Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics

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ALL-CAPS for "keywords for lexical sets"?
See : An anon is putting various words in ALL-CAPS (misusing in the form  which simply outputs regular all-caps not small caps), insists this is proper for "keywords for lexical sets", and claims that this is how they "are generally represented ... across Wikipedia", yet I have never encountered this before here, and it is not to be found in MOS:ALLCAPS or any other guideline I'm aware of. The anon seems to want to do this for any word containing a sound that is under discussion in the article, such as the ʊ in foot, to be rendered. I can't see any rationale for doing that instead of just writing foot. If there's a good reason to do it after all, then it needs to be accounted for at MOS:ALLCAPS. However, it seems to conflict with a specialized linguistic use already codified there:

The only thing like this I'm finding elsewhere on-site is at Help:IPA/English, where it has been done seemingly to random words, then veering back into lower-case, e.g.:

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * It is standard (on Wikipedia and elsewhere discussing English phonology) to have keywords for lexical sets in all caps, see Lexical set, Fronting (sound change) (See "-fronting"), the alternate name merger in Cot–caught merger, throughout in English phonology, New Zealand English phonology, Rhoticity in English etc., etc. Umimmak (talk) 23:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Also see : Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 26 Umimmak (talk) 01:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, there's some followup discussion at Talk:Hiberno-English (which is rather confusingly trying to address two things at once, but this is one of them). Anyway, the fact that some people write a lexical set this way doesn't seem to imply that it is "standard" that WP has to follow, especially when it is not likely to signify anything to more than a vanishingly small fraction of readers. Where is this standard published, and what body issued it? Also, doing  seems to serve no purpose at all, since it renders and copy-pastes the same as just typing GOOSE without a template. If we're certain we want to render lexical sets in all-caps, then this should be accounted for at MOS:ALLCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:05, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * some people write a lexical set this way — writes the keyword to lexical sets in small caps (or all caps if there are typological limitations). The IP editor and I have both provided a few of the many Wikipedia pages already doing this, because the sources used for writing the articles also do this because everyone who refers to keywords for lexical sets does so in capital letters. See myriad sources noting this explicitly if you search  in Google Books.
 * These are J.C. Wells’ lexical sets, so if people make use of his sets they follow his typographical conventions (1982, p. xviii): "Words written in capitals Throughout the work, use is made of the concept of standard lexical sets. These enable one to refer concisely to large groups of words which tend to share the same vowel, and to the vowel which they share. They are based on the vowel correspondences which apply between British Received Pronunciation and (a variety of) General American, and make use of keywords intended to be unmistakable no matter what accent one says them in. Thus 'the words' refers to 'ship, bridge, milk . . .'; 'the vowel' refers to the vowel these words have (in most accents, ); both may just be referred to as."


 * Note this isn’t in violation of MOS:WAW because is referring to more than just the word goose.
 * Also GOOSE and  appear differently so I’m confused what you mean by them rendering the same? Umimmak (talk) 12:22, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * They were pretty close to indistinguishable in a particular browser, that's all. Anyway, I've (belatedly – forgot about this for several months) updated MOS:SMALLCAPS to account for this use of them, and hopefully avoid another revertwar about it as happened at Hiberno-English in October last year. I'm honestly skeptical this is a good idea, because it's based on the style used in a partcular primary source, and smallcaps are already used for at least two other unrelated linguistics markup purposes (ones I was already familiar with from my own university linguistics department days). But if there's already a strong consensus among people who care about it that it should be done this way, and we're already doing it consistently in articles and even in documentation like Help:IPA/English, then it should be accounted for in the guideline. PS: In the same MoS section is an HTML comment reading: This next part does not appear to actually be applicable on Wikipedia; will get clarification from WT:LINGUISTICS: Transcription of logograms (as opposed to phonograms) can also be done with small caps or all caps. Not really sure what to do with this. Is there anything Wikipedia-important that needs to be accounted for here?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:56, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. And as for the second point, articles with transliteration of Sumerian text have that distinction see
 * NIN (cuneiform), EN (cuneiform), Sumerogram. It might be used in other languages too, but I mostly associate it with Sumerian. Umimmak (talk) 15:44, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Should these be in full-size ALL-CAPS or ?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I guess we never got a clear answer when you asked before: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ancient Near East/Archive 6. But I'm seeing all caps in journals:
 * Dalley speculates whether gišṭû (GEŠ.DA) is to be distinguished from the Sumerogram GEŠ.ZU, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History
 * BARA$2$-mar is an alternative spelling of BARA$2$.DUMU, Journal of Cuneiform Studies
 * The original writing is $d$PA$4$.SIG$7$.NUN.ME = $d$isimu$4$(-d). In this NUN.ME is a semantic marker, which had no consequences for the pronunciation, IRAQ
 * And Foxvog's textbook on Sumerian writes:
 * "In unilingual Sumerian contexts, Sumerian words are normally written in lower case roman letters. Upper case (capital) letters (CAPS) are used:
 * When the exact meaning of a sign is unknown or unclear. Many signs are polyvalent, that is, they have more than one value or reading. When the particular reading of a sign is in doubt, one may indicate this doubt by choosing its most common value and writing this in CAPS. For example, in the sentence KA-ĝu$10$ ma-gig 'My KA hurts me' a body part is intended. But the KA sign can be read ka 'mouth', kìri 'nose' or zú 'tooth', and the exact part of the face might not be clear from the context. By writing KA one clearly identifies the sign to the reader without committing oneself to any of its specific readings.
 * When the exact pronunciation of a sign is unknown or unclear. For example, in the phrase a-SIS 'brackish water', the pronunciation of the second sign is still not completely clear: ses, or sis? Rather than commit oneself to a possibly incorrect choice, CAPS can be used to tell the reader that the choice is being left open.
 * When one wishes to identify a non-standard or "x"-value of a sign. In this case, the x-value is immediately followed by a known standard value of the sign in CAPS placed within parentheses, for example da$x$(Á) ‘side’.
 * When one wishes to spell out the components of a compound logogram, for example énsi(PA.TE.SI) 'governor' or ugnim(KI.KUŠ.LU.ÚB.ĜAR) 'army'.
 * When referring to a sign in the abstract, as in “the ŠU sign is the picture of a hand.”
 * In bilingual or Akkadian contexts, a variety of conventions exist. Very commonly Akkadian words are written in lower case roman or italic letters with Sumerian logograms in CAPS: a-na É.GAL-šu 'to his palace'. In some publications one also sees Sumerian words written in spaced roman letters, with Akkadian in either lower case roman letters or italics. In other newer publications Sumerian is even printed in boldface type.


 * So it definitely seems to be in ALL CAPS over, and that seems to track with usage on Wikipedia. Again still under the assumption this is about Sumerian/Sumerograms; might be worth asking Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems as well. Umimmak (talk) 01:06, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

sourcing for the etymology of "whore" as well as potential etymological missing link
Prostitution I noticed the section here and thought that going from the proto-german ''*hōrōn to PIE *keh₂- and thought it strange, and decided to take a look over on our sister site for a source, and while not finding one, suggests a missing link between the two was another PIE word, *kéh₂ros, which i can see the connection better if it can be sourced. Anyone more familiar with sourcing etymology taking a look into this would be lovely.'' Akaibu (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Help on untangling some Alaska-Eskimo scripts
It appears that the Commons images used in Yugtun script among other articles are mislabeled, but I can't figure out at all from the christusrex source which script image corresponds to which language/dialect, which script, and which script inventor -- each of which may have their own article and each of which may be scrambled. (It also used in ru:Эскимосская_письменность among others -- that page seems to have a better organization of how some of the scripts coordinate to dialects.) Someone who has the willingness to take the time to take a couple hours' dive into (or has background already of) the differences of several Eskimo dialects + phonetics, scripts, and transcriptions -- their efforts on this would be appreciated.

[Addendum:] I'd also appreciate ideas on how to verify the photo of Uyaquq /(Uyaqoq?) on Rovenchak 2011 (p. 8), which unfortunately seems like a very cruddy article. (That said, it passes WP:V and a very-most superficial reading of WP:RS, so it'd only be a matter of licensure to get the photo, else one could just link to it. However, I think it'd be irresponsible if we didn't try to independently verify ourselves.) SamuelRiv (talk) 04:21, 30 January 2024 (UTC)


 * As for the second part, Rovenchak 2011 takes the image from http://uyaquk.com/, which has been archived via the Way Back Machine in 2005: . That has an invitation to Contact the author with comments or to request a full set of bibliographic references/footnoted article, that Yahoo email address was also used as the contact for, I found her LinkedIn page which lists that BASOR article and provides her personal website with a different, but available email address. I'm not sure how much I can spell out directly, but it might be worth emailing her to ask if they recall where she got the image of Uyaquk from? Umimmak (talk) 05:07, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Needless free variation (or a confusing dialectal one) denoted in many Help:IPA guides
In the following guides, there are issues with multiple symbols (listed like ⟨◌ ~ ◌⟩, ⟨◌, ◌⟩ or ⟨◌ or ◌⟩, or as multiple symbols in multiple rows in the table), most likely denoting free variation. In other cases, it looks like a dialectal variation is described, but without specifying the dialects. Either way, it defeats the purpose of those guides, we need either to choose one symbol and stick to it or, possibly, separate the entries and list the allophones separately (assuming there is no (or little) free variation involved) or simply specify which allophones occur in which dialects. Either way, all instances of ⟨◌ ~ ◌⟩ etc. need to be fixed.

The following guides are affected:
 * Help:IPA/Amharic
 * Help:IPA/Arabic
 * Help:IPA/Egyptian Arabic
 * Help:IPA/Lebanese Arabic
 * Help:IPA/Armenian
 * Help:IPA/Australian languages
 * Help:IPA/Bulgarian (regarding the laterals and l-vocalization to )
 * Help:IPA/Persian
 * Help:IPA/Emilian-Romagnol
 * Help:IPA/Franco-Provençal
 * Help:IPA/Georgian
 * Help:IPA/Alemannic German (possibly, regarding the open vowels (⟨ɑ⟩ can cover both back and central varieties, and ⟨æ⟩ both near-open and open front varieties), the velar/uvular fricatives and affricates (we can use ⟨x ɣ̊ kx⟩ throughout unless a categorical phonemic merger with is involved in any dialect) and the rhotics (⟨ʀ ʕ⟩ can both be replaced with ⟨ʁ⟩, unless there's a phonemic distinction between them in some dialects, which I highly doubt. Also, the fortis-lenis distinction must be transcribed in one way. Now, ⟨p t k f s ʃ x⟩ can stand for either fortes or lenes, which is ridiculous and not just unhelpful but harmful.)
 * Help:IPA/Khmer
 * Help:IPA/Ligurian
 * Help:IPA/Manx
 * Help:IPA/Neapolitan
 * Help:IPA/Piedmontese
 * Help:IPA/Quechua
 * Help:IPA/Romansh
 * Help:IPA/Shan and Tai Lue
 * Help:IPA/Swahili
 * Help:IPA/Tagalog (possible free variation disguised as "Regional and marginal consonants")
 * Help:IPA/Telugu
 * Help:IPA/Tibetan
 * Help:IPA/Tigrinya
 * Help:IPA/Ukrainian (regarding the superscript parentheses used for transcribing optional palatalization)
 * Help:IPA/Yiddish

Also, Help:IPA/Hmong lists loads of consonant clusters which are clearly not single segments. Sol505000 (talk) 20:08, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with variation in our IPA guides. Manual of Style/Pronunciation says: “For foreign-language pronunciations, a phonetic transcription is normally used, with a link to Help:IPA or to various language-specific IPA keys.” Many languages have phonetic variation. Other editors have agreed that a guide should contain phonetic variation, cf. Help talk:IPA/Standard German.
 * You appear to prefer phonemic transcriptions. I have never understood why. People who do not speak the language may lack the information to correctly read a phonemic transcription. People who speak the language may be upset by a phonemic transcription when it is based on a different variety of the language. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 19:09, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think you understood my post at all. At no point did I say that we need to switch to phonemic transcription in those guides. What we need to do is to remove (or fix, see above) needless and/or unexplained free variation (which is not the same as phonetically relevant allophony, which you should know) per WP:IPAINTEGRITY, which says Again, if the language you're transcribing has such an IPA key, use the conventions of that key. If you wish to change those conventions, bring it up for discussion on the key's talk page. Creating transcriptions unsupported by the key or changing the key so that it no longer conforms to existing transcriptions will confuse readers. It means that those conventions must be established, i.e. the transcriber (as well as the reader, which goes without saying) must know which symbol is used in which environment. This follows the practice of all pronunciation dictionaries and most books on linguistics I'm aware of (and even if it didn't, our MOS takes precedence anyway). Sol505000 (talk) 13:59, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * O.K., your anti-variant point of view is not about phonemic transcriptions, but about exactly predefined transcriptions. The same arguments still apply: People who do not speak the language may lack the information to correctly read those exactly predefined transcriptions, and people who speak the language may be upset when they are based on a different variety. And I still have no idea why you reject variants so strongly.
 * You are interpreting too much into WP:IPAINTEGRITY. It only says that the convention of our IPA keys should be used. It does not say that the convention of our IPA keys must not contain variants or that they must only contain variants if exactly defined. That is just your personal point of view. On the other hand, what the MOS clearly says is that there should be discussion before changing the keys, so please stop changing the keys without prior discussion. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 20:56, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Questions regarding ubiquitous six-ring diagram


Me and @Phlsph7 had a brief discussion regarding this diagram, which seems to be useful in the broadest sense but is also more erroneous than it has to be. Obviously, each of these fields is not neatly contained, but that is not a problem in itself in my mind, that's the nature of science. While at the very least is "true enough" for a visual aid, what is the direct analogy between syntax and semantics? In what sense is the Syntax–semantics interface expressed as one being contained by the other?

Also, I believe non-phonocentric approaches should be more represented if possible.

I think this sort of diagram is obviously appealing, but it needs another look. It is used on many important linguistics articles, so I think we seriously should consider redesigning or replacing it. Remsense 诉  14:11, 25 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for raising this point here. The bottom half of the diagram about the different parts of language has some issues but seems to do better than the top half of the diagram about the different fields of inquiry. For example, a sentence is made up of words but morphology is not generally considered a subdiscipline of syntax. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I would very much support removing this diagram. It's misleading, to the extent that it makes any sense at all. Botterweg14  (talk)  15:15, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think some sort of visual aid like this is feasible, but it should be correct. Do you think there's any hope of such a presentation? Remsense  诉  15:16, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't think of how I would structure such a diagram. But the boundlessness of the human creative spirit always gives me hope :) Botterweg14  (talk)  15:28, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you feel that the inner four rings are "true enough" in the sense I've described, or is any hierarchical nature a non-starter? Remsense  诉  15:36, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The hierarchical structure lives within (some) of the subfields, not between them. Combining words gives you a phrase, but combining phones doesn't give you a phoneme. So I think the minimally misleading approach would be to represent it as a sound vs form vs meaning split, while lumping together phonetics/phonology and semantics/pragmatics. That would compromise on informativeness rather than truthfulness. Ranking the Maxim of Quality above the Maxim of Quantity, if you will. Botterweg14  (talk)  16:55, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * A couple additional thoughts. To be less phonocentric, the diagram could say "sound/sign" or "externalization" rather than "sound", though it might be worth asking around further to see if there's a better term. Morphology could be lumped with syntax, though I would argue for leaving it out entirely since people generally split it into morphophonology/morphosyntax/morphosemantics these days, at least within theoretical linguistics. (Since you haven't mentioned psycholinguistics or sociolinguistics, I'm assuming you're thinking of a diagram with a relatively narrow scope.) Botterweg14  (talk)  17:10, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * guidance, thank you very much. I'll let this thread know if I come up with anything. Remsense  诉  18:35, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I also find the diagram problematic. You can certainly draw the hierarchy in a good old structuralist vibe up to syntax. But semantics doesn't fit into the scheme; staying in the naive picture, you can depart from morphology either to syntax or to semantics. Also the choice of pragmatics as "outer" ring is a bit arbitrary. You could just as well have discourse as the outer level. –Austronesier (talk) 18:59, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the last part of this comment- the "discourse" is, in a sense, the fundamental unit of analysis of pragmatics, and this is reflected in the diagram by the presence of the string "meaning in context of discourse" in the bottom half of the ring whose top half contains the string "pragmatics". Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:20, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Why not just phoneme? For a while, Stokoe tried to push chireme and then we would've needed a term that encompassed both, but it didn't stick, and sign language linguists pretty much just use phoneme now for both, and so could we. Mathglot (talk) 09:13, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * hm. I'm still pushing things around on paper for this, but I think including a general, agreeable, but common word like "externalization" would be a good thing for our crucial audience: people who have acquired an interest, but are still trying to get their bearings for what anything in linguistics is. Remsense  诉  09:16, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Not entirely sure I follow. Are you saying, externalization is better for the learners, because phoneme will make their eyes glaze over? But we're okay with pragmatics and morphology? I think a bit o' jargon is tickety-boo in a jargony thingie like all of linguistics painted onto a Frisbee. Mathglot (talk) 09:31, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think jargon is necessary, and one of the most difficult things to do in technical writing (or graphing) is to introduce all of it in the right order. Remsense  诉  09:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Phonetics is primarily concerned with phones, not phonemes. Nardog (talk) 09:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the original sound/sign comment wasn't an exact matchup, as the analog of phone isn't a sign, but a parametric unit (handshape, location, movement, etc.) Mathglot (talk) 10:00, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * "Articulations" maybe? That seems to be used in sign language literature (like "phoneme"). Nardog (talk) 13:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Personally I feel that while the way the diagram presents relations between the rings is problematic, for the reasons discussed already, the relations it expresses within a ring- that is, between the text in the top part of the ring and in the bottom part- is true and should be included in Wikipedia articles.
 * What if we converted this into a table, where the left column consists of linguistic disciplines, and the right consists of the fundamental unit of analysis in that discipline? For example, the discourse is the fundamental unit of pragmatics, as the morpheme is the fundamental unit of morphology. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:33, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I mean, any attempt at a diagram of linguistics and/or its units is going to be regarded as erroneous or inadequate somewhere by some linguist. It's not that great, but there can be no "perfect" diagram of linguistics. I suppose it's right that the combination of meaning-side as just "another" layer further out is a different metaphor or logic than "a morpheme is bigger than a phoneme" of the iner layers. Removing it is no big deal to a large extent, and it's probably mostly or only relevant in cases where different conceptualisations of linguistics is discussed. But I think it would be even better if such discussions also had alternate visualisations to the extent possible (which I suppose is in line with what Botterweg14 is proposing). In boring conclusion, different articles call for different visuals and one visual should not be overused, but I don't see how useful it is to discuss one visual's removal without discussing the removal 'from where'. Instead of replacing it, creating multiple alternatives would be great. Disclaimer: I used to have this picture as my desktop background in high school! //Replayful (talk &#124; contribs) 17:53, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This discussion seems to have run stale, but I think there's some more thoughts to be thunk: I believe it's really useful for Wikipedia to have some sort of diagram for this "kind of thing" (showing the relationships between linguistic structure and fields of study). It's hard enough to illustrate most linguistics articles as-is, and this is a good sort of diagram in principle.
 * I suggest that we perhaps focus less on the fields of study and more on the structure; the image is called "Major levels of linguistic structure", after all. We could, uncontroversially I think, have some sort of hierarchical diagram (coencentric circles or a pyramid or something) in the order sounds, phonemes, morphemes, and phrases/sentences. Then, somewhere else in the image (think a thought cloud or something), a label for "meaning" (this could be split into "literal meaning" and "meaning in context"). If we do want to connect these linguistic units to their respective fields of study, I could see simple labels ("Phonetics", "Phonology",...) with lines/arrows drawn to the parts of language they study working nicely. I'd also like to note that in my introductory linguistics class, a visiting professor from Gallaudet had this image on a slide and critiqued it briefly, for many of the same reasons being brought up here - I'm glad we're workshopping it! AviationFreak💬 04:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Vyaz (Cyrillic calligraphy)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Vyaz (Cyrillic calligraphy) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 11:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Dobrujan Tatar dialect
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Dobrujan Tatar dialect that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. asilvering (talk) 19:47, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

There is a conversation...
at Talk:Optimality Theory that may be of interest to this project. Primergrey (talk) 01:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Template:Etymology section
There is a discussion about this template, which may be of interest to the project, and we would be interested in guaging your views about whether this template is still needed, and if so, how we can preserve the functionality while making it work better with the assessment process. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:45, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Small notation question
Angle brackets $⟨<>⟩$ are conventional to denote the historical evolution of objects of study in linguistics, of course. However—for technical reasons, linters and other tools like to complain about "unpaired angle brackets", among other concerns, since they're heavily used in HTML and WP:Wikitext. Would it be explicitly acceptable to use an arrow $⟨→⟩$ where one would normally use an angle bracket, or is this too much of a novelty? Remsense 诉  07:26, 6 March 2024 (UTC)


 * In what context? And the brackets angle bracket produces aren't used in HTML (those are ASCII less-than and greater-than signs). Nardog (talk) 08:07, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I knew I should've provided an example:
 * So, just using $⟨→⟩$ in lieu of $⟨>⟩$ there. Remsense  诉  08:14, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, those. Well I've seen → already used in that context (and I've probably replaced > with it). > is probably used out of laziness. → is more semantic anyway. Nardog (talk) 08:45, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I just wanted to check before I make a habit of doing so as part of my hysterical checklist of style fixes. Remsense  诉  08:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I just wanted to check before I make a habit of doing so as part of my hysterical checklist of style fixes. Remsense  诉  08:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:Articles for deletion/Gyat
This could use some input from experts. S0091 (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:TACL
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:TACL that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:05, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Linguistic anthropology vs Anthropological linguistics
I have started a discussion at that might be of interest to members of this WikiProject. The discussion concerns whether these two articles should be merged (although it is not—yet—a formal merger discussion as such), or if not, how to clean up the articles, which are problematic in a number of ways. Brusquedandelion (talk) 12:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Task force importance parameter for the WikiProject template
I have seen various talk pages that are part of this WikiProject have a parameter in their declaration of WikiProject Linguistics that looks like, e.g.  ,  , etc. However I don't actually see documentation for such parameters on the template page, and it seems to throw a warning in the preview (e.g.  ).

Why are these parameters seemingly used on so many pages? Are they really supported or not? Thanks in advance. Brusquedandelion (talk) 11:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Digital extinction of language
Your feedback at WT:WikiProject Languages would be appreciated. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:12, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Renaming Nonfinite verb
Please see the Nonfinite verb RfD discussion and comment accordingly re prospective next steps. Cheers. Kent Dominic·(talk) 23:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Phrases
Hello, I have noticed that phrases on Wikipedia often need work and are caught in limbo between WikiProjects. I am considering starting a Phases Wikiproject, but I want to make sure that it isn't within the scope of this WikiProject but often missed. Phrases aren't covered by this or other WikiProjects, right? I can do stuff ! (talk) 03:25, 15 April 2024 (UTC)


 * For English phrases there's WikiProject English Language. It doesn't look very active, but I doubt a whole new WikiProject just for phrases can fare better. Nardog (talk) 03:36, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you give examples of the sorts of phrases you are referring to? Brusquedandelion (talk) 04:39, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

RM needs definitions for "proper noun" and "loanword'
It's at Talk:Pied-Noir. Thanks Elinruby (talk) 20:04, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia use the term "imaginary language"?
Hello. I hope by bringing this topic to the attention of people with linguistic knowledge I am doing the right thing.

Currently the article List of languages in the Eurovision Song Contest – in my opinion at the very least a linguistics-adjacent topic – identifies three songs as having been sung in an "imaginary language". I think the articles on the individual songs do likewise, but I have not checked yet.

I may well be mistaken, but "imaginary language" does not sound like the proper term to me. I think the more accurate term would be (some sub-category of?) Conlang.

However, there are some popular press articles that use the "imaginary language" terminology. Should we follow what a non-specialist source says over the correct terminology? If so, when and when not?

I hope that you will be able to tell me whether I a wrong and thank you in advance for your help in hopefully clearing this up. 2001:A62:1514:6A02:4CE8:A2CC:ACB2:2E38 (talk) 17:09, 17 April 2024 (UTC)


 * "Imaginary languages" is generally a term used as a synonym for conlangs, though I don’t think this is applicable here. From what I can tell, the lyrics in the songs listed don’t hold any particular meaning or structure, (which means that they wouldn’t fit the definition of a conlang, or a language at all for that matter) so at best "gibberish" may be a better descriptor. See the article on the song Prisencolinensinainciusol.


 * In the case I’ve missed something and these songs do have the characteristics of a conlang, than "artlang" would be the best term to use. Slamforeman (talk) 17:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Content dispute over usage examples at talk:Franglais
I seem to have waded into a minefield by restoring six example sentences at Franglais. They were deleted last year and again after I restored them as "unsourced" and "original research". I don't think they're research at all, and don't require sources as simple examples of something that's just been defined and cited to reliable sources. But another editor is equally certain that they are, and do. What we need now is other editors to weigh in and give opinions as to whether usage examples need to be cited to anything, or constitute "original research". This seemed like a reasonable place to ask. P Aculeius (talk) 23:32, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Merging (linguistic) Monogenesis and Polygenesis
Hello. I think that Linguistic monogenesis and Linguistic polygenesis could be merged into the article I translated, like in  Spanish,  Catalan,  Galician and  Dutch. They're about similar topics and having an article about linguistic polygenesis would give it undue weight, because the mainstream scholars advocate for monogenesis (see, a paper defending linguistic polygenesis but starts with the line "Monogenesis of language is widely accepted..."). Is this a good idea? Pcg111 (talk) 08:23, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

One Standard German Axiom
Could someone interested in linguistics please look into Talk:One Standard German Axiom and give their opinion. --Rießler (talk) 05:45, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of Pronunciation of 'vaush'
There's a discussion regarding the IPA transcription of 'Vaush' here which may be of intrest to some of yous. A Socialist  Trans Girl  07:50, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Sino-Xenic pronunciations
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Sino-Xenic pronunciations that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 16:11, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Incorrect audio for IPA [e]
The audio for IPA [e] is a diphthong and in my opinion should be replaced as there is a superior recording freely available on Wikimedia Commons. Discussion here. Stockhausenfan (talk) 00:16, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Help with draft
Please, could someone help to expand Draft:Linguistic monogenesis and polygenesis (for more context, see this)? Pcg111 (talk) 10:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

GA Nomination: Weise's law
Hi all. I recently nominated a page I created for GA status and forgot to mention it here in case anyone wanted to review. I invite anyone interested in historical linguistics in general and PIE in particular, as it deals with phonological change in PIE. Let me know what you think! ThaesOfereode (talk) 23:06, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Indo-European ablaut
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Indo-European ablaut that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Remsense 诉  20:09, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

User:Eshaan011's uploads
He has been uploading sound files as illustrations for various exotic sounds. I ran across his recording at Voiceless alveolar tap and flap and I really don't think that what he is pronouncing there is a voiceless alveolar tap or flap (if you are wondering why, you can see my more specific comment on the talk page of that article). As I look through his other uploads (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Voiceless_velar_nasal.wav, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voiceless_velar_trill.wav, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voiceless_alveolar_non-sibilant_affricate.wav, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voiceless_palatal_nasal.ogg), I find many of them unconvincing, too (again, I've left comments on their discussion pages, in case someone is wondering what I don't like about them). I feel far from equipped to judge all of his uploads, as many of the sounds are rather obscure, but my impressions from the ones I can judge with some degree of certainty don't make me very confident about the ones I can't. It looks to me as if he simply overestimates his pronunciation skills - both his ability to control what his speech organs are doing and his ability to correctly categorise by ear the sounds that he ends up producing. This results essentially in misinformation. I am not sure by what procedure such a problem is supposed to be solved on Wikipedia - there is no way to apply the verifiability policy in such a case, so I suppose that it's just something to be solved through consensus. I am just leaving this note for you people who are more involved in the phonetics articles on Wikipedia and I hope you can work out how to react to such a situation. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 00:23, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm actually working on fixing a bunch of them at the moment. Eshaan011 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:15, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Blowing in from Chicago
An editor has requested that Blowing in from Chicago be moved to Blowing In from Chicago, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You &#32;are invited to participate in the move discussion. Graham (talk) 05:14, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Example numbering and crossreferencing
I have started a new discussion at the Technical Village Pump about developing the functionality for cross-referenceable running example numbers. The idea being that Wikipedia could have a system sort of like sort of,  , and   in LaTeX. I know the absence of this feature has been an annoyance for editors in this topic area for quite some time, so I thought I would link the discussion here in case anybody wanted to chime in. Botterweg14 (talk)  18:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Should we keep our non-standard use of single slashes to enclose diaphonemic transcriptions?
Single slashes are widely used in Linguistics to indicate phonemes. Our transcription system for English (cf. Help:IPA/English, Manual of Style/Pronunciation) does not use phonemes, but diaphonemes. Nonetheless, we are enclosing the transcriptions in single slashes (mainly through IPAc-en, e.g. / ˈ w ʊ s t ər / ). This non-standard use of single slashes confuses readers and editors alike and regularly leads to disputes, for instance the recent edit war in Richard D'Oyly Carte.

What could we do?


 * 1) We could stop the non-standard use of the single slashes by using a different delimiter to enclose our diaphonemic transcriptions, preferrably a delimiter used outside of Wikipedia such as double slashes. A transcription might look as follows: // ˈ w ʊ s t ər  //.
 * 2) We could keep the single slashes and change our transcription system to be phonemic, thus restoring the standard meaning of the single slashes.
 * 3) We could do nothing and keep our non-standard use of the single slashes to enclose diaphonemes.

This request for comment is a follow-up to the recent bold replacement of the single slashes by the ⫽. It was soon reverted after protest on Template talk:IPAc-en There had been a previous consensus on this page to use double slashes, cf. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation/Archive 11. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 21:27, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Your statement is neither neutral nor brief. Your use of "standard" and "non-standard" is highly loaded, and you seem to have taken this opportunity to sneak in the option of making the diaphonemic key not diaphonemic. Though I don't discount the option of creating new keys for different varieties of English coexisting with the diaphonemic key, especially once automatic audio generation becomes available, making the diaphonemic key phonemic is such a tall order I don't even know how it could be done. Let's focus on the delimiters. Nardog (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As you know, other editors have immediately questioned the diaphonemic transcription system upon seeing the double slashes. That is why I thought it must be mentioned. But since you don’t like it, I will reword. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 07:42, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Should we keep delimiting diaphonemic transcriptions with single slashes?
Our transcription system for English (H:IPAE) uses single slashes (/…/) to delimit its diaphonemic transcriptions, even though single slashes are widely used in Linguistics to indicate that transcriptions are phonemic. Should we keep delimiting our diaphonemic transcriptions with single slashes, or should we choose a different delimiter to indicate that our transcriptions are not phonemic, but diaphonemic (e.g. double slashes //…//)? --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 07:51, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I support the change to double slashes, but I'm afraid that this won't be much more than a cosmetic change. Sol505000 (talk) 08:59, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Weak support using double slashes. The opposition to the change highlights the mistaken perception that our English IPA is the same thing as phonemic transcriptions you see in dictionaries. Different delimiters would at least signal readers that it's a different type of representation. That they wouldn't know exactly what it means is irrelevant for me because, let's face it, most people don't even know the difference between [ ] and / /, but we make the distinction anyway because it's contextually important. Phoneme vs diaphoneme is also important, as the same notation can be sensible as a diaphonemic one but not as a phonemic one and vice versa. Nardog (talk) 09:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


 * ⫽...⫽ would be technically correct, if we aspire to precision. It's unfamiliar to most people, though, and so may be problematic if we aspire to practical accessibility. (Though, as Nardog remarked /.../ is probably also unfamiliar to most of our readers.) I don't have an opinion either way (for now at least), because of the social dimension. But ideally we should use ⫽...⫽.
 * When I first saw it, I thought it was a template coding error. When I realized it was intentional, I wondered if it would create a lot of drama, then forgot about it.
 * BTW, Usonian dictionaries also use a diaphonemic system, though without the IPA. — kwami (talk) 10:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Support double slashes //…//. Sure, non-linguists will not know about these delimiters at all. But I imagine that virtually all persons with at least some training in linguistics will know about the convention that single slashes indicate a phonemic transcription. I believe this convention is so well-established that it can be called a standard, which means we are using the single slashes in a non-standard way. In my opinion, we should be careful to avoid non-standard symbols since they are confusing to readers and editors alike. Using double slashes would make the diaphonemic nature of our transcription system much more visible. While that might lead to increased discussion, we have chosen this diaphonemic transcription system, so we should be able to justify our choice even if (or when) it becomes more visible.
 * Technically, I believe that double slashes (two slashes, // t ɛ s t  // ) would be the best choice. I do not know the reasons in favour of using  instead ( ⫽  t ɛ s t  ⫽ ), whereas lacking font support is an important reason against. Regarding the other delimiters mentioned in Diaphoneme, exclamation marks or braces ( !  t ɛ s t  !, &#123;  t ɛ s t  &#125; ), I believe they are less suited because they have been used even less and because they resemble less the well-known single slashes. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 12:49, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is standard. The IPA  Handbook  defines square brackets as "begin/end phonetic transcription" and the solidus as "begin/end phonemic transcription" (e.g. p. 175), though on p. 27 they say, "conventionally ... symbols for the phonemes of a language are placed within oblique lines: / /."
 * I suspect the reason for preferring U+2AFD is that it takes up much less space (depending on the font) and doesn't look like an HTML hack. — kwami (talk) 13:04, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Weak support: The double slashes are a quite technical usage in linguistics, however, they look close enough to single slashes by laypersons that I think the latter group will simply pay attention to the actual letters and the tooltip, with the slashes avoiding notice or comment by most. I think the larger problem, however, is: do we want to keep rehashing the same type of battles, like at the talk pages of Richard D'Oyly Carte or Melbourne? (See this archived talk from last year on this very topic.) A solution to this might be to make the tone of MOS:RHOTIC a bit more assertive, perhaps. Wolfdog (talk) 14:08, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * We might also make it more permissive, following the example of MOS:ENGVAR, which allows for moderate regional variation. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 14:56, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you expand on that a bit? I think the focus here is, on a page like Richard D'Oyly Carte or Melbourne, we already have a system that works quite well, Wikipedia-wide, to provide a singular pronunciation useful across most English dialects. Why would we undermine that by making the wording more permissive? (Perhaps an example or two could be helpful.) Wolfdog (talk) 16:14, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The focus of this discussion should be on the delimiters. I don’t know whether our system works so well when we keep rehashing the same type of battles. I believe marking more overtly that our transcriptions are diaphonemic will help. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 20:51, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * One way to make the diaphonemic nature clearer is to use superscript letters like ⟨ʳ⟩, as discussed here. I said we would have to make sure it's not used before a vowel, but now that I think about it, that can be automated in Lua. Nardog (talk) 05:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


 * My primary reason for weakly opposing the use of double solidus is its poor font support and being needlessly distracting in the lead of many articles.
 * But the idea that it would be somehow more correct or better aligned with some standard than single slashes just because the transcriptions are diaphonemic rather than phonemic seems mistaken in the first place. The distinction between and  is a convention well established. The distinction between  and  is not. Using the latter without further explanation tells the reader nothing beyond that it's something different from the usual phonemic transcription. However, what is usual differs widely between readers as there is no single "standard" at all (and some dictionaries do use diaphonemic spelling, although usually not IPA). From the reader's point of view, lay or not, there is simply no need to distinguish diaphonemes from phonemes in the lead of an article that has nothing to do with phonetics or phonology. It wouldn't be wrong to use double slashes, but IMO, the single ones are just as appropriate in the first place.
 * The previous consensus seemed to operate under the impression that double slashes would, thanks to their unfamiliarity, discourage editors from assuming they know what they are doing before reading the MOS and help pages. I don't believe this would be the case. – MwGamera (talk) 20:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that would be a poor choice. That is why I would prefer double slashes.
 * I disagree with your point of view that we there is no need to distinguish between diaphonemes and phonemes. Such a need arises regularly around the diaphoneme, when editors insist that phonemic transcriptions in articles tied to non-rhotic varieties of English (e.g. Richard D'Oyly Carte or Melbourne) should not include the . For these cases, it makes a real difference when we explicitly indicate that it’s something different from the usual phonemic transcription. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 21:18, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Americans don't seem to care that we transcribe British vowel distinctions that they don't make. But //r// has been a chronic objection.
 * Merriam-Webster uses \back slashes\, or at least they used to. I don't know if that's an intentional distinction.
 * There's also the vertical pipe. I wouldn't want curly brackets; that's too much like set theory, and IMO appropriate when delimiting sets of phonemes that constitute archiphonemes, but not something like this.
 * MwGamera, the distinction between /.../ and something is well established. There's just variation on what that something should be. — kwami (talk) 22:32, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Perhaps my wording could be clearer regarding the need to distinguish it. There is nothing to distinguish the diaphonemic transcription from because no phonemic one is provided alongside it in these articles. Thus, only one kind of delimiter is needed, and a single slash is a valid choice for diaphonemic transcription. There is nothing wrong with our current practice.
 * Of course, editors need to be familiar with the conventions used, and this includes the fact we use diaphonemes. But double slashes aren't unambiguous in denoting that, and I wouldn't expect changing delimiter to make these discussions any shorter. – MwGamera (talk) 00:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There is nothing to distinguish the diaphonemic transcription from: I believe there is. It is a distinction between the meaning we intend to communicate on the sender side (‘these are diaphonemes’) and the meaning a linguistically informed reader will understand on the receiver side (‘these are phonemes’). When a reader misunderstands the single slashes to mean ‘these are phonemes’, it is not their fault on the receiver side – ‘these are phonemes’ is the well-established meaning of single slashes. Instead, it is our fault on the sender side – we should have chosen a different delimiter that does not convey the meaning ‘these are phonemes’. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 12:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Support double slashes. It's technical indeed, but I think we should avoid using single-slashes in a nonstandard way. Double sharp (talk) 08:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose ⫽…⫽ (solidus) – No strong opinion on /…/ or //…// but some reservations and questions:
 * IPAc-EN is on 50,000 pages. There may be a gap between what some Project users think Wiki's English IPA usage is/should be, and how it's actually being used. (E.g. cases where use was intended as phonemic transcription, not diaphonemic). Samples of some articles' usage should be examined to check that, before we make large changes that may cause some (other) errors. I believe User:Nardog alluded to something similar (7 July), "I've replaced in the [Template] Key section where they were unambiguously referring to diaphonemes rather than phonemes as far as I could find, but it can be ambiguous sometimes. (E.g. should it be "/A/ is merged with /B/ in accent X", "⫽A⫽ is merged with /B/ in accent X", or "⫽A⫽ is merged with ⫽B⫽ in accent X"?)"
 * It's a mistake to rush such widespread changes in response to edit wars or incivility on one or two articles.
 * User:Adumbrativus said (8 July), "Suddenly changing only this template [IPAc-EN] means that such pages now use a combination of / and ⫽, in a haphazard way which confusingly appears as if the use of the two notations is contrastive but is actually unintended."
 * Exactly how many Templates would be affected by this? Template:IPAc-en/Module:IPAc-en obviously, but which others?
 * ⫽…⫽ would have several drawbacks for the technical and aesthetic reasons given last week; it would also be preferable to use symbols that display universally. - Thanks, 1RightSider (talk) 23:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose changing to double slashes, mostly per mwgamera, but also I want to add that it is very unlikely that changing to double slashes will reduce conflict related to non-rhotic pronunciations, like at Richard D'Oyly Carte or Melbourne. It seems silly to me to imagine that a person who was going to complain about the /r/ will see that there are double slashes instead of single slashes and think "oh, of course, it's a diaphonemic transcription!". No, they will still object and the response will still have to be "Wikipedia uses a diaphonemic system, see Help:IPA/English" etc.
 * I also want to reiterate the comment by Adumbrativus, that some articles use a mix of various templates and non-templated transcriptions, and that changing only the template will introduce distinctions that were never intended. This is not as simple as changing a template; if the change is made, someone will have to go through every article that has (dia)phonemic transcriptions and manually fix any conflicts that arise. For example, Cot–caught merger includes the sentence: "The phonemes involved in the cot–caught merger, the low back vowels, are typically represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as and, respectively (or, in North America, when co-occurring with the father–bother merger, as  and )." To be fully correct, I think you would need to replace only the first two uses with double slashes, but not the second two. (Note that the mixing of different slashes would probably be confusing to many readers.) This would be a lot of work and would involve some difficult judgement calls. --Un assiolo (talk) 01:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No, /ɒ/ and /ɔ/ in those sentences are phonemes, not diaphonemes, as evident from the fact it says "The phonemes are" and /ɔ/ lacks a length mark. Nardog (talk) 02:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The text must be wrong, then, because /ɒ/ is not a phoneme in most American English dialects. This just demonstrates the difficulty involved in introducing this distinction. --Un assiolo (talk) 23:20, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * [T]hey will still object and the response will still have to be "Wikipedia uses a diaphonemic system […]." I believe the benefit of using double slashes would be that they could no longer answer with a big “but Wikipedia explicitly indicates that the transcriptions are phonemic by enclosing them in single slashes.” --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 13:55, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Transitioning to any convention is going to be a headache, but I'm starting to think more and more that double solidus is a good idea.
 * As for the examples when it's unclear how we would fix them, that shows that they're either inherently ambiguous or poorly written. Perhaps explicitly using diaphonemic delimiters will ferret out other badly thought out transcriptions in our articles. — kwami (talk) 14:09, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Do people currently answer with that? The distinction between phonemic and diaphonemic transcriptions is incredibly obscure. And a transcription with an /r/ could be interpreted as phonemic even for non-rhotic varieties as long as you assume there is an underlying /r/ that is not realized except in certain contexts. The proposal to make it a superscript or enclose it in parentheses makes this more explicit. --Un assiolo (talk) 17:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we can do both. Nardog has recommended the superscript above (perhaps you've already seen). As for The text must be wrong, then, because /ɒ/ is not a phoneme in most American English dialects, the text is merely talking about the symbols and how they're commonly used to represent a certain phoneme (across a variety of dictionaries, for instance). Wolfdog (talk) 20:22, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * But they don't represent a phoneme, they represent a diaphoneme. Any system using /ɒ/ for General American is automatically diaphonemic. And if it's talking about symbols, then I guess technically they should be angle brackets (see International Phonetic Alphabet). But that's getting off topic. I am really curious how people in favour of double slashes would handle this situation. Is anyone in favour of mixing double and single slashes? --Un assiolo (talk) 23:56, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure, if we mix phonemic and diaphonemic transcription, just as if we were to mix phonemic and morphophonemic transcription, which is a rather common occurrence. — kwami (talk) 00:48, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Regarding the Cot–caught merger page, I see no claim that there is a phoneme in General American. What it says is that General American has  instead. The wording “in North America, when co-occurring with the father–bother merger,” is misleading. I have made a clarification about the phonemes involved in North America. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 13:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't have much more to add right now, but I agree with mwgamera's analysis and I am inclined to oppose. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:33, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

What should we call the study of writing systems?
(In a perfect world, I would post this on WikiProject Writing systems, but I'll just drop a redirect there instead.)

Here are the most important articles about writing, by my estimation: Writing, Literacy, Writing system, History of writing, Written language. Grapheme, Glyph.

While the existence of Writing system has likely kept others over the last 20 years from asking this question, I think we need to sort out a proper article for "the study of writing systems". There are presently two underdeveloped articles that seem to be coterminous in having this scope: Graphemics and Grammatology. From everything I've read, if we are to decide what name to use, these two plus Grapholinguistics are our viable options for an article title. , "grapholinguistics" is my clear personal preference: it is a fairly new term—though there seems to be considerable recent work advocating and employing it, though much of it in German (Schriftlinguistik). Sadly for me and my cause, If we go purely by ngrams it doesn't even chart—again, this would seem to be biased against post-2019 work using "grapholinguistics", but it's still a tough case for me to make. Even so, I think I'd have to argue it'd be the best, most natural and recognizable for readers—"graphemics" may not reliably indicate a scope wide or narrow like "writing"; "grammatology" will make most think of grammar, and a smaller minority think mostly of Derrida. But I really just want a clear mandate one way or another. Remsense 诉  08:58, 13 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Is there any reason not to call the main page "Study of writing systems"? If the term is that nebulous and/or neither term dominates the literature, it seems reasonable to me that we would call the main page something extremely obvious and maybe distinguish the nuances of "grammatology" or "graphemics" either with their own sections, in a terminology section, or with an "also known as" splice in the lede, whichever is most appropriate. I don't really have any policy to cite (mostly out of ignorance), but this seems at least like an option to consider. It also seems like "graphology" is an option, looking at the Graphemics page. All in all, of the ones you've picked, I think "Graphemics" is likely the best candidate, given the possibility of confusion with grammar and Derrida. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:17, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I pondered this too, but it just happens to be quite unlike most other article titles.
 * graphology
 * Unfortunately not: graphology is taken by a much narrower field, much to my consternation. Remsense  诉  18:44, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Then I would probably just stick with Graphemics as the main one then. ThaesOfereode (talk) 21:57, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "Study of writing systems" seems reasonable. We don't need to use a technical term; we generally do so because it dominates the literature. That doesn't seem to be the case here. I don't think we should be obscure when the only purpose is to use technical jargon for the sake of technical jargon.
 * Though, "study of writing systems" would presumably include paleography, which "graphemics" would not. — kwami (talk) 00:26, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * My primary reason for preferring "grapholinguistics" is because it seems more likely to scan to the average reader, given corresponding subfields almost always end in "linguistics", either as one word or otherwise. Remsense  诉  00:38, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Would "grapholinguistics" include reconstructing an ancient language from its writing system? That wouldn't be covered by "graphemics", which is the study of the writing system itself. — kwami (talk) 01:00, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Neef defines it as the linguistic subdiscipline dealing with the scientific study of all aspects of written language. I think that broad definition makes sense—it doesn't bother me that there's overlap with palaeography; there's plenty of overlap between subfields linguistics and with adjacent disciplines. Remsense  诉  01:09, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Isn’t this just at some level epigraphy and its adjacent disciplines like palaeography? I’d probably just use epigraphy here in casual conversation, but that’s obviously imprecise. I agree with @Kwami that it feels like a jargon neologism for the sake of a jargon neologism creates more confusion that it would resolve. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:46, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No. Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions. Both it and palaeography are inherently historically-minded disciplines. This is the study of written language as a modality like speech and signing. Study of this kind has been published since the 80s, and I think categorization as jargon just seems ill-informed. Remsense  诉  18:11, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * But at some point the study of writing systems, in a historical context, does become pretty exclusively the study of inscriptions. I did misunderstand a bit of what you were saying, but I thought you were actually grasping for a new term here, sorry. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 03:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * But at some point the study of writing systems, in a historical context, does become pretty exclusively the study of inscriptions. I did misunderstand a bit of what you were saying, but I thought you were actually grasping for a new term here, sorry. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 03:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)