Wikipedia:Proposed category reorganizations/People by language categories

Initial proposal from Proposed_category_reorganizations
I want to create a category for sorting people as per their language knowledge. So, L.L. Zamenhof should be listed in Category:Esperanto speakers, Category:Polish speakers, etc. or Kimi Räikkönen in Category:Finnish speakers, Category:English speakers. I think this will be useful, but I want to have consensus to start this work. Best, Mxcatania 14:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

First Stage: Concerns, Analysis, Brainstorming, etc...

 * I'd say if they are categorised by nationality, and that is the same as the language, then that is enough (you could make "English people" a subcategory of English speakers if you wanted). If they know a language other than the one associated with their nationality, then they can be usefully added to such categories. One more thing, I would only do this if there is a reliable reference, in the article about the person, saying that the person speaks this other language. The important thing here is to decide whether the category will be _useful_. Does it duplicate too much of what the nationality categories do? Ditto for ethnicity categories (though I think there's been a lot of debate about that already). Language is not among the current reccommended criteria given here. Should it be? Carcharoth 16:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As for suitable Category names, I'd suggest Category:People by language (if you want to be comprehensive), or Category:People with a second language (and obviously third and more languages). I thought there was a Category:Multilingual people category in the People category tree, but I can't find it. Maybe the link I've just written will be blue? Carcharoth 16:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Found it!! :-) Category:Polyglots was hidden away in Category:Linguists. I rescued it and added it to Category:People. Anyway, the Polyglots category could be a useful starting point, or it could be that that is all that people really want from a classification system. I think there might be a demand for people who aren't polyglots, but who speak more than one language. But classifying all the people who speak one language seems a bit excessive. Carcharoth 16:22, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Carcharoth, Thanks for your feedback with this issue. I'd like to know whether I need a consensus to do this, or not. I think Category:People by language would be the best name. The Category:Polyglots would fit as a subcategory of that one I'm proposing. Again, thank you for your words. Best, Mxcatania 17:04, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Based on the above, I'd say create Category:People by language, move Category:Polyglots to be a subcategory of that category, and consider creating Category:Multilingual people as another subcategory. One problem is that many people outside the English-speaking countries will have English as a second language. So this might all end up a bit unwieldy. I think subdividing by language would be unhelpful, though if you went that way, it would be Category:Speakers of English as a second language or something similar. Carcharoth 16:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

PS. Category:Esperantists already covers speakers of Esperanto. Carcharoth 16:39, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

PPS. I rescued Category:Esperantists and put it in Category:People, so you now have two categories (that one and the Polyglots one) to start a People by languages category. Carcharoth 16:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I really don't see the point. Is it noteworthy that a German speaks German? Are you commiting your time to going through all the thousands of existing People articles and deciding which language they speak? --JeffW 17:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that people navigating from 'People' -> 'People by language' should encounter a note telling them that the category only covers people noteworthy for their uses of languages (as in the two categories mentioned above: Polyglots and Esperantists). Other subcategories can be added to this 'People by language' category as needed and as appropriate. The note should also say, up front, that people whose mother tongue is the same as their nationality are listed under their nationality. That should make the task manageable. Carcharoth 17:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think what Carcharoth said was perfect. I agree with that and, on the other hand, yes, it's challenging to tag people as per each language they know, but we can do it! It would be nice, I mean. Mxcatania 17:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd like to know what subcategories besides the two mentioned that you are planning to add. I don't think that being bilingual is notable enough, for example.  --JeffW 18:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I suggest this: This would be an attempt to sort people by language. If this proposal is accepted, then we don't need to categorize every article, just subcategorize some categories. Best, Mxcatania 20:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * For people from USA, Britain, Australia, etc, to create a category Category:English speakers so Category:American people would be subcategory of that I'm proposing.
 * For people from a region inside a country (e.g. Category:Catalan people) to add them to Category:People by language since they speak the region language.
 * For people talking an Auxiliary/Artificial language (e.g. Category:Esperantists), to add them to Category:People by language) since they speak that artificial language.
 * To include category Category:People by language as a subcategory of Category:People.
 * To find a solution for sorting people speaking a language and not being of the native region that language is from (e.g. Fernando Alonso, who speaks English and he is not from Britain).

I find this to be an interesting discussion. I've been wondering about language categorizations for a while, and thought I'd wait until I was clear in my own opinions before saying anything. As the conversation has started, I'll add my two cents:
 * 1) It is important to identify where subcategorization by language will be a valuable addition to a category. The categories that got me thinking about this were all the literature categories.  These are broken down by nationality, but it makes as much or more sense to group writers by language.
 * 2) If there are multiple subcategorization methods for a category (language, nationality, sub-genre, etc...) the categories should be populated at the higher level.
 * 3) Since this would be an additional level of subcategorizations for many categories, how does this level intersect with the existing categories. For example, if there is Category:English speakers how does it intersect with Category:American writers?  Will there be a subcategories called Category:American writers in the English language and Category:American writers in the Spanish language?
 * 4) Discussions about subcategorization methods for a topic should happen here and/or at a WikiProject, and there should be notifications on many talk pages so that the decisions have community approval. Perhaps we need a page, similar to Categories for deletion that lists proposed reorganizations.  It could be called Proposed category reorganizations.  The process could be two stage.  First stage a week(or more) to discuss and brainstorm a proposal, than a week to reach consensus on the approval.  The first week could be skipped if the proposal was first discussed on a Wikiproject.  So in effect, the  Proposed category reorganizations would also serve as a WikiProject for subjects that don't yet have a WikiProject, or the larger scale category structure.
 * -- Samuel Wantman 21:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

So, by your #2 above, if people are categorized by language and nationality then all people should be listed in the People category? I wouldn't find that a good thing. --JeffW 02:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That's not what i meant. I meant if a category like actors, directors, writers, singers, etc... gets subcategorized. -- Samuel Wantman 06:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

My proposal:

They are part of Category:Spanish people, then they both speak Spanish and Catalan as per this categorization.

We assume people do speak the native language of the region he are from. Shakira is supposed to speak Spanish because Colombia is a Spanish-speaker country.

When he/she speaks other language (and it's worthy mentioning), then we include it in other language category. In this case, Shakira being Colombian (Spanish spaker) sings in English, then we include her into English speaker category.

I think this would be the best way. Mxcatania 14:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * This probably won't fly. The problem is that you end up putting people categorized by nationality into categories by language.  Multi-lingual countries like the US, get put into English, so then all the Spanish speaking Americans are put in a subcategory of English speakers.  This is not how categorization is supposed to work.  To make these categories work, you need to have subcategories that are subsets of the larger categories, not ones in which only a majority are members. Category membership is for articles in which the categorization is an important attribute in the article, which is discussed in the article.  Even if you discount that argument and say that everyone in the US category speaks some english, how do you put the Spanish speaking Americans in the Spanish speakers' category?-- Samuel Wantman 08:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Samuel, you have a point there. But the Spanish speaking Americans - if notable - applies to  same as Shakira applies to English speakers. I mean, if someone in the US speaks Spanish and it's worthy mentioning (maybe Christina Aguilera), then you tag him/her as Spanish speaker as an exception. We will do exceptions for cases like this (Category:Mexican American writers will apply to Spanish speakers being tagged ad hoc and English speakers being American people). Let me know your comments. Best, Mxcatania 13:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd dispense with the nationalities. It is reasonable to have categorization by language for those categories where language is important and notable.  So instead of adding nationality subcats to Spanish speakers, I'd add subcats like Spanish language writers, Spanish language actors, Spanish language orators, Spanish language singers, Spanish language comedians, etc...'  All these categories make important distinctions about language, nationality does not. -- Samuel Wantman 05:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Totally agree with you, Samuel. Your proposal is better. Do we need some consensus to go on? Or may we begin? Best, Mxcatania 12:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If you are just adding these categories on top of the existing structure without removing anyone from any of the categories in which they now reside, no more discussion is necessary.  Typically these categories are created and populated withoug prior discussion.  The extra discussion here means that the new categories are more likely to be found acceptable.  Once created, anyone may list these categories for deletion or renaming at WP:CFD.  Make certain you follow the current guidelines for categorizing people, and everything is correctly capitalized.  I'm wondering about alternatives to "Fooish language fooers", like "Fooish speaking fooers" and "Fooers who foo in Fooish".  I don't think these are better, but perhaps someone else has an idea of a better format.  This can also be easily changed later at WP:CFD so there really is no impediment to beginning.  -- Samuel Wantman 06:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The more I think about this, the more important and valuable it seems. I'm hoping these categories can be widely applied. I'm especially looking forward to seeing the subcategories of Category:Film directors by language, which is much more useful than Category:Film directors by nationality.--Samuel Wantman 07:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It looks like we have consensus, let's see...

Call for consensus
Create categories under Category:People
 * Category:People by language
 * Category:Catalan speakers''
 * Category:English speakers''

. . .' etc... -- Samuel Wantman 11:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Category:Spanish speakers
 * Spanish language writers
 * Spanish language actors
 * Spanish language orators
 * Spanish language singers
 * Spanish language comedians