of the Achaemenid Empire across the Middle East and West Asia Aramaic became the lingua franca of the western part of the polyglot state during xxx to yyy BC'.
 * Is "Imperial Aramaic" the same as "Achaemenid Official Aramaic"?
 * "Of the few innovations compared to Imperial Aramaic". Does that mean 'Of the few innovations of Nabataean Armaic compared to Imperial Aramaic'?
 * "Of the few innovations compared to Imperial Aramaic, the use of the object marker yt is a Western Aramaic feature, although the older form ʔyt already occurs in Old Aramaic. But since Nabataean Aramaic does not participate in the innovations typical of Eastern Aramaic, it is commonly assigned to Western Aramaic.' Would 'Of the few innovations compared to Imperial Aramaic, the use of the object marker yt is a Western Aramaic feature. As the older form ʔyt already occurs in Old Aramaic and Nabataean Aramaic does not participate in the innovations typical of Eastern Aramaic, it is commonly assigned to Western Aramaic.' make this flow a little better?
 * "in the years 96 or 95 BC." Suggest deleting "the years".
 * "This inscription is unique not only because of its age". What is unique about its age?
 * "According to Jean Cantineau". Could this person be briefly introduced. And Michael O'Connor. And Aaron Butts. And anyone else.


 * "The second school of thought, led by Theodor Nöldeke, traces Arabic script to Nabataean. This thesis was confirmed by John Healey in his work on the Syriac and the Arabic alphabet." Is it known when this second school originated/came to prominance, and when Healey confirmed the thesis?
 * The image in "Script" and the one in "Phonology" combine to create a major MOS:SANDWICH and a large amount of white space on several devices and at several settings.


 * "It does not inflect." Link inflect.

And that is all I have. A nice article. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Coord note
At over a month into this nom we are a long way from consensus to promote, and the required spotcheck of sources will add more time, so I'm going to archive the nom. Suggest working with the reviewers on the article talk to resolve outstanding comments during the usual two-week hiatus following archival, and then consider bringing back to FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 09:46, 17 July 2023 (UTC)