Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics/Archive 21

Category:Neologisms
I'm concerned about the number of multi-word phrases that have been placed in this Category -- particularly in subcategories such as Category:1950s neologisms. Many of them are catchphrases from popular culture, advertsing slogans, quotes from movies, passages from literature, etc.

Examples: Charlie Brown, you blockhead; Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids; The name's Bond... James Bond; Have you no sense of decency; Nadir of American race relations; Do not go gentle into that good night; What's good for General Motors is good for the country.

Those were just a small sample. I just don't see how these phrases can *properly* be considered neologisms -- they are merely phrases (consisting of commonly-used words) that happen to have become popular during a certain period of time.

Frankly, it is incomrehensible that so many of these phrases have been added into Categories intended for neologisms. I am happy to do my share of the work removing these improperly categorized articles, but I can't take on the whole job myself. Can I count on folks here to help out in a big way? Regards, Anomalous+0 (talk) 06:29, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * FWIW, the incorrect categorization is the outcome of this unfortunate CfD: Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_October_4. The original categories for phrases were good and precise. –Austronesier (talk) 07:35, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * What a shame. Clearly not a neologism.  It's been over a year, maybe it's time to overturn that Cfd.Mathglot (talk) 10:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Joshua Katz, linguist
I recently created a draft for Joshua Katz (classicist). Does he appear to meet notability for his academic work? Thank you, Thriley (talk) 16:55, 20 May 2022 (UTC)


 * The page Notability (academics) describes generally accepted standards for academics. As the draft stands, it is not obvious to me that Professor Katz meets the standards.
 * I don't see significant coverage in independent sources
 * The article doesn't mention a national honor, named chair, or election to a highly selective society.
 * The article doesn't indicate that Professor Katz has been editor of a notable journal or has served in the highest level position of a university or academic society.
 * Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 09:50, 22 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I see in this morning's newspaper that Joshua Katz is gaining some media coverage for issues not directly related to his scholarship. That is separate from WP:Notability (academics), but see also WP:NOTNEWS. Cnilep (talk) 01:36, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Upvote for access to John Benjamins in the WP Library
Hi all, please upvote for my suggestion to access the John Benjamins e-Platform in the Wikipedia Library: the link is here, search for "John Benjamins" and click the "Upvote"-button. The site hosts Diachronica, Journal of Historical Linguistics, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area and loads of other journals relevant for this project. –Austronesier (talk) 20:39, 8 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I've wondered if anyone at the TWL team looks at that page, let alone gives it any serious consideration... It looks barely moderated, with lots of duplicates and copyvio site suggestions. Access to Benjamins would indeed be nice though. Nardog (talk) 17:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Hope never dies. But yes, the page is a mess and eventually its posts might turn out to be as effective as letters to Santa. –Austronesier (talk) 08:33, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

When the going gets tough, the tough get going
Your comments at either discussion at Talk:When the going gets tough, the tough get going would be appreciated. I'd be inclined to delete the article per WP:NOTDICT. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:01, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Miroglyph
Would some of the members of this WikiProject mind taking a look at Miroglyph? It's newly created, but didn't get reviewed by AfC. I've done some minor MOS cleanup, but it's still contain way to many Wikilinks to pages that don't really need to be linked. There's also a question about whether it meets WP:NOTNEO, but that would be better assessed perhaps by users more familiar with articles about neologisms. The article appears to have been created a part of a university course (Wikipedia:GLAM/UNIPD/Digital_History). The course appears to be for an Italian University and some of the content in the article might be translated from other Wikipedia articles, but I'm not sure. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:31, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeísmo IPA
An editor that's been edit warring with me on Spanish language over the inclusion of a third IPA transcription with ⟨ʝ⟩ (so alongside ) is continuously refusing to engage with me on Help talk:IPA/Spanish. Instead, he's writing blatantly false edit summaries such as Undid revision 1095685100 by Sol505000 (talk) rv per Help:IPA/Spanish: For terms that are more relevant to regions that have undergone yeísmo (where words such as haya and halla are pronounced the same), words spelled with ⟨ll⟩ can be transcribed with [ʝ]. In this instance, the two most common standard forms are helpful. See also article text: In most dialects it (/ʎ/) has been merged with /ʝ/ in the merger called yeísmo when it is clear that Castellano is not one of "terms that are more relevant to regions that have undergone yeísmo". Not only that, the guide explicitly says that ⟨ʝ⟩ is to be used INSTEAD of ⟨ʎ⟩ in such cases. Do we really need to retranscribe hundreds if not thousands of words to make the variant with explicit? Your input would be appreciated. Sol505000 (talk) 11:04, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Oxford English Dictionary at TERF
Editors are invited to comment at the following RfC: Talk:TERF. Crossroads -talk- 17:53, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Question regarding usage of language comparison texts/sample texts on Wikipedia
Around two weeks ago, I asked a question at the Teahouse regarding whether there is any "official Wikipedia policy" regarding the selection of comparison texts or sample texts for different languages (e.g. Lord's Prayer, Article 1 of the UDHR, The North Wind and the Sun etc.). I was redirected to WikiProject Languages where I asked the same question again on the talk page. Since it's been, well, a bit over two weeks and I haven't got any response, I thought I'd ask here.

The question is this: on the Wikipedia articles on different languages, there are often example texts or language comparison texts that are used to give a brief idea of the character of the language and to compare it with English. However, as far as I can tell, the selection of these texts is not consistent: for example, Latin uses a sample of De Bello Gallico, Esperanto uses a sample text about dragons in China and Article 1 of the UDHR, French language also uses Article 1 of the UDHR, and so on. Is there any specific Wikipedia policy regarding what text to use as a sample text/comparison text, or is it down to editor judgement? If there is an official Wikipedia policy regarding this, could you please provide a link to the corresponding page?

Thanks — MeasureWell (talk) 09:57, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * , to my knowledge, there is no such policy at Wikipedia. It's pretty much up to the editors contributing the text, although if anything turns out to be contentious, in the end, it would be up to consensus, just like pretty much everything else here. Does that answer your question? Mathglot (talk) 10:18, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you, this hits the nail right on the head. Also, thanks for the (for Wikipedia, extremely) quick response :) — MeasureWell (talk) 10:28, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It would be impossible to select a specific text, because there would always be languages it hadn't been translated into. Even if you were to go into the field and get someone to translate it for you, a translation of The North Wind and the Sun or the UDHR could be so artificial (and full of foreign words) that they wouldn't be representative texts. Even the Lord's Prayer, which has probably been translated into more languages than anything else, would be difficult to render into a language that doesn't have the concepts "lord", "hallowed", "kingdom", "debt" or "sin". Yeah, you could translate it, but the meaning would be opaque and perhaps incoherent. So better IMO to select a text that was composed in the language rather than translated, and spoken or written by someone considered a good speaker/performer of the language. Something like the UDHR would only be appropriate IMO for a language where the concepts and vocabulary it contains are well-established. — kwami (talk) 22:48, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested moves: List of Romanian words with possible Dacian origin > List of Romanian words of possible pre-Roman origin
All comments on a possibly controversial moving proposal would be highly appreciated here. Borsoka (talk) 03:24, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

A repeated violation of MOS:PRON on Help:IPA/Basque and the corresponding IPA transcriptions of Basque on Wikipedia
User:Akerbeltz has been edit warring with me over the inclusion of the primary stress mark on Help:IPA/Basque and the corresponding IPA transcriptions of Basque on Wikipedia. Per MOS:PRON (section Other languages), the two should agree with each other. I invite you to join the discussion on Help talk:IPA/Basque. Sol505000 (talk) 17:08, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Now taken to the Administrators' Noticeboard. Sol505000 (talk) 21:34, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Announcing template Wiktionarylang
New Template:Wiktionarylang may be used to add a small box flush right with a link to a term in a foreign language wiktionary. If you're familiar with Wikisourcelang, the operation of the new template is similar, and uses the same four positional parameters, and adds one more to allow you to specify 'section' (as in this example), 'paragraph', and so on instead of 'article'. Mathglot (talk) 02:52, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Vṛddhi
I've refactored this page a bit and added discussion of the form of vṛddhi (proto-vṛddhi) present in Proto-Indo-European and its relation to Sanskrit Vṛddhi. Does anyone have any thoughts on the third section? I moved some content to the origin section, but I wasn't sure what do do with the rest. Jajaperson (talk) 09:46, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Arabic names for the planets
Can anyone help with Planet? The article's currently undergoing FAR, and because of a remark about the citations, I just noticed that the listed etymologies for the Arabic names of the planets seem to disagree with Wiktionary, and there's a bewildering amount of different opinions from sources. I'd like to know what the current scholarly consensus is (assuming there even is one). Double sharp (talk) 15:02, 10 August 2022 (UTC)


 * One problem I see, assuming I understand this correctly, is that the early Greeks (not sure of the timing) didn't realize that the morning and evening stars were the same planets. That was a historical discovery. Thus the Babylonians presumably also didn't know that. There were two Greek planets corresponding to Venus, and two corresponding to Mercury. I'd think that would have to play into the etymologies.
 * Should mention the Babylonian god for Saturn, even if it doesn't correspond to the Greek. — kwami (talk) 20:50, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Between you and I
I just realized we had an article on "between you and I" via the Reference desk and was surprised to find phrases such as "linguists [who] accept the grammaticality" and "prescriptive linguists". The article seems to engage in undue both-sidesism and conflate grammaticality (over which there is no debate) and acceptability, instead of discussing scholarly description and lay commentary separately. I might look into it when I have time but I'm leaving a note here so someone already familiar with the topic can tackle it. Nardog (talk) 05:43, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I have shuddered to see that the article uses "error" 11 times, not only in quotes (which is fine) but also in wikivoice. Lots of work there to be done. Reminds me of the famous epitaph "Him as was has gone from we, us as is must go to he." –Austronesier (talk) 08:29, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Feedback requested at Template:Infobox language
Your feedback regarding parameter ethnicity in Template:Infobox language would be appreciated. Please see this discussion. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:22, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Causative alternation and labile (ergative) verb merger proposal
There is a recent proposal to merge causative alternation and labile verb articles.

Not being a linguist, I had asked a question on the causative alternation talk page: how it this different than ergativity? Editor considered the question, and proposed merging.

I figure that since few people seem to be minding those pages, it might make sense to post a note here.

Also: the labile verb article is not claimed by Wikiproject Linguistics, which looks like an oversight. I will add it. (Ergative verb redirects to labile verb, by the way.) -- M.boli (talk) 13:37, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Here is a link directly to the aforementioned merge proposal. —  AjaxSmack  14:42, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Single straight quotes in glosses: Readability concern?
I'm fairly new here and noticed that many different styles seem to be used across Wikipedia for glosses. I enjoy consistency.

In 2015, MOS:SINGLE for glosses was added per discussions here and here. I find this rule lessens readability and without precedence elsewhere online or offline; I'm curious if others share the readability concern.

Here are the four options as I see it:

Two remarks:


 * If you like visual comparisons, you can compare the way Wiktionary looked in 2007 here (option 3) and how it looks today here (option 4).


 * If glosses are added per template, like, then type-ability may be less of downside; see also Quotation marks in English.

Do you share the readability concern? &#39;wɪnd (talk) 13:28, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * This is at least the third in a series of discussions on this topic. The others that I know about are:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * This should just be closed as a duplicate dicussion of the one at WT:MOS, which is the correct venue already (for settling WP style matters; this wikiproject is for working on article content and categorization in a particular subject). It has already been explained to this user that we use single quotes because it's normal linguistics markup for glosses, and that we use straight ones for this purpose (and all other quote-marks purposes) because of MOS:CURLY, but the user is just not getting it and clearly wants to impose curly single or double quotes for this, which is not going to happen.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:14, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Trappist the monk Thanks for the cross-linking (I was not aware of WP:MULTI). The reason I put it here is because a long-term user guided me to put it here. The reason I didn't post here first, was purely ignorance (not-knowing) on my part (WP:FAITH). Thanks to the previous discussions, I was able to sharpen my thinking and understand the core issue. My aim is not to impose curly quotes (I think straight double quotes can work too), rather I wondered if I'm the only one who sees readability as a concern. I believe in community consensus. &#39;wɪnd (talk) 14:45, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd like SmcCandlish to hear me differently on: "we use single quotes because it's normal linguistics markup for glosses, and that we use straight ones for this purpose (and all other quote-marks purposes) because of MOS:CURLY, but the user is just not getting it". Yes, I hear this and agree with all of this as I believe I told you earlier: (a) the precedence in print is to use single curly quotes and (b) MOS:CQ is Wikipedia convention. The core point is that I find combining these rule leads to readability concerns and has no precedent elsewhere, and I wondered if others share this view? Also, I'd like to kindly ask you to assume good faith. I'm new to Wikipedia, and this kind of communication makes me feel uncomfortable. I do very much want to understand my mistakes and I believe I'm learning and adapting. &#39;wɪnd (talk) 15:37, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * After three redundant threads of this stuff it should be clear that no, others do not share your view. You can stop asking over and over now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:35, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I share User:&'s concerns about readability, but agree with User:SMcCandlish that three having separate simultaneous discussions is counterproductive. Although, I like the nice box at the top of this discussion, I will comment at the more subscribed to and more appropriately located discussion at WT:MOS.  —  AjaxSmack  15:10, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * After three redundant threads of this stuff it should be clear that no, others do not share your view. You can stop asking over and over now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:35, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I share User:&'s concerns about readability, but agree with User:SMcCandlish that three having separate simultaneous discussions is counterproductive. Although, I like the nice box at the top of this discussion, I will comment at the more subscribed to and more appropriately located discussion at WT:MOS.  —  AjaxSmack  15:10, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

PHOIBLE
Hello

I just created the PHOIBLE article.

Feel free to review it and make changes and additions, as my English and knowledge of wp.en editing practices isn't perfect.

I also added it in the Lexical databases section of the Template:Cross-Linguistic Linked Data.

Regards, Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 15:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Target link for Template:lang-arc
The name for ISO 639-3 code arc changed in 2007. This should be reflected in the link of. I started a discussion at Template talk:lang-arc respectively Module talk:Lang/data. I‘d be glad for your input. S.K. (talk) 21:06, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Help:IPA/Slovene
In June, I have substantially expanded and also updated the article about Slovene phonology and thus the help page is not in accordance with the phonology article and has to be updated as well. I have posted my thoughts on the talk page, but so far no one has commented. If you are interested, please visit the talk page and post your comment there. (I was directed here from the help desk) Garygo golob (talk) 15:32, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Classical compound
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Classical compound that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 17:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Template consistency
I noticed that we don't have consistency among our templates about translation, e.g.:
 * lang-xx templates, for example renders as:
 * renders as:
 * lit. 'palace'
 * renders as:
 * renders as:

Because of these different layouts' lack of consistency, using them in the same page makes it very confusing. We should set a norm, with an eye to the Manual of Style/Text formatting. IMHO the first layout is preferable, being already used by all lang-xx templates, but we must decide it together, so, in the end...

What's the preferable layout? Let me know, thanks. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 10:01, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) lit. 'palace'
 * 2) lit. 'palace'
 * Is all the labelling necessary? I'd personally just go for:
 * سرای sarāy 'palace'.
 * The label "Persian:" can be added if the language is not clear from the context, but the formatting should be enough to distinguish the romanisation from the translation. – Uanfala (talk) 11:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @Est. 2021: it isn't necessary to copy the contents of the and  templates into this discussion.  Please don't do that; it just makes reading the wikitext that much more difficult.  Because it does make reading more difficult, I have removed the template code from your post and replaced it with simpler examples.
 * can be simplified:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:28, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * , yes, the labelling is necessary, otherwise the browsers don't automatically recognize the language, and vocal readers won't work correctly, as per the guidelines.
 * I didn't copy anything, I subst'ed them to keep the examples unaltered, in case we edit or merge the templates. Besides that, the point is that the translation doesn't always follow the original term, but we need consistency anyway. For example:
 * The Italian Treccani dictionary gives two derivations: one via seray or saray (with the variants seraya or saraya), which comes from or, per derivation, the enclosed court for the wives and concubines of the harem of a house or palace (see ); the other — in the sense of enclosure — from Late/serraculum, derived from Classical Latin serare, lit. 'to close', which comes from sera, lit. 'door-bar'
 * Having completely different layouts for that "lit." is quite disturbing. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs)
 * Is stuff like "transl." and "lit." really needed for screen readers and the rest? I thought they worked off the markup in the html, and that you have in all the examples above (even the simplest ones use lang and transl, precisely for this purpose). – Uanfala (talk) 13:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * stuff like "transl." and "lit." are not needed for proper rendering and pronunciation. Browsers and screen readers use the underlying html for that.  No doubt, the "transl." and "lit." (because they are marked up with  tags) are read by screen readers as 'translation' and 'literal translation' respectively.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Then you should have noted that. Perhaps a better way which avoids the clutter of a subst is to write this in a sandbox page:
 * Then, Show preview which gives you this:
 * lit. 'palace'
 * copy-paste that result into this discussion:
 * lit. &thinsp; 'palace&#39;
 * That will show the current rendering without the unnecessary clutter of unused wikitext.
 * Why do we have both and ?  Surely we can make  do the work of ; it already has literal so:
 * → lit. 'palace'
 * Slightly different renderings but that is the purpose of this discussion.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Why do we have both and ?  Surely we can make  do the work of ; it already has literal so:
 * → lit. 'palace'
 * Slightly different renderings but that is the purpose of this discussion.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

So what about following the lang-xx standard, replacing lit. 'word' with lit. 'word'? Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 14:49, 4 November 2022 (UTC) PS. Note that the lang-xx standard doesn't make difference between translation and literal translation. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 14:52, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Is Ethnologue a reliable source?
The topic regularly comes back, so I started a discussion here, to assess Ethnologue in WP:RSP. Feedback welcome! A455bcd9 (talk) 07:37, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Feedback about "types" of Communication
Your feedback on "types" of Communication would be helpful at Talk:Communication/Archive 1. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:51, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of interest
There is a discussion about whether the article Vowel breaking is at the right location/about the scope of the article at Talk:Vowel breaking.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Bengali-Assamese languages
Hello, I reverted a recent edit. The edit claimed that Noakhailla language is not listed in Glottolog and therefore it should not be listed in Bengali-Assamese languages. It seems to me that this issue is better addressed in Noakhailla language first. Also that Dhakaiyya Kutti is a dialect of Bengali language. Since Dhaka Bengali is yet another standard of the Bengali language, I wonder how this can be best represented. Could some linguists please provide some inputs here. Thanks. Chaipau (talk) 16:47, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I just joined the wiki project
Can you just walk in and join or there are requirements OSC221 (talk) 02:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You just walk in and add your userid here. Mathglot (talk) 06:43, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

FAs last reviewed from 2004 to 2007 of interest to this WikiProject
If you review an article on this list, please add commentary at the article talk page, with a section heading == URFA/2020 review== and also add either Notes or Noticed to WP:URFA/2020A, per the instructions at WP:URFA/2020. If comments are not entered on the article talk page, they may be swept up in archives here and lost. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  16:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Bengali language movement
 * 2) Gwoyeu Romatzyh
 * 3) Mayan languages

Categorising Women Linguists
Most of the pages listed in Category:Women Linguists are not listed in Category:Linguists. Also some of the Linguists are women and are not listed in that category. There are 679 women linguists and only 146 linguists total! What's the quickest way to fix this? ImSirLaserOwl (talk) 02:54, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


 * First, it's Category:Women linguists (second word uncapitalized). Also, any item in the subcategory "Category:Women linguists" will automatically fall under the umbrella of "Category:Linguists".  Also, separating women out into their own category while leaving men "unmarked" is not really encouraged on Wikipedia, and has given rise to acrimonious controversies in the past... AnonMoos (talk) 15:54, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I expect Category:Linguists to be a diffusing category: with articles included not directly in it, but in its subcategories based on time period, language of study, etc. Having separate categories for women academics appears to be quite common (see for example all the subcategories of Category:Women by occupation); the general guidelines for that are at WP:CATGENDER. – Uanfala (talk) 10:32, 3 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The "CATGENDER" page does not refer to the whole tortured "Women novelists" category saga of ten years ago, except in a very oblique and limited way at the end. It should definitely address it in a fuller and more direct manner... AnonMoos (talk) 19:23, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Determinans and Determinatum
The above two stub articles have been proposed for deletion following a discussion here. Johnuniq (talk) 02:39, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments
Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a class parameter to WikiProject banner shell, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to WikiProject banner shell, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass WPBannerMeta a new custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:27, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Feedback at Deverbal noun
I've made a series of edits at Deverbal noun cutting out unsourced content (which was almost everything) and reorganizing it as a stub. I've proposed a couple of ways forward at Talk:Deverbal noun, and your feedback would be welcome. Mathglot (talk) 06:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Help class for Template proposal
I proposed a new class for the WPLING template to group Help articles over at Template talk:WikiProject Linguistics. If I don't get any objections, I'll move forward with the changes in a few days to a week. Indigopari (talk) 04:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. SkyWarrior 19:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

RFC on usage of First Nations placenames on Wikipedia
There is an ongoing request for discussion concerning whether First Nations placenames can be used in the infobox on Wikipedia. Please provide your feedback here. Poketama (talk) 02:29, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Names of wars
As the naming of anything seems a matter perhaps relevant to this project, members may be interested in an AfD at Articles for deletion/List of wars named for their duration. There is also perhaps a missing article to be written on the subject of Naming of wars or Names of wars. Pam D  15:38, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Allan R. Bomhard (3rd nomination)
There is a project-related afd here, the input of Wikipedians familiar with the topic wold be welcome. Warrenmck (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Uralo-Siberian languages, proposed macrofamily article?
There's an article on the proposed Uralo-Siberian languages which needs a heavy rewrite to meet wikipedia's standards. Right now it's essentially falling flat on the guidelines for how to handle WP:FRINGE considering it's being presented as a serious theory, even including references to how it can evidence Nostratic (which I've removed). I'm not 100% certain if this needs a rewrite to discuss its current status as a fairly rejected macrofamily proposal, or if it honestly simply fails WP:N. Either way, it definitely shouldn't be presented as a seriously considered and somewhat accepted proposal considering how little evidence/acceptance it has found.

Perhaps it would make sense to have a proposed macrofamily article which weighs several of these smaller theories, rather than giving each of them their own article? This is done somewhat on the pages for language isolates like Basque when discussing proposed genetic links. Warrenmck (talk) 20:01, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey, what about Sino-Uralic languages then (a page which I succesfully PROD-ed only to find it refunded later)? :) Uralo-Siberian at least is something that one somehow might have heard of (especially after the publication of the Fortescue/Vajda volume last year).
 * But I agree, it's quite much space given to a proposal that is probably better described as "largely ignored" than "fairly rejected" (as with many long-range proposals), and which is largely associated with a single author. When excessive "cognate" tables visually outweigh the text that says that the proposal has little to no support in mainstream comparative linguistics, there is definitely something wrong.
 * Lyle Campbell wrote a review of Fortescue's 1998 book that includes an assessment of the proposal (with thumbs down), Kortlandt supports it. A recent review calls the proposal (together with Vajda's Dene-Yeniseian) "interesting, even if inconclusive". So all in all somewhere at the threshold of WP:N, I guess. But not in its current shape. Given the overlap with hypotheses like Eskimo–Uralic languages (yes, another standalone article!) and others, putting them together in a broad article is an attractive option. –Austronesier (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * By coincidence, different language families, but similar PROFRINGE pushing: Talk:Dravidian_languages. –Austronesier (talk) 21:37, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * probably better described as "largely ignored" than "fairly rejected"
 * I'm not convinced that's indistinct, given the reception we've seen with Dené–Yeniseian, but fair point. I think that perhaps with the exceptions of Altaic (since that does have far more proponents and gets a lot of discussion), there may be a case for merging all of the remaining propoposed macrofamilies. For example, Nostratic languages similarly suffers from huge tables used to explain (or justify) the findings, and from talking with someone today who is a hobby linguist (see my talk page) it does appear that the way these macrofamilies are presented is causing confusion.
 * I understand that this may be a controversial take, but a mix of improving Macrofamily (which really shouldn't be that much of a stub in comparison to more out their proposals), a new Proposed Linguistic Macrofamilies page, and a complete and total rewrite of Proto-Human language to discuss the scholarly understanding would probably do wonders to help dispel misinformation. The macrofamily pages on the whole seem to suffer badly from WP:NOTADVOCACY problems. Warrenmck (talk) 22:02, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think this will be a very ambitious project that soon will exceed any reasonable size limit. Lyle Campbell devotes 70 pages to long-range proposals for the native language families of the Americas in his 1997 OUP monograph. Obviously we wouldn't cover all these proposals with the same depth (especially the case studies where he illustrates the various pitfalls of long-range comparatism), but still there are a lot proposals out there which are at least sufficiently cited to get a sentence or a paragraph in Wikipedia.
 * Another thing is that marcofamilies can stand on very different footings (Campbell even applies two parameters in his subjective but compelling tour-de-force assessment). Some are very promising and just need more data for a full and conclusive discussion (especially in the Amazon and Papuan areas), some have been bickered over ad nauseam (Altaic is prime example), some are just rubbish that has rotten in the dustbin of history and doesn't have to be dug out just for the sake of building WP articles. It still believe that we can do better justice to each proposal by either giving them space in a standalone article, but of course tightly monitored for WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:PROFRINGE issues, or by due mentions in articles of estabilshed language families in sections entitled "Proposed external relations" (or something like that). And of course, some proposals are just too insignificant and ephemeral even to be mentioned in WP. –Austronesier (talk) 20:53, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:PROFRINGE would relegate many of those articles to stubs. I think there are proposals like Nostratic, which while fringe now had historical acceptance, and Altaic, which has some minor degree of acceptance probably should have their own articles. Beyond that, I think it's entirely possible to relegate many of them to a few sentences in a larger article, which yes, would be a pretty substantial undertaking. But you can look at my talk page for a pretty prime example of the current state of Wikipedia's presentation of these topics deeply misinforming people, which is a real problem, and I'm concerned that the amount of hobby linguists really into these macrofamily proposals well outnumbers the amount of linguists able to dedicate time to making sure they're up to a scholarly standard. Wikipedia is actually a pretty major source of disinformation right now, as is. I took an absolute hatchet to Nostratic languages yesterday, but I suspect that I'll step away from the computer some time and the fringe will return, and if current interactions are anything to go off of the misinformation on wikipedia is creating a feedback loop of credibility for discredited theories.
 * I definitely think this needs to be a coordinated effort with a lot of linguists and a huge amount of effort before any article is made live, but I also think it could be beneficial to have an explicit statement of scholarly consensus on macrofamilies somewhere that editors, particularly those capable of making binding decisions on wikipedia, can see. It's a bit like infinite energy stuff on articles about physics, but unlike physics people don't have the baseline knowledge to know that what they're reading is probably way out there away from the mainstream, and often it seems reasonable to the lay-reader. See: the thing we're bumping into with Dravidian Languages. It's almost impossible for the average novice to understand why we both balked at an otherwise seemingly good paper. Warrenmck (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I definitely think this needs to be a coordinated effort with a lot of linguists and a huge amount of effort before any article is made live, but I also think it could be beneficial to have an explicit statement of scholarly consensus on macrofamilies somewhere that editors, particularly those capable of making binding decisions on wikipedia, can see. It's a bit like infinite energy stuff on articles about physics, but unlike physics people don't have the baseline knowledge to know that what they're reading is probably way out there away from the mainstream, and often it seems reasonable to the lay-reader. See: the thing we're bumping into with Dravidian Languages. It's almost impossible for the average novice to understand why we both balked at an otherwise seemingly good paper. Warrenmck (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with Bhoti
Bhoti is currently a disambiguation page listing various articles about languages called Bhoti. On the talk page, I've written a bit about why there should likely be one broad-concept article discussing all the "varieties" of Bhoti. If anyone with more technical expertise in sociolinguistics and/or historical linguistics could give their two cents on the thread, it would be much appreciated! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 16:01, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with cleaning up some articles and AfD concerns
I think there's value in removing pages such as Proto-Dené-Caucasian roots which contain wonderful statements like


 * The inclusion of Na-Dené (here understood to include Haida)


 * Sumerian has been included only as a tentative member. As with other ancient languages, much work remains to be done to elucidate its phonology. Besides Dené–Caucasian, Sumerian has also been compared to Nostratic (and/or its branches) and Austric (especially Munda).

(emphasis added)

There's a huge amount of bad linguistics on a lot of these articles which run directly counter to the academic consensus, and many of these treat fringe theories well outside the norm of academic consensus as a given in how they are written. I would like to spend some time doing a substantial overhaul of these articles, including AfDing some like above (rejected macrofamilies should, frankly, not have their own articles dedicated to reconstructed roots in my opinion, but I'd like to see other input), but I think I'm running up against an issue with the sheer volume that has been written by proponents of these theories creating a false narrative that these are controversial, rather than widely rejected (for example, I was recently accused of attempting to "push an agenda" for calling Nostratic a fringe theory).

As I mentioned in my post a couple of days ago, I think the solution here is to, with the exception of Nostratic (historical support and interest) and Altaic (ongoing interest despite lack of evidence, some serious scholarship still being done), most of the hypothetical macrofamily articles should be merged into one. I don't think we need thousands of words in tables explaining cognates in theories which are rejected by mainstream linguists, especially because I've seen more than a little clear evidence that the way these are presented are confusing lay-readers into assuming they are taken more seriously than just a proposal by one or two linguists. I'm afraid that my attempts to be bold look more reckless to people unfamiliar with historical linguistics, and I'd rather not do this solo in that context.

Given the liklihood that non-experts would weigh in, I think it's best if there is a coordinated effort to clean up some of the more fringe-adjascent articles on Wikipedia rather than attempting to do it solo and risk looking like I'm pushing an agenda. This is particlarly true when an idea falls so far outside the mainstream consensus that there actually aren't many linguists talking about it at all beyond a tiny cadre publishing on a given topic. It's quite challenging to provide negative evidence for things linguists don't take seriously, for obvious reasons. Warrenmck (talk) 22:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Are you planning on also merging Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen into the grab-bag macro-family article? AnonMoos (talk) 07:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * ...with the exception of Nostratic and Altaic...: I haven't been sufficiently clear about it in my response in the a few sections further above, but 1) macrofamily proposals are not just some kind amorphous undifferentiated mass of bullshit. And 2) there are more notable macrofamily proposals than just Nostratic and Altaic. There are e.g. Penutian and Hokan which are heuristically appealing but actually not built on any significant amount of substantial evindence except for some interlocking lower-level proposals with various degrees of plausibility, yet these two marcofamilies have haunted the linguistics of Native American languages as high-visbility axioms for more than a century. Some proposals are only weakly supported by the data, but have gained much attention and coverage by scholars outside of linguistics and are often treated by them as established language families, e.g. Elamo-Dravidian or Dene-Yeniseian. Our readers will come across these proposals in otherwise very valuable literature about archeology, population genetics etc., so we need articles for these notable concepts in order to present what specialists have to say about them. And then there are success stories like Austro-Tai (and probably some others outside of my line of research).
 * Attempts to be overly bold will appear as reckless also to people familiar with historical linguistics. We should by all means avoid the kind of zealotism familiar from blogs, forums etc. that are indeed largely crowded by people unfamiliar with historical linguistics.
 * That said, trimming, pruning, purging, tagging, also merging, PROD-ing and AfD-ing where necessary, sure yes. There is too much in-universe detail in many of these articles that might give the wrong impression about the acceptance of these proposals. But I don't support anything that goes in the direction of a priori rejection as if historical linguistics already has reached the saturation point of estabilshed and establishable knowledge beyond which only crackpots dare to go. This is not representative of how historical linguists look at these things. –Austronesier (talk) 09:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That’s entirely fair, which is why I didn’t want to proceed solo or recklessly. I think Dené-Yenesian in particular I wasn’t considering in the same breath as it does have a lot more acceptance. Elaml-Dravidian has so little consensus I’d merge it though. I’m not proposing purging all mention of these from Wikipedia, but rather the only way that some of these pad out an article to full length is to include a lot of rejected scholarship in them.
 * Our readers will come across these proposals in otherwise very valuable literature about archeology, population genetics etc
 * Which is is a pretty good reason to have a centralized place discussing these, in my opinion. Im not saying all should be labelled as crackpot theories, but rather a large number of these proposed macrofamilies are on equal footing in terms of how not seriously they’re taken due to the lack of evidence at present. Dene-Yenisian is a good example of where it probably should be expanded into an article, since the scholarship on that is lukewarm and growing, to an extent. The notion of Elamite as related to Dravidian languages isn’t, really.
 * We don’t need, nor would it be beneficial, to treat these as crackpot theories (arguable except those which clearly are), but rather that a fair treatment of many of these proposals which would make their standing clearer probably results in a stub-length article. Rather than a series of stubs discussing theories put forward by a small group of individuals, it gives each time to be presented on its merits with a high level discussion about the competitive method and current issues in addressing them.
 * And for certain I’m not familiar with the veracity of all macrofamily proposals, I am a little appalled by how many articles on Wikipedia take Nostratic and Altaic as a proven fact, however. Warrenmck (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * But I don't support anything that goes in the direction of a priori rejection as if historical linguistics already has reached the saturation point of estabilshed and establishable knowledge beyond which only crackpots dare to go.
 * I actually want to be very, very, very clear that this isn't my intent. I want to be careful to avoid Type I errors, so I don't think that there is anything to gain from describing these theories as rejected unless they explicitly are by consensus such as Proto-World or Nostratic, as much fruitful research does eventually come from some of these proposals. That said, the critiques of a lot of these proposals are pretty consistent, and articles on individual macrofamily proposals will inherently end up rehashing the same critiques article after article, with modification for the specific languages in question. Let's take Elamo-Dravidian as an example, there are four small sections plus the Spread of Farming section. That could very easily be truncated into two or three reasonable paragraphs with the infobox, and a link at the top to Elamite and the Dravidian languages, respectively. But again, I would like to seek consensus for something like this and you do raise some good points. Warrenmck (talk) 19:45, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Debate on whether linguistics is science
We are having a bit of a debate at Talk:Non-science (at the literal page Non-science, of all topics). Would love others to weigh in. Wolfdog (talk) 13:34, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The article Platdiets on Dutch Wikipedia
Hello. I need help with placing the citation needed tags. The article is almost completely unsourced and there is an editor who keeps edit warring with me, has zero interest in providing the required sources and now refuses to speak to me because I can't write in Dutch, which is ridiculous. Stonewalling at its best. Platdiets needs to be either filled with the CN tags or made into a redirect. Sol505000 (talk) 05:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

And there is another edit warrior on Chinese Wikipedia. Sol505000 (talk) 05:17, 15 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Assuming those Wikipedias have similar rules and norms as this one, what you've done here may put you at a disadvantage as it is canvassing, and you should alert the relevant local noticeboards instead. Nardog (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

SOV SVO VSO VOS OVS OSV
Each of the six articles on specific orders (but not the umbrella article Word order!) has this pair of huge boxes, squeezing the main text into an awkwardly narrow column. Talk me out of removing Template:Language word order frequency from the six and replacing it with a paraphrase of the relevant row of the table. —Tamfang (talk) 17:39, 20 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I think the table provides valuable information and context to the layperson about the possible word orderings and the relative prevalence of the specific ordering that is the topic of the article, but I agree it's rather unwieldy and intrusive in its current form. Perhaps we could make the table collapsible and collapse it by default? Alternatively, we could also put it in a separate section as in Verb–object–subject word order. Or some combination of both solutions.
 * Additionally, I noticed that most of the excess bulk/intrusion in the template is coming from the example languages column, so perhaps the information in that column could be moved to the respective article and a link to the appropriate section provided instead. Indigopari (talk) 04:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Well, the other five are listed in "See also". —Tamfang (talk) 23:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Meanwhile, in the table itself, how about replacing "French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish" with "most Romance languages"? unless of course that's inaccurate —Tamfang (talk) 23:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @Tamfang I agree this should be improved. If it must be kept, these would be my suggestions:
 * Remove the bar graph column and just use the percentages. Also change the OSV percentage to say "<1%" since rounding to 0 there may lead to the false impression that OSV does not exist.
 * Put the Word Order and English equivalent in the same column, with one above the other in each cell.
 * Limit the example languages to one each, the most used living natural language for each typology. So that means: SOV: Bengali; SVO: Chinese; VSO: Filipino; VOS: Malagasy; OVS: Äiwoo; OSV: British Sign Language. There is more information about the grammar of these languages on their respective pages than on the average language article.
 * Finally, some of the links in the "Linguistic typology" navbar are made redundant by the word order box. Make a truncated version of "Linguistic typology" without the redundant links, and then put the word order box on top of the navbar rather than next to it. And make them the same width if possible
 * عُثمان (talk) 18:13, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

South Asian IPA keys
@All: Please have a look at what's going on in Help:IPA/Hindi and Urdu, Help:IPA/Nepali and Help:IPA/Marathi. Some of you already have chimed in, but this needs wider input and monitoring. Austronesier (talk) 14:43, 9 June 2023 (UTC)


 * @Austronesier It would be helpful if you specified what exactly you are concerned about; I cannot tell what the concern is here. عُثمان (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response. The call for scrutiny has become moot in the meantime. The editor who produced dozens of problematic edits in these IPA keys and edit-warred over them with zero understanding of phonetics and the IPA has been topic banned. –Austronesier (talk) 19:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Pannonian Romance
This article has been completely rewritten in a way that flatly contradicts earlier versions. More eyes would be welcome. Srnec (talk) 00:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with Draft:Please call Stella and phonemic pangrams
I'm trying to get together a page on phonemic and phonetic pangrams, specifically those used in speech and accent research. I drafted a page on Please call Stella but realise that there are more sentences that have been used but that finding their first use is difficult. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Ej159 (talk) 10:59, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Walhaz
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Walhaz that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. SilverLocust 💬 14:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)


 * This is about whether to include an asterisk at the beginning of most reconstructed words (Category:Reconstructed words) in titles. For example, *Walhaz. The pages are Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic reconstructed words. SilverLocust 💬 14:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/H₂weh₁yú - we could use expert opinions
Our article starts out:
 * "H₂weh₁-yú is the reconstructed name of the god of the wind in Proto-Indo-European mythology."

Our AfD nomination:
 * "This is not an encyclopedic topic. It is a bunch of synthesis based around a name that is not attested by anyone other than Proto-Indo-European reconstructionists. It is a modern creation being fraudulently passed off as ancient."

I can't tell for sure but I suspect some of the other participants don't know what they're taking about. I know I don't.

I think this discussion could benefit strongly from participation by people who know something about Proto-Indo-European topics. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 22:46, 4 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I tried adding a general statement about historical linguistics and how reconstructions work but this is a deep, deep cut. Warrenmck (talk) 01:02, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your assessment!
 * --01:09, 5 August 2023 (UTC) A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:09, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Please help with "local" pronunciation at Talk:Toronto
I'm trying to get the "local pronunciation" in the opening sentence of Toronto fixed or removed, but (a) as an IP, I can't edit a locked article; and (b) participants in the Talk discussion have declined to help as they have no understanding of IPA, and are unable to understand the notation and jargon in this PDF.

There's a commenter who insists they hear [ə] instead of [oʊ] in videos such as this. I don't know how to respond to this.

See: Talk:Toronto (note: I made an initial error in assuming the "[təˈɹɒɾ̃ə] / [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə]" pronunciation given was "archaic". It turns out it's a rural, non-local pronunciation, rather than a local one that's fallen out of use). 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:AE4C:7DF0:1BA5:297E (talk) 11:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Done. By the way, a better link to The 10 and 3's article is this. Wolfdog (talk) 15:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * While you guys are at it, I’m pretty sure Seattle’s pronunciation guide is wrong? There’s definitely a dark L in there for most speakers. Warrenmck (talk) 21:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That's true, we just don't usually represent dark L's in our Wikipedia lead-sentence pronunciations, which tend to be phonemic rather than phonetic. Wolfdog (talk) 22:21, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * While I personally wish it was a little less of a broad transcription, fair enough! Warrenmck (talk) 23:09, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you,, though I'd hoped for participation in the talk page discussion first. I hope this doesn't turn into a revert war or something.  One of the commenters there was being awfully aggressive. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:15A6:AC05:C486:C3CD (talk) 21:35, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Transcription conventions and a Chesapeake Islands dialect
I'm currently working on an article for the dialect of Tangier, Virginia in a sandbox (feel free to edit). I've found a couple of journal articles that go into great detail on the specifics of vowel stressing in this dialect, but I'm very much unfamiliar with WP's IPA conventions and how they would map to the transcriptions provided in the journal articles. These articles are also from the '80s and use conventions that slightly differ from the ones I'm familiar with, which complicates things a little more. I'm specifically referring to the table in the "Phonological features section"; any help with this would be much appreciated. AviationFreak💬 05:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Have you had a look at the article High Tider? Those sources may have better use in that article instead of a new one. Nardog (talk) 05:38, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I have, but I'm pretty sure Tangier's dialect not only clears the GNG through both scholarly and media sources, but also is reasonably distinct in terms of features. There even seems to be some difference between the dialects of Smith and Tangier despite their geographic proximity. AviationFreak💬 05:56, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * In fact, from what I see, "High Tider" terminology is typically reserved for North Carolina in sources. I don't see most sources referring to Smith Island's dialect as being a part of that sphere, so if anything I think a more source-reflecting article structure would be "High Tider Dialect" and "Chesapeake Islands Dialect" (or splitting Chesapeake Islands into Tangier and Smith, depending on what sources say about Smith's dialect compared to that of Tangier's). AviationFreak💬 06:09, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Simple past § Merger discussion
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Simple past § Merger discussion. &#x0020;A user has proposed merging Simple past to Preterite. Cnilep (talk) 07:33, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Explanation of linguistics use of * and ?
Per a discussion at, I was wondering if some boilerplate explanations of the use of * and ? in linguistic contexts could be discussed here before using them in articles. (See for more info on the subject.)  My suggestions are (depending on the usage): I'm not crazy about using "form" in the first example, but "word, phrase or sentence" is a little long.
 * 1) An asterisk before a form indicates an ungrammatical or impossible form, while a question mark indicates that the form is questionable, but not outright ungrammatical.
 * 2) An asterisk marks words or phrases that are not directly recorded in texts or other media, but that are reconstructed on the basis of other linguistic material.

What think ye? Is there already something better out there? —  AjaxSmack 18:00, 7 September 2023 (UTC)


 * How about the number sign for infelicitous or semantically ill-formed utterances? Aamri2 (talk) 22:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think a lengthy explanation is needed in an article. The text already explains what is meant; you could just add "marked with X" where relevant. For instance, then it could say "the latter of each pair is unacceptable (marked with *)" and "...can be nearly incomprehensible (marked with ?)". You could link to the article(s) explaining the symbols in detail, I guess. But this makes it easier to stay close to the sources. The text should in any case make it clear what an example is supposed to show. //Replayful (talk &#124; contribs) 08:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I actually think a larger problem can be pointed to here: any page that employs such symbols should either define them or pipe them to some article that will explain their meaning. For example, the template IPAc-en sends newcomers in a helpful direction. Wolfdog (talk) 22:47, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Proto-Dené–Caucasian language and Proto-Dené-Caucasian roots at AfD
Since the Dené–Caucasian languages appear to be lumpering, I've nominated their proto-languages for outright deletion rather than merger. Feel free to discuss the nomination if you are so inclined. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 03:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Proto-Altaic Language at AfD
In the spirit of @John M Wolfson's AfD above, I've thrown up Proto-Altaic as well. Please join the discussion if you're interested. Warrenmck (talk) 21:02, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Variety → Lect RM
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Variety (linguistics) § Requested move 25 September 2023. Nardog (talk) 23:23, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Merger discussions for various Southern England dialects
Please contribute thoughts to two merger discussions: Thanks for any comments. Wolfdog (talk) 01:30, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Proposal to merge Norfolk dialect and Suffolk dialect into East Anglian English; see reasons here.
 * 2) Proposal to merge Essex dialect, Kentish dialect, Sussex dialect, and Surrey dialect into English language in Southern England (specifically, the already-existing section English language in Southern England; see reasons here.

FAC of Communication
Hello, I wanted to let you know that I nominated the article Communication for featured article status, see Featured article candidates/Communication/archive1. So far, there has not been much response from reviewers and I was wondering whether some of the people here are inclined to have a look at it. If you have the time, I would appreciate your comments. For a short FAQ of the FA reviewing process, see Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:00, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Help-class
Hello project members! Note that per WP:PIQA, all the class ratings are being harmonised across different WikiProjects so we are looking to remove any non-standard classes like Help-class from your banner. If Help-class is removed, then all the pages in Category:Help-Class Linguistics articles will go back into Category:NA-Class Linguistics articles where they were originally. Please let me know if you have any questions &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:27, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Ontology of articles on Chinese Characters

 * Talk:Written vernacular Chinese

There is a discussion about what ontology to use to organize a series of articles about Chinese Characters. A key topic is what ontological patterns have been used for other similar groups of articles about other languages, so I'm seeking views from editors that have experience in this space. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 20:39, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

AfD note
Articles for deletion/List of unsolved problems in linguistics. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 00:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/ELRA Language Resources Association
Your input is invited at Articles for deletion/ELRA Language Resources Association

-- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 03:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Linguistic elaboration
Hi, folks! Hope you're doing well. Found this redirect,, but the phrase doesn't show up and is not linked anywhere in Wikipedia. Thought I'd ask some knowledgeable Wikipedians because I don't want to take it to WP:RfD if it's easier to insert and wikilink the phrase somewhere and "rescue" it that way.

Details: the target article, Abstand and ausbau languages, doesn't even have the string "elaborat" (the closest is langue par élaboration). Autonomy and heteronomy defines ausbau as the elaboration of a language to serve as a literary standard; Standard language mentions elaboration of function (and defines Ausbau as further linguistic development).

An extremely rushed Internet search has led me to "linguistic elaboration" as a translation of sprachlicher Ausbau, a concept introduced by Kloss (1929) and popularized by Haugen (1966).

tl;dr what should I do? a) take the "Linguistic elaboration" redirect to RfD or b) find some way of mentioning or wikilinking the phrase in existing articles? Thanks in advanced for reading and for any input!

Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:58, 29 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Pinging who created the redirect in question. Umimmak (talk) 09:53, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You can take it to RfD for deletion, I don't remember why I created it, though it probably did have to do with the translation from German. My guess is that I was trying to find a general term for the subject (e.g. "magnetic polarity" instead of "positive magnetism and negative magnetism") but I don't think this term does a good job of that (and could be considered OR), so I have no issue with deletion, especially since I am not an expert on the subject.&thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 02:59, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

FAR for Harold Innis
I have nominated Harold Innis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 01:29, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Specialization (linguistics)
The discussion Articles for deletion/Specialization (linguistics) has been relisted three times but has received minimal participation. If you have ideas about the article, please consider commenting. Cnilep (talk) 03:50, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion on Talk:Romance languages: Representation of Classical Latin–Vulgar Latin split in infobox?
If anyone here is interested in this discussion, it can be found at Talk:Romance languages Arctic Circle System (talk) 09:56, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Help needed in Synthetic language
More than a month ago, I opened a discussion in Talk:Synthetic language, about a number of changes by a single editor in Synthetic language, changes that I found flawed. There's been no reply so far. Please help, any comment is welcome. Jotamar (talk) 22:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Please anyone familiar with Mandarin/Dahalo/Danish/Loloish phonology take a look at alveolar approximant
This article, terribly Anglocentric until 27 February 2015, is still somewhat lacking a global viewpoint. The recording since 27 February 2015 may be somehow called an "alveolar approximant" but anyone who read John Wells uses the detailed transcriptions ⟨sz̞ᵚ⟩ for si and The Nuosu language has two similar "buzzed" vowels that are described as syllabic fricatives,. from apical vowel, an article itself is also problematic and labelled by me, would find the two alveolar approximant totally different, much more different than the recording of the alveolar approximant and of the postalveolar approximant.

I initiated a discussion after the thread of a German IP: Talk:Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants. However, given the fact that the exact nature of the stereotypical "rhoticized alveolar" approximant (such as the recording) as opposed to plain alveolar approximant is not at all well-studied, it is unlikely to give a wellsourced scientifical definition in Wikipedia. However, the writing of Wikipedia should not work against common sense, when the ears of a billion people can notice the difference of the sound it is no longer a minor difference but a phonemical difference or at least a difference of potentially phonemical importance. I have basically stopped actively pushing the idea of separation of the two sounds but the writing style of that article should be changed. Ten years ago when I first read that article I found it absurd because no matter how hard I try I cannot articulate any sound that is remotely similar to the English sometimes alveolar sometimes postalveolar approximant, and always get a acoustically non-rhoticized sound - this is not what Wikipedia intends to do. I no longer actively push the idea not only because the topic is itself not well-studied but treated like an elephant in the room by people in the circle, but also because I myself cannot give an accurately describe all ways to make an alveolar approximant rhotacized (what I can say is, when one keeps one's tongue flat except for the articulation point it's a plain sound while when one's tongue is relaxed and curled somewhere other than the articulation point, or sulcalized, etc. it tends to produce a rhotacized sound acoustically not very different from a postalveolar approximant) and I do not want to give any original research or even misstatements (I might already did by saying Huashan Mandarin has two oral alveolar approximants phonemically but they seem to be only semi-phonemically different). It is much easier to say the difference is not something than is something: I can seriously tell that Sol505000's idea that the Dahalo and English difference is apical/laminal difference or the difference between alveolar this way and postalveolar were wrong and original research, but I don't want to characterize it either (if someone can characterize this acoustic rhoticity by F3+ it's highly appreciated). Both Nardog and Sol505000 in the discussion are unfamiliar with the topic (Mandarin/Dahalo/Danish/Loloish phonology, thus outside that part of the academic circle) so I don't trust their opinion, and I don't trust myself either. So please if anyone in the circle can take part in that discussion I would appreciate that and may comfortably leave the talk. Note that the discussion were filled with unrelated wording-problem such as "rhotic". Here's the last version that distinguishes the rhoticized alveolar from plain alveolar approximant, where you can find the academic primary source that indicate the Huashan Mandarin to have two semi-phonemically distinct alveolar approximant:
 * , entry 安徽马鞍山花山霍里街道.
 * It is not hard to find sources for Dahalo and Danish soft D sound that are never perceived as English r by English speakers.

(P.S. With the help of pronouncing a rhotic alveolar approximant as in the recording, I now can pronounce a strongly fricative alveolar or even dentialveolar sibilant, apical or laminal, that are acoustically not very different from a postalveolar/retroflex sibilant, but this may be entirely a different topic and may be just a strongly hushing dentialveolar.)

The separation of sounds dealt in the article is also ad hoc: I didn't see any source making a separation between apical postalveolar and apical retroflex approximants phonemically, I guess the only difference is how back your tongue curls but both Mandarin and English seemed to have the two adjacent approximants in free variation (some even argued that all Mandarin retroflex series are all merely postalveolar - tongue tip not going toward as back as palatal). Given the fact that when pronouncing an approximant your tongue doesn't touch the passive place of articulation, the difference between the two are even harder to define. However, Wikipedia has them in different articles anyway. On the other hand, argued that dentialveolar approximant would be my original research, well I am not sure but I have seen some Chinese linguistic graduate student using "prealveolar approximant" [ɹ̟̍] in their blog to describe the Chinese flat-tongued apical vowel because the stereotypical rhotic alveolar approximant is acoustically too different from that apical vowel but sounds closer to retroflex apical vowel. Of course saying a dentialveolar approximant to have a passive place of articulation sharply at the edge between your teeth and your alveolar ridge is not possible, but I don't think use the term "dentialveolar approximant" to emphasize the sound to be neither close to interdental/front dental nor close to the Dahalo-like "alveolar tending toward post-alveolar" may cause any problems. I have no idea why Sol505000 considers the distinction between apical postalvelar and apical retroflex to be founded while dentialveolar to be unfounded, and I would promote the ExtIPA [ð͇˕] for Dahalo language apical-alveolar series instead of [ð̠˕] because the current usage of [t̠] and [d̠] in Dahalo language is not quite accurate. 146.96.28.10 (talk) 02:59, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I have also included many well-sourced examples of Sinitic languages, which are reverted by Sol505000 without explanation. Nardog once had some problem with it but they no longer opposes that. My point is, if the article apical vowel describes the these vowels in three controversial ways, these examples should be listed as examples in all three articles rather than neither. Similar treatment should be done with the Mandarin final nasal approximants (like the Burmese one), such as Tian'anmen (tʰjɛ́͢ð̠̃˕.á͢ð̠̃˕.mə̌͢ð̠̃˕): if Mandarin phonology describes it in some way, it deserves to be mentioned as an example in corresponding articles. The awkward treatment of apical vowel and the IPA rejection of Sinologist IPA shouldn't be used as a tool to intentionally ignore the existance of these sounds in Mandarin (I personally find it very discriminative to assign Swedish ɧ an IPA symbol but the Chinese ones and Danish ones rejected). The latest version with these example but without the controversial rhotacized/plain difference is here. --146.96.28.10 (talk) 04:08, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Third opinion for Talk:Hindi request
@Austronesier and I can't achieve consensus on our last discussion on the talk page. I'd like a third opinion. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:52, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

The misleading Adage redirect
Please see Talk:Proverb. Summary: Proverb has a very narrow scope, and that of the term adage is much wider (proverb is a traditional folkloric subset). We probably need a set-index article for such terms, either a new one at Adage itself, or develop the even more generalized bare list at Saying into a proper set-index article with encyclopedic content not just links to articles. At any rate, Adage needs a more appropriate link target than just going to Proverb. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:06, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Putting Template:WikiProject Linguistics into Coverb and Converb
Not part of the project but I noticed that both articles were lacking the Template, I am being bold and adding said template to them, if someone who is from the project desagree that it should be added, feel free to remove it. Also, since I don't understand the class and importance level of those terms, I didn't added them so please, if you find it is relevant, add them. Nanami73&#9875; (talk) (contributions) 23:20, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit warrior in the area of Serbo-Croatian
Kajkavian is currently being attacked by a nationalist edit warrior who keeps changing the classification of Shtokavian and Chakavian as Serbo-Croatian to an unscientific classification of them as "Croatian", which makes no sense and is clearly against the consensus. Sol505000 (talk) 23:23, 6 May 2023 (UTC)


 * This is not a question for consensus, but what is written in the source, and in the source it is written in Croatian, not Serbo-Croatian, as you would change what is written in the source, and that is against editing Wikipedia because it is based on sources. And stop attacking me on a personal level. Here is a source []that the user Sol505000 does not respect. I just fixed what the vandal ip changed what is written in the source here added and invented [], but unfortunately it is supported by user Sol505000.93.143.79.158 (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It does not matter what is written in the source. There's plenty of books written by authors confused by nationalist propaganda ex-Yugoslavians are bombarded with from cradle to grave that says that Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian are separate, distinct languages which they are not. They have extremely similar grammar, pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary (when you're dealing with their standard varieties) and hard scientific research cited in Serbo-Croatian has proven again and again that these are merely varieties of the same language. If you're looking for truly separate languages check Slovene or Macedonian. Those are genuinely distinct languages. Wikipedia is not a place for nationalist propaganda. Sol505000 (talk) 00:01, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a place for your propaganda, which is based on adding and inventing something that is not written in the books. I won't comment on the rest of what you insult me, it all says about you.93.143.79.158 (talk) 00:26, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * As I explained to you before, the name Serbo-Croatian language was a form because we lived in the same country from 1918-1990 in Yugoslavia, that's why it had that name when that country fell apart, the Serbo-Croatian language no longer exists, something like Britain today has English-Scottish, for example. Today it has the Croatian language, which is also recognized in the EU, as will be the Serbian language and the Bosnian language when they enter the EU. The name Serbo-Croatian language no longer exists, it went with Yugoslavia. And the languages are very different, there are a lot of different words, and in addition, the Serbian language has "Ekavica" and Croatia has "Ijekavica" in the Štokavian dialect. Don't let me explain the difference between Croatian and Serbian, Croats write in Latin and Serbs in Cyrillic, etc. 93.143.79.158 (talk) 00:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * No, the standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian are not "very different" and the research cited in Serbo-Croatian proves that. What you're describing are mere regional differences in vocabulary and pronunciation (and orthography, every standard apart from Croatian uses Cyrillic to a bigger or lesser extent) that do not match national borders and there's variation within the countries themselves (I'm talking about the standard language alone), exactly as in the case of English, German and Spanish. If you asked a native Spanish speaker from outside Argentina and Uruguay if they consider Rioplatense Spanish a separate language in the same sense that Portuguese and French are foreign to them they would think you're crazy. The same applies here. You will not convince me otherwise. Sol505000 (talk) 00:53, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * You think what you want, I wanted to explain to you about that Serbian-Croatian name, that's how people in Serbia and Croatia think about that name, as I wrote here. They are very different languages, there are many different words, if they weren't, one wouldn't be called Croatian and the other Serbian, but they have nothing to do with each other.93.143.79.158 (talk) 01:05, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * "But they have nothing to do with each other" - Right, I forgot that they are language isolates. I'm sorry for my confusion. Sol505000 (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I only returned what was written correctly in the source, I did not say that Štokavian is only a Croatian dialect, it is Serbian as well as Bosnian. And now it is written correctly as it says in the source that it is a Croatian dialect, someone can use that source and write on the Serbian page that Shtokavian is a Serbian dialect or on the Bosnian page that Shtokavian is a Bosnian dialect, I have nothing against that. That's what it says in the source, and don't add something that isn't written.I hope you understand what I'm talking about. Goodbye93.143.79.158 (talk) 01:18, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * So one dialect belongs to three unrelated languages? I learn something every day. —Tamfang (talk) 22:22, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Academically this is not a debate. The Declaration on the Common Language was published recently, long after the fall of Yugoslavia. --Antondimak (talk) 23:10, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * “what is written in the source” — do all sources agree, or is there only one? —Tamfang (talk) 22:21, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I once met a Croatian linguist, who related a discussion he had with a visiting scholar to his university. It took him two hours to realize that the guy was speaking Serbian rather than Croatian. — kwami (talk) 13:34, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Opinion sought on potential original research in article
Hello. Another editor and I are in disagreement about what constitutes original research in the article on the phrase Tory scum. I believe the article is being held to standards different to other articles as it seems the other editor insists examples of the phrase come from sources that say something like, "This incident is an example of when the phrase "Tory scum" was used". The fullest the article has been, with the most examples given, was this edit. After discussion with the other editor, I suggested this more limited edit. After both, the other editor deleted the section containing examples of use of the phrase. Other opinions are sought as at the moment it's only the two of us so perhaps we're caught in ruts. The active discussion on the talk page is here. Thank you for your involvement. Woofboy (talk) 15:10, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Periphrastic tenses
Hi, I've been noticing that our articles on the history of the verb systems of the Germanic and Romance languages seem to focus almost entirely on the conjugation of synthetic tenses and give very little information about the development of periphrastic/analytic tenses. For example, Romance verbs has only the very briefest mention of periphrasis, Germanic verbs never mentions the Germanic perfect, and Gothic verbs gives no hint about whether Gothic had a perfect at all (though it does mention a Gothic past participle and leaves us guessing about what that might have been used for).

Right now I'm interested in the fact that the modern Romance and Germanic languages share a perfect tense that has a very distinctive feature: the auxiliary "have" (j'ai mangé, ich habe gegessen) changes to "be" in a verb of motion (je suis venu, ich bin gekommen). That is so idiocyncratic that it has to be an areal feature, and the fact that it is even found in Icelandic and Romanian, both conservative outliers in their respective groups, suggests it is very old. But it is not Indo-European, so it is an innovation in both Germanic and Romance. Although the "have" construction has a tentative predecessor in Vulgar Latin, I can't find any discussion of the origin of the whole system, or how it came to be shared by two geographically adjacent language families.

Does anyone here have the expertise to write this up? Or at least to point me in the direction of literature so I can try it myself? Doric Loon (talk) 08:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I have found this book. This looks maximally interesting, especially since intra-family morphsyntactic calques (and how to distinguish them from genetically shared innovations) are one of the things that I work on in a language family in a different part of the world. –Austronesier (talk) 21:08, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Doric_Loon -- There wasn't a compound Germanic perfect in any historic origins sense, but there was a medieval Western European sprachbund (including both Romance and Germanic languages) where there was a contrast between a simple past tense versus a compound perfect tense which was formed with HAVE + past participle for transitive verbs and BE + past participle for intransitive verbs. English has retained this system, except for now using "have" with all verbs, but the contrast between the two tenses doesn't really exist in modern French (where the simple past now is a literary form), or in many forms of spoken German.  In Old English, the compound perfect was mainly used with a past tense auxiliary to express a pluperfect meaning... AnonMoos (talk) 23:14, 18 December 2023 (UTC)