Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics/Archive 12

Languages categorization
I know this project is more on the functional portion of languages than languages overall but seeing articles like Great Vowel Shift there is some obvious overlap. There's an RFC at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Languages about suggested categorizations of languages and whether languages should go under the typical establishment/disestablishment categorization as well. Please comment there. Thanks! -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:30, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Eve Sweetser
Hi, this article has been tagged "Notability" since 2008. I am wondering if someone from the project can have a look and decide if the article should be improved or nominated for deletion? K.e.coffman (talk) 08:56, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * IMHO, when someone provides a drive-by tag like that with no explanation, procedure has been bungled. Maybe can provide a rationale. If not, just remove the tag. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]  19:27, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Note: IE sound laws
I have WP:BOLDly begun to convert the frankly impenetrable Indo-European sound laws to a somewhat more usable state, by splitting the reflex tables into single vs. cluster treatment. I imagine at least final consonants might deserve a table of their own as well. However, the table of clusters for now only shows a few of the more prominent developments, and remains quite unfinished even with respect to these. If anyone's willing and able to help, please feel welcome to do so. -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 21:43, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Opinion needed on a possible page move
Please visit and comment here:


 * Talk:List of tallest buildings in the world

Many thanks.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:55, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Inflection image
The article Inflection shows an image of cats labeled gato, gata, gatos, gatas to illustrate gender and number. In the past there has been concern about showing gender as inflection per se (that is, distinct from gender agreement), and about using pink and blue to suggest gender. I made an image that might replace it, but find I lack WP:BOLDness – plus I worry I might have got the Gaelic wrong. Opinions welcome at Talk:Inflection. Cnilep (talk) 07:58, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Bracketing around English diaphonemic transcriptions
Some members of this WikiProject may want to participate in a discussion I have started. I am proposing that the diaphonemic (cross-dialectal) transcriptions of English that are used across Wikipedia use different bracketing to distinguish them from phonemic transcriptions (i.e., transcriptions using symbols that accurately represent a particular dialect's vowel system).

Currently the two types of transcriptions use single slashes, like. It seems that the easiest solution would be to use double slashes for diaphonemic transcriptions, like.

If you have an opinion on what symbols should be used, or if you don't see the need for diaphonemic transcriptions to be visually distinguished from phonemic transcriptions, please post in the thread at. — Eru·tuon 02:11, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Potential word
The recently written article Potential word may overlap the scope of Accidental gap. Contributors to this WikiProject are invited to comment at Talk:Potential word. Cnilep (talk) 01:35, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata property proposal for Ethnologue language status
Please contribute to d:Wikidata:Property_proposal/Ethnologue_language_status. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:20, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Polemic Afd
Please notice that Polemic is up for Afd. I am sure this can be an interesting article! Please also comment on the deletion discussion. Debresser (talk) 10:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Meitei language → Manipuri language
There is a move discussion going on at Talk:Meitei language. If you're interested in commenting. Thanks. – ishwar  (speak)  23:36, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Classical compound
Currently Barbarism (traditional linguistics) is a redirect to Classical compound; it is tagged as a redirect from an alternative name. I've never heard of classical compounds being named barbarism, though I have heard of e.g. Greek affixes on Latin roots described as barbarisms in the sense currently discussed at Barbarism (modern linguistics).

So, two questions: If not it's helpful, particularly if it is confusing or misleading, perhaps it should be changed. Note that the outcome of such changes may also bear upon Barbarism (disambiguation) and Abuse of language (disambiguation), which is where I noticed it. Cnilep (talk) 03:03, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Is Barbarism an alternative name for Classical compound?
 * 2) Is the current redirect (Barbarism (traditional linguistics) → Classical compound) helpful to anyone?


 * I have seen barbarism used specifically for hybrid words, for example, and , and a hybrid word can be considered a type of classical compound. But I don't see the direct link to classical compound. --Mark viking (talk) 03:31, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That redirect was created only a few weeks ago. Perhaps the creator can explain more about why it's there. "Barbarism" is mentioned once in Classical compound (second paragraph), but I don't know if that justifies the redirect. (The word is also linked—a circular redirect.) — Gorthian (talk) 04:30, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I did [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jerzy&diff=prev&oldid=748415480 try that] on 8 November, but there's been no response. Cnilep (talk) 02:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I've listed Barbarism (traditional linguistics) at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 December 8. Cnilep (talk) 00:21, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Essay on improving syntax coverage on WP
Hi, I've written an essay on the problems with WP's syntax coverage and how it can be improved. Please feel free to comment on it (or even edit it - it's only in my userspace because I don't think it'll be interesting to a wide audience)! Kayau (talk · contribs) 16:58, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Missing topics list
My list of missing topics about languages is updated - Skysmith (talk) 14:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Cool! Discontinuous constituent and language economy are articles I might create someday. It's scary how bad WP's coverage of linguistics is - lexical relations doesn't have an article, really? Kayau (talk · contribs) 17:03, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * BTW, Stephen C. Levinson, ditransitive verb and categorial grammar (which do have articles) appear to be misspelt in your list. Kayau (talk · contribs) 17:06, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed Syntax navbox!
I hereby propose a new template to put syntax articles together:

Please feel free to edit the proposed template. It's still quite a preliminary proposal! :) Kayau (talk · contribs) 07:11, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * You'll want to verify that those links all point to the appropriate article. For example, I notice lots of the current targets are disambiguation pages: Complement, Modifier, Object, Anaphora, Binding, Valency, Adjunct, Possessor, Finite, Sentence. Cnilep (talk) 00:17, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Clearly I hadn't checked everything yesterday. I've fixed the ones you've pointed out and tested all the other links. They seem to work fine now, but please tell me or WP:BOLD if I've missed any! Kayau (talk · contribs) 01:25, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Scare-line being split from Scare quotes article
Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Scare-line. A permalink is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:32, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Bibliography of code-switching
A novice editor has created Bibliography of code-switching. It needs better selection criteria (currently it's "all academic and peer-reviewed works on the topic"), and perhaps other improvements. I'm sure assistance would be appreciated. Cnilep (talk) 03:18, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Shintani Tadahiko
Comments from editors with expertise in linguistics would be helpful in this AfD: Articles for deletion/Shintani Tadahiko. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:14, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Q
I would like to write more sections like this one, but would like experienced editors to opine on this one before I replicate it. I don't think that every letter needs a typography section, mind, but there are some letters that have many different typographic forms and long typographic histories. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 07:12, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Language education / Second-language acquisition
Currently Language education starts, "Language education refers to the process and practice of acquiring a second or foreign language. It primarily is a branch of applied linguistics, however can be considered an interdisciplinary field."

Second-language acquisition starts, It "is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. The field of second-language acquisition is a subdiscipline of applied linguistics, but also receives research attention from a variety of other disciplines, such as psychology and education."

Those two passages mean the same thing, don't they? Are these articles actually meant to cover different ideas? If so, their lead sections need to clarify the difference. If not, they should be merged. Cnilep (talk) 06:04, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The two are deeply interconnected, but are not the same. The main difference is that SLA studies have traditionally been naturalistic (i.e. they have studied people learning a new language after moving to another country, etc.), whereas language education is by definition focused on people learning a language in a classroom setting. Also, in general, second-language acquisition is concerned with answering scientific questions (e.g. "What is the mechanism by which a learner learns a new grammar feature?"), and language education is concerned with finding practical solutions to educational problems (e.g. "How can teachers best teach students new grammar?"). As you might expect, there is a sizeable overlap between these two viewpoints, which is covered in our article Second-language acquisition classroom research, although it could do with some work. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 07:21, 24 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I've added hatnotes to each article. Please change/correct them as necessary. It would be better to clarify the relationship between the subfields in the lead section of each article, but I don't feel up to that myself. Cnilep (talk) 01:40, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Commons:Photo challenge Multilingualism
FYI, take a look in commons:Commons:Photo challenge/2017 - February - Multilingualism if there is any file you'd like to reuse. Or if you have any file you'd like to upload, that's also welcome.--Alexmar983 (talk) 07:12, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Notice of requested move discussion
Greetings! I have recently relisted a requested move discussion at Talk:Turkish Language Association, regarding a page relating to this WikiProject. Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, Sky  Warrior  03:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Earliest attestation of term "cannabis refugee" or "marijuana refugee"?
I'm working on Draft:Cannabis refugees for the 420 Collaboration for WikiProject Cannabis. The earliest attestation I've found of the term is a 2012 mention of "marijuana refugee" is a 2012 NYT article about a "cannabis refugee" who moved from Norway to Netherlands. Is anyone here skilled at finding earliest attestations so I can help suss out when this term appeared? Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 23:02, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't we want to shy away from making claims of an attestation being the "earliest" unless we find a source that says as much? — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:56, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I should clarify: I don't intend to make any OR academic declaration of a "first" attestation, but rather whatever is the earliest attestation that I/we can find I'd like to include it in the article as part of the general chronology of the term. But not declare it anything definitive, just make sure to include whichever early examples we find. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 23:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry to misdirect from the original question, but it doesn't seem like an article about a neologism is going to withstand scrutiny from deletion/merge squads. Articles on terms aren't particularly notable in themselves. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 23:41, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm carefully watching WP:NEO to make sure I'm on the right track, but since it's a term that isn't simply used, but is actually explored/developed in secondary sources, I think my Draft will eventually be in good shape. If it was just the NYT tossing out the term "marijuana refugee" that'd be one thing, but there are a number of major media articles discussing the whole concept of what makes one a "cannabis refugee", what issues led them to that situation, etc. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 00:24, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Two consonant articles
has just created two articles: labiodental trill and voiced retroflex lateral fricative and has linked to them from template:IPA consonant chart, to which he added the symbols representing these sounds. Do these sounds occur in any language? I thought our policy (at least an unofficial one) was to wait with creating articles about sounds until it can be proved that they occur in at least one language. This is why voiced uvular affricate redirects to affricate consonant. Mr KEBAB (talk) 23:53, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

There's another article: bilabial ejective fricative. Mr KEBAB (talk) 23:56, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * As a non-participant in phonology editing, I'm not acquainted with current practices, but my opinion is that an article would be warranted even for a sound that doesn't occur in any natural language provided there is literature about it, for example in the context of general speculation (not very likely) or in the area of speech pathology (more probable). Neither of the two recently created articles have any sources though. If editors wish to create new articles about sounds, I suggest they might want to focus on the more obvious gaps we have, for example the aspirated or breathy voiced consonants. – Uanfala (talk) 02:17, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

California Proposition 63 (1986) English CA's official language

 * hey, I started an article on California Proposition 63 (1986), but I'm busy a the moment. Heads-up for anyone interested in bilingualism etc.[And yes, CA is one of 6 or 7 states that have designated English as its official language; one of only two by constitutional amendment].  Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 03:16, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

4 new vowel charts are available
See mainly File:IPA vowel chart.svg, but also File:Cardinal vowels on a vowel chart.svg, File:Primary cardinal vowels on a vowel chart.svg and File:Peripheral and central vowel space.svg. If you think that they're a useful addition to certain articles, don't hesitate and use them. I'm posting them here because I can't think of many articles that would need them, so perhaps you can choose them instead. Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:21, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Would linguist be shocked?
You are kindly invited to visit us at WikiProject Mathematics#A linguist would be shocked. In particular I wonder, how strange (or normal) it is, when an adjective extends (rather than narrows) the class of objects. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:53, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Kayfabe
I stumbled on the wrestling term "kayfabe" from a link in a Slate article and was surprised to see that the page has no Etymology section. Apparently, it has been the victim or some edit war or other. Given that it is the 70th most popular WikiProject Linguistics article for the most recent period, I think some attention to it is warranted. Already it has been marked as "needs attention" on its talk page, but no doubt everyone's been busy working on other things. Still, if someone could take a look at it and see if it can be improved, that would be most appreciated. Thanks, GentlemanGhost   (converse)  03:20, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Scope of Dutch phonology - only for spoken Standard Dutch or not?
Hi. I'm currently debating CodeCat on whether we should include non-standard regional Dutch dialects on Dutch phonology or not. Anyone wants to join? We're kinda stuck. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Northwest Caucasian languages
I have started a discussion here (permlink) that is pure linguistics. :) Please join the discussion.-- Vito Genovese 13:47, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * To sum up the discussion, User:Listofpeople claims that Adyghe language, Kabardian language, and Ubykh language are all dialects of a Circassian language, and I claim that those three are typologically distinct languages, and the Circassian Languages is a subdivision of the Northwest Caucasian language family. I believe I have successfully demonstrated that the consensus among the linguistic community supports what I am saying, while Listofpeople relies mostly on the terms that are locally used in the region and cites non-linguistic sources. The discussion needs more input. Please come and join! :)
 * Vito Genovese 12:28, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Let me ping several people who hold advanced degrees in linguistics and could hopefully weigh in. @Angr, @Cnilep, @Matve, @mitcho, @N-true, and @Antony D. Green: I was wondering if you could help us out with the issue described above.
 * Vito Genovese 12:47, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

RfC on the WP:ANDOR guideline
Hi, all. Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Merging four vowel pages into two
Hi. Last month I edited near-close near-front unrounded vowel, near-close near-front rounded vowel and near-close near-back rounded vowel to show that the symbols $\langle\rangle$ are often (well, not in the case of, which is a rare vowel anyway) close-mid, not near-close. Looking at their central equivalents (near-close central unrounded vowel vs. close-mid central unrounded vowel and near-close central rounded vowel vs. close-mid central rounded vowel), I'm seriously wondering whether we need four articles for two sets of non-cardinal vowels that are so similar (and you can't even write the near-close ones without diacritics, not with the official IPA) and that don't contrast phonemically in any language. If my proposal is unreasonable, then why don't we create near-open back unrounded vowel and list Danish, Leiden Dutch, Rotterdam Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Maastrichtian Limburgish and Luxembourgish there? It'd be the same thing.

Let's take a look at near-close central unrounded vowel:


 * Amharic, Munster Irish, Ulster Irish, Mapudungun, Russian and Sema have near-close vowels (the sources contain vowel charts that confirm that)
 * Central Atlas Tamazight, Inland Southern American English, Southeastern English English, London English, South African English, Southern American English, Mah Meri and Tera may or may not have near-close vowels (the sources aren't specific enough)
 * When it comes to Northern Welsh, if File:Welsh vowel chart.svg is from that source, then we also can't know for sure whether the vowel is near-close or close-mid (it looks close-mid to me, but I can't read formant charts very well)

Now close-mid central unrounded vowel: I'll just list languages that are also mentioned above: Munster Irish, Mapudungun and Russian. We also can't be sure whether some of the vowels listed there aren't near-close themselves (some of them aren't, as vowel charts say otherwise).

Now near-close central rounded vowel:
 * Standard Northern Dutch, New Zealand English, Munster Irish, Standard Eastern Norwegian and Russian have near-close vowels (the sources contain vowel charts that confirm that)
 * Cockney English, Rural white Southern American English, Southeastern English English, Ulster English, Shetland English and Swedish may or may not have near-close vowels (the sources aren't specific enough). However, the Swedish vowel is almost certainly near-close.

Now close-mid central rounded vowel: I'll just list languages that are also mentioned above: Standard Dutch, New Zealand English, Munster Irish, Standard Eastern Norwegian and Russian. We also can't be sure whether some of the vowels listed there aren't near-close themselves (some of them aren't, as vowel charts say otherwise).

When it comes to the near-close central compressed vowel, close-mid central rounded vowel doesn't have a separate section for a compressed vowel, so we can move it just like that.

As you can see, this is hardly controversial or problematic to do. In notes, we can just write "near-close" wherever the source specifies the height as such, and in the lede of close-mid central rounded vowel, we can describe the situation with Russian, which has both close-mid and near-close vowels as allophones. Also, directly above the table, we can write a note that says that some of the vowels may be near-close despite the lack of a note that says so.

Unless someone disagrees, I'll do the merging in a few days. Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

The same applies to near-close near-back unrounded vowel, which should be merged with close-mid back unrounded vowel. Mr KEBAB (talk) 20:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Democrat Party
Opinions are requested at Talk:Democrat Party (epithet) regarding the reliability of a specific source for supporting a claim that Democrat Party was used in a non-derogatory fashion by Democratic Party members in Maryland, U.S.A. during the early 20th century. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:06, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Southern Baltoidic languages
A subject-matter expert may want to check Southern Baltoidic languages, apparently created by blocked User:Wikinger evading his block. I'm tempted to simply speedily delete it given Wikinger's language-based shenanigans and will likely do so if I don't hear back here (ping me if I have deleted it and you want it reinstated). Huon (talk) 18:28, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion at Talk:Answer
Your input is appreciated. Laurdecl talk 09:46, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Citation overkill proposal at WP:Citation overkill talk page
Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:45, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report
We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, will post at /Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of. We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:
 * The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
 * The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
 * The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to for his original, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:15, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:Citation overkill RfC
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:36, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

IPA consonant chart order change proposal
There's a proposal by an IP at Template talk:IPA consonant chart which I think some of you might be interested to give an opinion on. Nardog (talk) 06:43, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC regarding the WP:Lead guideline -- the first sentence
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:13, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Should we move the Colloquialism article?
Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Colloquialism. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:29, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Request for Comment - Introduction to Whataboutism
There is an ongoing Request for Comment about the introduction to the article Whataboutism.

You may comment if you wish, at Talk:Whataboutism. Sagecandor (talk) 17:24, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Broad IPA Edits
Can someone with more IPA experience look over the edits of user LoveVanPersie. They are making changes to a lot of Spanish IPA entries. I believe they are trying to go for a more detailed approach (allophones?) but it is beyond my understanding. Thanks! — nihlus kryik   ( talk ) 11:21, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * His/her edits are somewhat inconsistent and that type of transcription differs from what we use on Help:IPA for Spanish, to which all IPA transcriptions enclosed within the IPA-es template link (which is unacceptable). I'm pinging the user so that they can explain their actions:, but the most likely outcome of this is a mass revert anyway. Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:28, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for quickly responding. That is what I was thinking. Do we even use ʲ and ʰ in our IPA listings for Spanish (because it is not on the help article)? It seems he's hooked on that and t̪. — nihlus kryik   ( talk ) 11:35, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Help:IPA for Spanish is the only such listing, so no. There are good reasons to enforce template-guide consistency on WP. When a more narrow transcription is called for (and it's not in this case), the general IPA template should be used. Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:48, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yep, I think Help:IPA for Spanish and all the IPA for language should be more narrow. LoveVanPersie (talk) 13:32, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Make your case on Help talk:IPA/Spanish. Your changes are not necessary but optional and are in disagreement with Help:IPA/Spanish (see above). See for the explanation. For now, I'm reverting. Please visit appropriate talk pages and make your case there if you still feel like it, just know that there's little chance of others agreeing with you. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:42, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm not sure which variety of Spanish you speak but the palato-alveolar affricate is not aspirated in any remotely standard accent (see ). Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:47, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh I think I do many things wrong. I apologize for that and a lot of thanks for your corrections. LoveVanPersie (talk) 14:46, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Is t͡ʃ in Spanish unaspirated? Why does it sound like aspirated? It is said in Spanish orthography and Spanish phonology that it's the same as English t͡ʃ. LoveVanPersie (talk) 06:51, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What do you mean that it "sounds" like it's aspirated? Spanish phonology doesn't say that it's the same as English, only Spanish orthography does and it's wrong. You can't trust everything you read on Wikipedia, especially when it's unsourced (see Wikipedia is not a reliable source). The aspiration of English is weaker than of the corresponding stops  and is not discussed by many sources. Maybe that is why you hear English  and Spanish  as the same unaspirated affricate. Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Come on, let's fix Hortative!
We really have to do something about the major issues in this article. And so ends this wordplay part of the request. This article has significant issues. So much so that I keep thinking that it should be PROD, just to attract attention to it.
 * It only has 3 sources: All are books, none of which are available online, two of which do not contain ISBN's or links. I also believe these two sources are misattributed.  The third is "The World Atlas of Language Structures". :-|
 * No inline citations: None.
 * Excessive use of jargon: Throughout, but especially in the lede. Also, there is inadequate description of their meaning.
 * Significant MOS problems: Section titles that are vague and do not describe their content; unnecessary single-sentence subsections; repetitive language; excessive use of bullet points.
 * Inclusive modalities section is a disaster: It has a 5-year old NOR tag; poorly organized; fails to describe adequately its subject matter; confusing, out-of-context examples.

I can help with style and structure, and some substantive content, but I'm not formally trained. What's needed is those who have studied the topic who can assess the validity of the content. I have decent research skills, and typically I'm able to run down and verify some claim even if I'm not familiar with the topic. No such luck here. I don't know if the article is just that poorly written, or the topic is just too obscure, or perhaps I'm just getting old, but my efforts were in vain.

Thanks everyone for all your contributions. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 08:19, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

RfC on human titles
This may be of interest: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters.

The goal is to adjust MOS:JOBTITLES in a way that provides an easy "rule" for capitalization that is a compromise between the conflicting linguistics and philosophy approaches to the proper name concept. Please keep in mind that the discussion is about finding a way to years of editorial dispute, not perpetuate it by forcefully advancing one's (or one's profession's) preferred ideal. I.e., no WP:TRUTH or WP:GREATWRONGS should be injected. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:49, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Languagelessness
I... find it very odd that we don't appear to have an article on languagelessness in humans. Is there a different more specific title that I'm missing? G M G talk   17:30, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Muteness? — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:41, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Not precisely. Someone who is mute cannot speak but they may be able to write and sign, and are therefore not languageless. What I mean is along the lines of A Man Without Words, a person who has no language in any form.  G M G  talk   17:44, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * One aspect of the topic is certainly covered by Aphasia (and possibly more broadly by Language disorder). – Uanfala 18:11, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking less about neurological damage and more about never having acquired language, pre-language children/infants, feral children, in the case of the above referenced book, deaf men in Mexico who were never exposed to sign language, and communicated through non-linguistic mimicry. I'm not really thinking about a specific neurological disorder related to language production or comprehension.
 * Anyway, I figured I'd ask before I started looking through books, since my intuition is that this article could probably be written if it hasn't yet.  G M G  talk   18:26, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * No, that's not quite right. I suppose as a cognitive "state of being", languagelessness would necessarily have to include aphasia. But I was thinking more along the lines of the philosophical issues around how languagelessness affect cognition, whether per-language thought is possible, etc. I'm pretty sure I read something about this by Daniel Dennett a lifetime ago, I just probably need to go find it.  G M G  talk   18:52, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a difficult, but rewarding article to write! – Uanfala 19:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There's also the language and thought article. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 23:26, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Request for peer review
Hi, I've listed Lilias Armstrong (early 20th century British phonetician) for a peer review and would appreciate any feedback. Thanks in advance! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Lilias_Armstrong/archive1

Umimmak (talk) 21:28, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Natural speech
Dear editors: Here's an article which is sourced to a YouTube video and an article which doesn't mention the subject. Is this an accepted linguistics term? &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 01:44, 9 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I mean, it is a collocation one encounters in linguistics texts:
 * "In all the words so far considered, // will be heard from at least some speakers—even those who in natural speech use some other syllabic may use // in precise enunciation." (Hocket. 1958. Course in Modern Linguistics)
 * "A record of natural speech will show numerous false starts, deviations from rules, changes of plan in mid-course, and so on." (Chomsky. 1965. Aspects)
 * "Before the interview began, and many times throughout the interview, the informant was told that the survey was concerned with natural speech, in everyday language, as opposed to the language of the school room." (Labov. 1966. SSENYC)
 * "Having identified naturalness as whatever is appropriate under a given set of circumstances, we add that it is this natural speech which a linguist works with." (Samarin. 1967. Field Linguistics)
 * But, personally, I'm not entirely convinced that it's a notable enough term of art for it to merit its own entry. People use it, but not too frequently discuss it, it seems (Samarin seems to be exceptional for including "natural speech" in his index, for instance). I'm not sure what sort of content it would have. But others should chime in; don't do anything just based on me, haha. Umimmak (talk) 03:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Language trees
Hi - I was wondering what the rule was on language trees. I have a student that has uploaded an image of a tree (File:Khoe Kwadi Ts'ixa Tree.png) from a PhD thesis and right now it's tagged for deletion because it doesn't have a license on it. I'd like for her to re-do it because this image isn't the best version and an image has accessibility issues, but I don't know we can post language trees someone else has created, even if we make our own version of it. Is it OK for her to do this? Also, what is the best program to do this with? Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:13, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, as long as you provide attribution in the file notes, you should be fine. That's what I did for File:Uvular rhotics in Europe.png. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:01, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

John Algeo
Wanting to find out something about John Algeo, I arrived at the article John Algeo. It's terrible. I have made it very slightly less so, I hope -- but it's still terrible. Is there nobody here from the Uni of Georgia, or with Algeo-related interests/knowledge?

(For me, Algeo is the (co-) author of "Among the new words" and of one of the very few books about differences between US and British English that aren't mere collections of trivia. But I notice that there's plenty more by him that's [legally] downloadable free of charge.) -- Hoary (talk) 09:11, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Overhauling the lang-xx templates for more selective italics behavior
Please see: Template talk:Lang

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  07:17, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Review the newly created Kurdish phonology
I just created the page Kurdish phonology and would appreciate experts looking at the page and perhaps write here if the page is too confusing (or messy), or whether something is missing. Thank you. --Ahmedo Semsurî (talk) 16:47, 24 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I just had a few minutes to look at it and so didn't make it past the consonant table, but here are my initial impressions. First of all, thanks for taking on this task, it's a good idea and will result in a better encyclopedia. However, linguistically speaking, Kurdish has three main dialects; the Zaza–Gorani languages (Zaza and Gorani) are Northwestern Iranian languages but not Kurdish and, even though spoken by ethnic Kurds, shouldn't be included in a phonology of Kurdish. On a stylistic note, I would rewrite the WP:Self-reference "This article will discuss..."; although technically an allowed type of self-reference, it's still jarring. In the next sentence there is a bit of WP:EDITORIAL, "Notable phonological features include...". If it weren't notable, it wouldn't be worth including (those are all fairly standard features anyway, not particularly notable). Just describe it and let the reader draw their own conclusions: "Phonological features of Kurdish include...". This brings me to the next point. In that sentence, it is mentioned that "the distinction...between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops" is phonetic, but in the consonant table, there are no aspirated stops listed.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 23:44, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Input needed on Quanzhang/Hokkien/Southern Min/Minnan Proper mess
Please see Talk:Hokkien. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  05:31, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Bulgarian and Macedonian are analytic languages?
The analytic language article claims Bulgarian and Macedonian as analytic languages, which seems dubious because they still have heavy inflection for their nouns. So I wonder if there is a reliable source for this claim.-- Beneficii (talk) 20:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * They're somewhat analytic compared to most of the other Slavic languages, since they've eliminated case inflection, but I don't think they're absolutely analytic (certainly not remotely comparable to Vietnamese). AnonMoos (talk) 04:02, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Rounded and unrounded retroflex approximants in Old English:
The rhotic consonant article makes the following claim, which would be interesting if true, but it's uncited:


 * There is a distinction between an unrounded retroflex approximant and a rounded variety that probably could have been found in Anglo-Saxon and even to this day in some[which?] dialects of English, where the orthographic key is r for the unrounded version and usually wr for the rounded version (these dialects will make a differentiation between right and write).[citation needed]

Anyone find a reliable source for this?--Beneficii (talk) 20:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Any dialects which maintain distinct sounds for written "r" and "wr" are probably rather rural and remote from standard English. You could try to track this down in the Survey of English Dialects.  I don't know of any evidence of retroflexion in Old English at all, and in various forms of modern English, retroflex "r" usually occurs at the end of a syllable, while a "r" vs. "wr" contrast would be at the beginning of a syllable... AnonMoos (talk) 03:56, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Old English phonology mentions that the spelling likely reflects a now-lost contrast relating to velarization, rather than rounding. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 22:55, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation links on pages tagged by this wikiproject
Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Linguistics

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.&mdash; Rod talk 16:53, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

unreciprocation: Real word?
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Online_dating_service&diff=813421995&oldid=813421514 79.67.64.117 (talk) 17:00, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Missing articles or sections?
At WP:MOSCAPS, we have: "Certain words may be written with all capitals or small capitals. Examples include: ... In linguistics and philology, interlinear glossing of grammatical morphemes (as opposed to lexical morphemes), and transcription of logograms (as opposed to phonograms)"

However, grammatical morpheme and lexical morpheme are redlinks, and Morpheme doesn't cover these terms. There is Morphology (linguistics), but the whole "section" is one sentence (though much of the first half of the article is about lexemes, so the section heading may be misplaced or superflous. Morphology has changed a lot ("nanosyntax"?) since my university days, so I'm not sure how to repair either Morpheme and Morphology (linguistics), or MOS:CAPS to make sense in this regard. Is there simply a better way to explain linguistic use of ALLCAPS in interlinear glosses?  Is "grammatical morphology" an imprecise term for Morphology (linguistics)? Or is this "grammatical" versus "lexical" split a differently-worded take on Morphology (linguistics)?  My inability to "just fix it" is a little embarrassing given my minor in linguistics, but it's been a long time and I never was really much into the morphology side to begin with. PS: Should all-caps and small-caps styles be considered interchangeable for this purpose. PPS: Can anyone construct a concise example, or point to an exemplary one already in an article? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  10:44, 24 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I think you're overthinking it. It's just saying when glossing you don't capitalize the gloss corresponding to a morpheme meaning like, "dog", but you capitalize standard glossing abbreviations for morphemes that are have a more grammatical role, including inflectional like, derivational like , and independent words like or  or w/e. See e.g., the IJAL style sheet , the Leipzig glossing rules , Bauer's "The Linguistics Student Handbook": In glosses, the translations of lexical items are presented in lower case roman type, while glosses of grammatical information are presented in small capitals. or Macaulay's Surviving Linguistics Put glosses of grammatical morphemes into a font which contrasts some way with the font used for glosses which translate lexical morphemes. In the examples above, I've used small capitals for the grammatical morphemes. Others just capitalize the first letter of the gloss, or capitalize the entire word.


 * These seem to be the most relevant entries in the Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics if you want defs:
 * grammatical meaning: Any aspect of meaning described as part of the syntax and morphology of a language as distinct from its lexicon. Thus especially the meanings of constructions and inflections, or of words when described similarly. Such words include, in particular, ones belonging to closed rather than open classes, or those seen as marking a syntactic unit. Thus he has a grammatical meaning in opposition to other members of a closed class of personal pronouns; if as the marker e.g. of an indirect question in I asked if they were coming. A ‘grammatical word’ or ‘grammatical morpheme’ is accordingly a unit described, with whatever justification, in this mode. E.g., in the walls, both the and the plural inflection (-s) are distinguished as grammatical units from the lexical unit wall.


 * lexical meaning: Any aspect of meaning that is explained as part of a lexical entry for an individual unit: e.g. that of ‘to run’ in He ran away as opposed to that of ‘to walk’ in He walked away. Hence specifically in application to a lexical word or lexical morpheme as opposed to one which is assigned grammatical meaning: thus, in the same examples, of the meanings of the verbs and of the adverb away as opposed to those of the past tense or of he.


 * It looks like the most relevant wikipedia articles would be functional morpheme and content morpheme... Umimmak (talk) 11:28, 24 November 2017 (UTC)


 * A number of words, phrases, and morphemes mentioned by were not set off from the text in any way; e.g., "he" in
 * Thus he has a grammatical meaning in opposition to...
 * I have italicized them. --Thnidu (talk) 04:22, 15 January 2018 (UTC)


 * apparently I don't know how pings work. Take two. Umimmak (talk) 00:34, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Got it. I'll go over that and revise the MOS line item to make clearer sense (if someone doesn't beat me to it).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  00:58, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've completely overhauled the wording there to make sense to "mere mortals" . Thanks for the help.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  08:24, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

One last clarification on this part: There's an old instruction in there that "Transcription of logograms (as opposed to phonograms) can also be done with small caps or all caps." What applicability could this have here? I don't see this used in Wikipedia anywhere; all the direct representations of logograms are given "as they are" (樂) with the appropriate or whatever markup (and many logogrammatic languages have no upper/lower case system, at least not in Unicode); Romanized transcriptions are given in italics (yuè); and English glosses [canonically] in single quotes ('music'). In actual practice, much of all three forms of markup is missing or wrong (e.g. double quotes on English glosses, and so forth). This was true at Logogram, which I just overhauled (other than things like yuè are not marked up as ; I don't know the particulars of such stuff for Chinese).

Anyway, the mystery reference to logograms in the MoS wording has been commented out for now. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  08:24, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Source: "Never put logograms in capitals: only uninterpreted sign names, and complex signs are in upper case ", which is not quite the same statement. And this appears to be a set of instructions for a special form of encoding, not for writing natural-language linguistic prose that includes some cuneiform. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  09:16, 27 November 2017 (UTC) Another, saying something related but different: 'If the letters that make up the transliteration are written in upper case, e.g., “PA” ..., then the transliteration merely refers to or represents the cuneiform sign without making any claim about how the sign is pronounced. Letters in lower case, e.g., “pa” ..., presuppose a phonetic interpretation on the part of the modern text editor.'  Blatantly conflicting convention: "Akkadian words are given in italics, with logograms set in small capitals", and "Transliterations: ... texts are set with Sumerian logograms in small capitals and Akkadian words in italics; unknown readings are given in large capitals."  A third system, encountered in several works: "[D]ifferent formats are used to distinguish between Hittite words, Sumerograms, and Akkadograms ... [E]verything Hittite is lower case .... Sumerograms are given in roman capitals (in this book in small capitals: ) .... Akkadograms are also capitalized but italicized ....". So, this is messy. I'm suspecting that similar conventions exist for other specialized areas of study; this stuff can probably just be an example in a footnote, to a line item that, in some wording, says something to the effect of "In particular linguistic subfields, like Assyriology[fn1], there are special conventions for the use of all caps and sometimes small caps. When the convention is not distinguishing between all and small caps, normalize to small caps to be easier on readers' eyes. Regardless, use a consistent style throughout an article." Does that seem like a reasonable approach? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  09:38, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's about cuneiform? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script#Transliteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language#Sample_text Umimmak (talk) 08:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That sounds plausible, i.e. that it's an extension of the style for Classical Latin to other ancient languages, including those in other scripts.  It seems a bit superfluous if so.  However, something's going on at the second of those articles, with some stuff in this style and some not, and it's not clear [to me] what difference this is intended to signify (but it may be important to get this right): "30–31: SAḪAR.DU6.TAKA4-bi eden-na ki ba-ni-us2-us2". Whatever it is, this would surely be less annoyingly shouty as "30–31: 6.4-bi eden-na ki ba-ni-us2-us2".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  09:08, 27 November 2017 (UTC) Found a hint at Dingir: "By Assyriological convention, capitals identify a cuneiform sign used as a word, while the phonemic value of a sign in a given context is given in lower case." But there's no source for this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  09:10, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Two relevant pages from Fortson . Umimmak (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC) Addendum: If I am right and the MOS in reference to writing Sumerograms, perhaps you should ask WikiProject Ancient Near East as well. Umimmak (talk) 09:37, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll do that, though I think this is not ultimately going to be entirely about that stuff, but just a general "don't use full-size ALL CAPS without reason, and use a consistent system intra-article" statement.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  09:43, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The crossposting has been done.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  09:59, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Chaos in romanization of Kazakh
New York Times article. Short version: Kazakh is being romanized by 2025, away from Cyrillic. The plan has been to use diacritics, as in Turkish. The dictatorial president of Kazakhstan is trying to force this to instead be done with an F-load of apostrophes, which would interfere with things like search engines and generally make the language unreadable. There seems to be roughly 70% opposition to the idea, but he's powerful and may get his way unless he kicks the bucket in the interim. A short video lays out the issue (and you don't need to know the language to follow it).

We should probably cover this at the article Kazakh language, and possibly also in summary at Kazakhstan, Kazakhs, and Nursultan Nazarbayev. It may also have implications for how we render Kazakh names in Latin transliteration on Wikipedia. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  19:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * There's already a fair bit of coverage, with refs, in Kazakh language, including the one below. We could probably use several of them here.
 * Also, President Nazarbayev’s office opposed the linguists' diacritic proposal:
 * In August, the linguists proposed using an alphabet that largely followed the Turkish model.
 * The president’s office, however, declared this a nonstarter because Turkish-style markers do not feature on a standard keyboard.
 * Though getting and publicizing the necessary plug-ins and key combinations to manage the diacritical marks would be easier than getting search engines to respect Nazarbayev’s catapostrophic [sorry, couldn't resist] proposal (by a factor of about &infin;:1), we really ought to mention this. --Thnidu (talk) 22:18, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, as to what to cover. As for what they'd need to do over in Kazakhstan, it's probably use Turkish keyboards or get some made that are close to them.  I don't buy the "not found on standard keyboards" thing because they don't use "standard keyboards" in a Western sense, but mostly Cyrillic ones, and Kazakh is written in a variant of Cyrillic that, like many others, was specifically designed to conflict with neighboring variants to prevent pan-Turkic literature comprehensibility for political reasons.  I.e., they already have a bear of a keyboard problem.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  22:32, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Bot for WP:WPENGLISH
I've made a request at at WP:Bot requests to have the articles within the project scope bot-tagged, since doing it by had or even with AWB might be an enormous amount of effort. I'm not sure if BOTREQ requires a showing of support before action is taken to implement a bot, but I get the sense that this might be the case. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:55, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Template:Interlinear
We've now got a template for formatting interlinear glosses: interlinear. At this stage, it will be really helpful to receive some feedback on its overall structure, like the parameters used or the various default behaviours (for example with respect to the presence of free translations, or the formatting of glossing abbreviations). All these things will be difficult to change once the template becomes more widely used. Your input is welcome at Template talk: interlinear. Bug reports or feature requests will be appreciated as well. – Uanfala (talk) 17:53, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Beijing dialect and Beijing Mandarin
Input at Talk:Beijing dialect would be appreciated. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 17:21, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Help with IPA
A user added alternative pronunciation of a separate syllable next to IPA in opening sentence of Israel (changed from "Israel " to "Israel "). I'm not sure this is how it works. The discussion is at Talk:Israel. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 11:45, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Links to DAB pages
I am a WikiGnome, and perhaps waste too much of my life fixing links to DAB pages. I have collected links to several linguistics-related articles which contain disambiguation needed tags and which I dare not try to fix. Can any of you experts help resolve these problems? Search for "disam" in the articles listed below. If you solve a problem, take off the tag and post done here.


 * ✅ Q
 * ✅ Sama–Bajaw languages
 * ✅ Intensifier
 * ISO 639:k ISO 639:kuq
 * ✅ Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
 * ✅ Yiwom language
 * ✅ Danke Schoen (I suspect that in this article, the answer might be to take off the link to Low German languages altogether. The article seems to be referring to those German dialects spoken in USA, not specifically to e.g. Plattdeutsch or Pälzisch.)

There may be another dozen or so links like these, which I will find during my rounds, and which I hope you experts can fix. Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 22:45, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Comparison and Comparison (grammar)
I have started Draft:Comparison, and in the course of expanding it found that Comparison (grammar) is in poor shape as far as sourcing goes. Any help improving these would be appreciated. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:13, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * There is also an article at Comparative, which might need improvement, or perhaps merging into one of the articles BD2412 is working on. (There used to be (c. 2016) still another article at Superlative, but I merged it to Comparison (grammar).) Cnilep (talk) 23:46, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

My brother discovers a new grammar rule
Okay, so perhaps this is not the appropriate place to ask this, but I am asking anyway. My brother recently "discovered" a rule in English. I am wondering if this is commonly known thing. It goes like this:
 * "The rule applies to pairs of two-syllable words that are spelled the same (homographic), are pronounced differently, where one word is a noun and the other is a verb.
 * The rule is "The noun accents on the first syllable, the verb accents on the second syllable."
 * Examples: reject, record, rebel, repeat, rerun, replay, redo, refuse, project, object, defect, produce,console, convert, contract, (undo ?)
 * Counter examples: I can find none."

Just for the record my brother is a mathematician and economist, but since our mother passed away he has had to pick up the mantle of family grammarian. Thanks, Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 05:59, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know how commonly known this thing is to English speakers (after all, grammars of natural languages are immensely complex and native speakers go by perfectly well without the need to be aware of it all), but it's certainly common knowledge among learners of English past the intermediate stage. As far as I'm aware, this rule affects mostly vocabulary of Latin/French origin (though there are exceptions like "uplift"), and usually it's the verb that is historically earlier. There are also pairs of disyllabic words without a change in stress ("access"), and pairs of longer words with a similar stress shift ("àttribute" vs. "to attrìbute"). Anyway, English is a really well studied language, so it's unlikely that someone can discover a hitherto unknown rule unless they're looking at an extremely obscure variety of English (like the jargon employed by workers in the colliers of southern Alabama), or it's a case of an extremely subtle phenomenon that arises in particularly complicated syntactic or semantic contexts. Still, even if the rules are widely known among linguists, it doesn't mean that they have been easy to figure out. For a native speaker of a language, it's generally pretty hard to become aware of even a tiny fraction of the rules that they implicitly use in every utterance. Discovering these rules is challenging, but fun, and I'm sure there's plenty more in store for your brother. – Uanfala (talk) 00:53, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you Uanfala, but please do not encourage my brother. Life is hard enough as it is. Carptrash (talk) 17:52, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia already has an article about this if you're curious: Initial-stress-derived noun. Umimmak (talk) 01:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * One of the wonders of wikipedia, is that if I go to the right place, in this case HERE, I can learn, or someone will point me, to just about anything.  I will pass this link on. And if there is anything you'd like to know about architectural sculpture . . . . . . . ..............  Carptrash (talk) 17:56, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Dakhini
Can anyone look at the recent edits to the article Dakhini? There is a "The Legend" section with poetic descriptions, population of "Kafir" speakers and other changes that seem problematic to me. utcursch &#124; talk 16:44, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've removed most of them. I've left the "Legacy" section untouched though: some of it is sourced and the rest of it might as well turn out to be alright, but I think it needs a closer look from someone more familiar with the topic. – Uanfala (talk) 19:54, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

LoveVanPersie's disruptions
There's a thread on Administrators' Noticeboard concerning LoveVanPersie's disruptions. He's posted over 50 incorrect transcriptions in the last 4 months. Please join the discussion if you have anything to contribute. Thank you. Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:13, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposed change to "Affect (linguistics)" page
I think there is a mistake on the "Affect (linguistics)" page, in the section where it discusses Korean.

Specifically, where it says:


 * 맛있잖아 Masi-ittjianha (lit. "It's not delicious," but connotes "It's delicious, no?")

There are two problems. First, the "–잖아" (–jana) ending is used to indicate something the speaker thinks the listener is (or should be) aware of already, not as a tag question (as the original writer seems to have intended). Second, the adjective "맛있다" (masitda) means the food is delicious, not that it is not. (I think the original writer meant to use "맛없다" (mateopda) which would mean "not delicious"). So the meaning of what the original writer wrote is actually "It is delicious, you know." To say, "It's delicious, no?" (a tag question seeking confirmation), it should be "맛있지?" (masitji) because "–지" is the ending used in Korean for that purpose.

Additionally, the Romanization the original writer used is confusing. I've put corrections below:


 * 맛있어요 "Masi-issoyo" should be "masisseoyo"
 * 맛있군요 "Masi-ittgunyo!" should be "masitgunyo!"
 * 맛있잖아 "Masi-ittjianha" should be "masitjana" (but when corrected to "맛있지?" as above, it would be "masitji?")
 * 맛이 없다 "Masi-eopda" should be "mas-i eopda"

24.124.60.249 (talk) 04:39, 25 March 2018 (UTC)24.124.60.249 (talk) 04:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC)Em


 * I have copied this comment to Talk:Affect (linguistics). Editors interested in editing the page are likely to see it there. Cnilep (talk) 07:48, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you! 24.124.60.249 (talk) Em

Gay lisp article -- what to title it
At Talk:Gay lisp, we need some opinions on what to title the article. One recent move discussion section was made before I made this one. The article is likely to go through a WP:Requested moves discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:10, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page
See Template talk:Native name. Narky Blert (talk) 22:39, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

More links to DAB pages
I have collected several more linguistics-related articles, all about technical issues, which have been tagged disambiguation needed and where the ambiguous link needs expert attention. Search for "disam" (ignoring any hatnote); and if you fix a problem, take the dab tag off and mark it here as done.
 * ISO 639:k
 * It seems to me that ISO 639:kuq probably should point to the disambiguation page. According to SIL International, who keep the ISO codes, the language which the code refers to is variously known as Karipuna, Jau-Navo, and Kagwahiva/Kawahib. In other words, at least two of the Wikipedia articles disambiguated are proper targets of the ISO code. The problem, of course, is that pointing ISO 639:kuq to the name Karipuna language (disambiguation) would create a double redirect. Cnilep (talk) 00:50, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * why can't these people fit themselves into tidy classifications?
 * A solution could be, to create a WP:SIA page for those ISO:kuq languages, separate from the DAB page, and to point at it. What would be a good name for such a page? Would Karipuna language (kuq) work? Something like that would both get round the current WP:INTDAB problem, and (more importantly) point readers directly towards what they might be looking for without confusion with ISO:639 kgm or ISO:639 kmv or whatever. Narky Blert (talk) 01:54, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * A set index is probably the way to go. I suppose some version of 'Karipuna language' is best for the index title, possibly 'Karipuna language (ISO 639 kuq)' or something like that. What do other members of this WikiProject suggest? Cnilep (talk) 02:57, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have WP:BOLDly gone ahead and done it. Karipuna language contains the information it always did, but now also has a SA link to the SIA page Karipuna language (kuq). I have edited ISO 639:kuq to link to that SIA page. Redirects are cheap, so adding other plausible links into that SIA page would not be costly. Narky Blert (talk) 23:56, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks in advance. Narky Blert (talk) 22:35, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Lexical decision task ✅ — Umimmak (talk) 01:00, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Short U (Cyrillic) ✅ — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]
 * Q with hook tail ✅ — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]
 * Classical Nahuatl grammar ✅ — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]

New related WikiProject: WP:Folklore
This is an invitation to check out a new WikiProject, WP:Folklore. As folklore studies and linguistics grew from the same academic soil, so to speak, and historical linguistics plays a major role in folklore studies, chances are members will find this WikiProject interesting. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 17:06, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Front vs. near-front rounded vowels
Hello. Unless someone objects, I'm planning on removing the "near-front" label and the centralized/retracted diacritic from the following pages:
 * Close front rounded vowel
 * Close-mid front rounded vowel
 * Mid front rounded vowel
 * Open-mid front rounded vowel
 * Open front rounded vowel

The reasons for that are quite simple: most sources describe them as near-front rather than truly front, it's understood that many vowels we list on Wikipedia aren't exactly the same as the corresponding cardinal vowels (and it's also controversial whether the cardinal are actually truly front - acoustically, they aren't) and labelling only some (probably most of them to be accurate) vowels as near-front introduces unwanted discrepancies.

For instance, on close front rounded vowel, we list Standard Danish, Standard Dutch, Standard German, Limburgish, Saterland Frisian and Urban East Norwegian as having a near-front vowel, yet we list Afrikaans, the Antwerpian accent of Dutch, many accents of German (see the article), Faroese, Low German, Luxembourgish, the Kerkrade dialect of Ripuarian, Central Standard Swedish and West Frisian as having a front vowel (or at least we don't say it's near-front). It suggests a false distinction, and it's especially bad in the case of Standard Dutch vs. Standard Antwerpian Dutch and Standard German vs. accents of German. I understand that the lack of the near-front label doesn't automatically mean that the vowel is fully front, but I still don't like the discrepancy. We already say on top of the page that acoustically it is a close front-central rounded vowel and, IMO, that should be enough. The front vs. near-front distinction seems to be rather meaningless for front rounded vowels, the only relevant distinction is front vs. central.

I didn't list near-close near-front rounded vowel as it's already good enough in my view. Mr KEBAB (talk) 06:33, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not object. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:16, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, done. Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:44, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Near-front and near-back
<div class="boilerplate" style="background-color: #efe; margin: 2em 0 0 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px dotted #aaa;">
 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per no objections below. However, I am only closing the portion of the discussion that's related to moves. Merges and other changes are outside the scope of a WP:RM close. Dekimasu よ! 18:59, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello again. To expand upon my latest proposal (which has been successfuly implemented), I propose the following:

1. Renaming of the following pages:
 * Near-close near-front unrounded vowel → Near-close front unrounded vowel
 * Near-close near-front rounded vowel → Near-close front rounded vowel
 * Near-close near-back unrounded vowel → Near-close back unrounded vowel
 * Near-close near-back rounded vowel → Near-close back rounded vowel

The articles on and  cover both centralized and fully peripheral vowels, whereas the articles on  and  cover only the centralized ones (as expected). is also not special among front rounded vowels in that it's "near-front" because basically all front rounded vowels are like that. Plus, only the article on covers only what its name says it covers. Thus, in these cases the names are overly precise and exclusive. Front and back also don't mean only fully front and only fully back and so they're more inclusive labels.

Also, many articles on vowels that only have front and back in their name list both fully peripheral and centralized vowels. This includes all articles on unrounded front and rounded back vowels. Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

2. Merging of the following pages per WP:UNDUE and/or WP:TOOSOON:
 * Near-front vowel + Front vowel → Front vowel
 * Near-back vowel + Back vowel → Back vowel

No language contrasts a near-front vowel with a fully front and a central of the same height and length, nor there is a language that contrasts a near-back vowel with a central and a fully back one of the same height and length (see the SOWL - even languages that contrast front, central and back vowels of the same height and length are rare!). Near-front vowel and near-back vowel are also of little actual substance. Near-front and near-back are nothing more than narrow phonetic descriptions of certain vowels. Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

3. Making several changes to our IPA charts to make them closer to the official IPA chart:
 * Removing the near-front and near-back labels
 * Removing dots from vowel pairs that aren't cardinal ( and etc.)
 * Making and  more peripheral (moving the former closer to the front edge of charts and the latter closer to the back edge of charts) (IMPLEMENTED)
 * Using bold font for the close-mid and open-mid labels instead of the mid one, which should be written in a regular font (IMPLEMENTED)

This is pretty much self-explanatory.

EDIT: We should also remove Template:Near-front vowel, Template:Near-back vowel, Category:Near-front vowels and Category:Near-back vowels. Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm mostly behind your proposals except I don't know about removing the dots. Not only would that be a little cumbersome to implement, but they might just look like they differ in backness (which may be true in some cases, but we're talking about the symbols' definitions). Incidentally, though, I think we should remove [ɵ̞, ɞ̞] and move [ə, ɐ] to the center. Nardog (talk) 11:41, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So maybe instead of removing the dots we could just change their color to gray?


 * I'm in favor of removing from the table (and the article itself - frankly, it's a joke and should be merged with open central rounded vowel), but I don't know about  and . There's a good reason to split sections about them into separate articles for the sake of consistency. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:00, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Moved below - Mr KEBAB

We need input from more users to implement this proposal, so other opinions are welcome. Mr KEBAB (talk) 08:21, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

I've WP:BOLDLY moved the near-close front and back vowels to more peripheral positions on vowel charts. Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I think we can move the pages per Requested moves/Closing instructions. Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

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Nascent gender-neutral language approach in Romance languages
Please see: Talk:Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:14, 2 June 2018 (UTC)