Talk:Admiralty Islands languages

Plural form needs to be in name

See this [copied below] reasoning for why the name should be "Admiralty Islands languages" --Taivo (talk) 17:13, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be, and in fact it shouldn't be. We use formal English in encyclopedias; just because a specialist or two fails to do so doesn't mean that we need to follow suit. Other linguists and journals maintain literary standards. — kwami (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

singular attributive (copied from user talk page)

Hi kwami, I see you've moved this back saying "grammar fix". I'd dispute that, as the Admiralties are a group of islands not a single island, after which the family is named and hence the plural. Correct me if I don't see something. --JorisvS (talk) 13:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "Admiralty Islands" is attributive, which makes it singular, like a 1000-foot mountain, not a *1000-feet mountain. Where not used attributively, it of course reverts to the plural.

(Maybe I shouldn't call it "singular", but it's identical in form to the singular.) — kwami (talk) 13:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I still don't quite get it yet. 1000-foot cannot actually mean anything singular (thanks to the numeral), whereas in the Admiralties case it can (and may suggest such). Do you have a more similar example? --JorisvS (talk) 13:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

All nouns become singular when attributive, unless they're lexicalized plurals. But even s.t. like "trouser press" (press for trousers), "scissor kick", and "eyeglass wipes" famously become singular.

I see ads for "Hawaiian Island cruises" all the time, and they don't mean just to Hawaii, but generally to several islands. Sometimes it will alternate w "Hawaiian Islands cruises", but that sounds ungrammatical to me, and not appropriate for formal writing.

Since we say they're the languages of the Admiralty Islands, there should be enough context. — kwami (talk) 13:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I couldn't wrap my head around my objection, but there it is: "lexicalized plurals", combined with my urge to minimize inherent ambiguities. Given this Hawaiian Island cruises thing, I'll just have to learn to live with that, though:P. I thought it would've been a quasi-ambiguity anyway, though I just found the Alaskan Admiralty Island (singular). Gee... and Admiralty Island (Nunavut), and there seems to be The Admiralty Islands (Ontario), too, haha. --JorisvS (talk) 14:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the plural attributives are nouns which change meaning in the plural, such as "arms race", not nouns that are just normally in the plural, like "scissors" or "pants" (eg. "pant leg"). — kwami (talk) 04:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Well... now it happens that Admiralty Island is very different from Admiralty Islands. --JorisvS (talk) 14:37, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, kwami, I have to disagree with you here. The article should reflect scholarly usage, no matter what your grammar training says. For example:

• William Bright, 1992, "Admiralty Islands Languages," International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Volume 1, page 29.
• Patricia J. Hamel, 1994, A Grammar and Lexicon of Loniu, Papua New Guinea (the only published full grammar of an Admiralty Islands language), page 1, "Capell (1971) provides short word lists from several Admiralty Islands languages..." (also uses "Admiralty Islands languages" on pg 3).
• Robert Blust, 2008, "A Reanalysis of Wuvulu Phonology," Oceanic Linguistics 47:275, "Together with the Aua dialect...it forms part of the Western Islands branch..." (using "Islands" as a proper noun in one of the Admiralties subnodes. Although he uses "Admiralty subgroup", this singular form is in contrast to the thoroughly plural form "Admiralties languages" found in The Oceanic Languages cited below.)

The name "Admiralty Islands" as a linguistic term naming a subgroup is not "Admiralty + Islands", but is a unit as a proper name "Admiralty Islands", and, as such, should not be modified to "Admiralty Island Languages". It is not analogous to "Hawaiian Islands" because that is a geographical name composed of "Hawaiian + Islands". If "Hawaiian Islands" had become a unitary linguistic term, then it would not be shortened to "Hawaiian Island Languages". But we say "Hawaiian Island languages" because "Hawaiian Islands" is not a linguistic proper name, but a geographical one used in a linguistic context. "Admiralty Islands", however, is a very common linguistic proper name for a node on the Austronesian family tree. It should not be shortened to "Admiralty Island" because the proper name is "Admiralty Islands". Compare this:

• Malcom Ross, "Kele," The Oceanic Languages, page 123, "Kele...is a member of the Eastern Admiralties family."
• Hamel, op. cit., page 1, "Z'graggen (1975) provides extensive word lists from 20 Admiralties languages..."

By your reasoning, that should have been "Eastern Admiralty family" since the plural "Admiralties" should have been reduced to singular form as an attributive adjective. But it remains "Admiralties" because (in that volume) they use "Admiralties" as the proper name for that linguistic node. Thus, we have the only specialist to have published a grammar using "Admiralty Islands languages", and two major reference works using a pluralized form as an attributive before the word "languages". This article needs to be moved back to "Admiralty Islands languages". --Taivo (talk) 16:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

"Admiralties" is a bit like "arms race". So you've got Bright and Hamel. Against that, "Admiralty Island languages" is found in Current Trends in Linguistics, in Nature, and in Margaret Mead, Z'graggen, Loving. There is variation in such forms, just as there is with common nouns. — kwami (talk) 02:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

(I also have Blust.) Margaret Mead doesn't count since she wasn't a linguist and Nature as a linguistic journal? (Ahem). The only specialist in this language group that actually has published anything is Hamel. She's the expert and her usage carries more weight than non-Admiralties summarists. You can add onto my list Stephen Wurm (most recently 1994). So Z'graggen and Current Trends are from the '60s and '70s. I'm not familiar with what Loving source you're referring to. So I have the one published expert (from the '90s), plus two other references from the '90s and one from '08. So my more recent references, one from the only published specialist, trump your old references and especially your non-linguistic references. (I just love a little debate among friends.) --Taivo (talk) 04:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

You've given two refs, one indeed from a specialist. But common English usage, not just of specialists but of other fields, and length of use are also relevant to recognition of a term. And it's not like this is a difference in terminology; it's merely a difference in grammar. If Hamel used or didn't use contractions, we wouldn't need to follow her example when writing about Admiralties languages. Indeed, when a specialist has idiosyncratic usage, we normally go with the common usage and note that so-and-so words it a different way. — kwami (talk) 04:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Let's review the refs I've given: 1) Hamel, the Admiralties specialist, from the '90s; 2) Bright, in the Encyclopedia, from the '90s; 3) Wurm, from the Routledge Atlas, from 1994; 4) Blust, an article on one of the Admiralties languages, from '08. All show the usage "X Islands group" or "X Islands languages". Hamel, Wurm, and Blust are all Admiralties or Austronesian specialists. And your comment about considering history doesn't seem to apply to "Burushaski", which you changed to "Burusho" (wherever that came from), despite the overwhelming English usage of "Burushaski". --Taivo (talk) 05:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Oops. I see you moved Burushaski back to where it was before I wrote the above comment. --Taivo (talk) 05:39, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Blust contradicts himself. He seems to be confused about the grammar. As are a lot of people. It's a grammar issue, not a difference in terminology. I'm not much of one for prescriptivist grammar, but it does have one use: making spoken or written material seem respectable. (As the saying goes, if you ax for a job, you probably won't get it.) That's why I think that journals such as Nature are relevant here: they are concerned about appearances of grammatical correctness. — kwami (talk) 06:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with it being a grammar issue. It's an issue of proper names. And while Blust may use "Admiralty languages", he is consistent in using the form "X Islands languages". Indeed, the use of "Admiralty" is directly related to the name of the islands in question--"Admiralty Islands". I would much rather rely on specialists' usage than on generalists'. When I was a technical editor in my youth, I edited technical chemical reports for the rocket propulsion industry. I'll never forget the first time I "corrected" the grammar of attributive adjective usage in a report and it completely changed the meaning of the conclusions. I was lucky and the chemist noted it before it reached print, but it was a clear place where specialists control their own terminology and not generalists. And, for the purposes of disambiguation, as JorisvS points out above, there is an Admiralty Island. Without using the plural form of Admiralty Islands, it is impossible to distinguish between Admiralty Island languages (languages spoken on Admiralty Island) and Admiralty Islands languages (the Admiralty Islands subgroup of Oceanic). --Taivo (talk) 07:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Linguistics doesn't have the kind of precision that the physical sciences do. Even with technical terms like 'topic' or 'focus' we often have to diverge from the specialist we use as a source, because they define the terms differently than other specialists we also use as sources. It's hard to find two linguists who use the same terminology with the same meanings, whereas chemistry and physics are highly standardized.

In this particular case, the plural could also mean the Admiralties in the St Lawrence, so how can we know this isn't a branch of Iroquois? The same way we know it's AN in the singular: This is the only language group so named. Likewise, "Oceanic" doesn't mean the Atlantic, and "Atlantic" isn't Tupian. Both singular and plural attributive forms have been used by linguists (Admiralty and Admiralties; Island and Islands); we have the grammatical choice of some linguists against that of others, as well as against the conventions of formal writing. This is more like the question of whether we use Je, Ge, or Gê, but with one of the forms misspelled. — kwami (talk) 18:32, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey! I provided plenty of contemporary linguistic evidence that Admiralty Islands languages was the usage prevalent in the specialist literature. You should not have moved those articles back without actually providing evidence to the contrary. JorisvS and I agree that these should be at Admiralty Islands languages. You have moved them against the evidence and against consensus based only on your view of English grammar. The contemporary, recent evidence is conclusive. Your evidence is 40 years old. Please move them back. --Taivo (talk) 21:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Even Blust used both. Some follow formal English conventions, and some don't. Here we do. It isn't a difference of terminology, just of grammar. And it isn't my view of grammar: I'm not consistent about this in my own writing, and on WP I don't use other informal grammatical constructions I use in informal situations, such as double modals. — kwami (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Where did Blust use "Admiralty Island languages"? In the works I have he always uses a plural "Islands" as an attributive in front of a nominal. It's not about "English grammar", it's about scholarly, specialist usage. That must always prevail over pretty grammar niceties. If a single, isolated scholar was the only reference in opposition to everyone else, then, of course, the individual usage must bow to the corporate usage. But in this case, all the contemporary specialists use the plural. The only sources with singular are 40 years old. --Taivo (talk) 21:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Where did he ever use "Admiralty Islands languages"? I point him out because he contradicts Ross, from which you're also trying to extrapolate accepted usage. With Blust, you're apparently only talking about his choice of grammar, yet claim that we're not talking about grammar. If it's only a matter of whether Blust uses plural adjuncts in general, then he's irrelevant as a ref for actual terminology here.

If you want the debate to be about terminology rather than grammar, then you need cites for terminology rather than grammar. You've provided two that I see who use the phrase: Hamel (1994) and Bright (1992). Yet you have not provided any evidence that this is actually a terminological choice rather than simply an informal grammatical choice. If you want counter-evidence from that time period (which you justify as "contemporary", despite it not being terribly contemporary), there's Geraghty (1990) "Proto-Eastern Oceanic R and its reflexes", which uses the singular. Again, this appears to be a simple grammatical issue, not a terminological one. You've provided zero evidence for that. — kwami (talk) 22:01, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

So what's a relevant quote from Geraghty? I've provided direct quotes above in sufficient number to show the "X Islands" usage as an attributive adjective from Hamel and Bright. Here are direct quotes from Wurm and Blust concerning "X Islands" in respect to the Admiralty Islands node of Oceanic:

• Stephen Wurm, 1994, "Australasia and the Pacific," Atlas of the World's Languages, page 102, "North-West Islands subfamily", "South-East Islands subfamily"
• Robert Blust, 2008, "A Reanalysis of Wuvulu Phonology," Oceanic Linguistics, 47:275, "Together with the Aua dialect...it forms part of the Western Islands branch..."

It's not necessary to find a quote that says, "I use the plural form of 'islands' despite the dictates of English grammar". The fact that these contemporary linguistic specialists all use the construction "X Islands" as an attributive adjective in referring to the Admiralty Islands node and its subnodes is sufficient evidence to show that as the preferred construction. Since no one but linguists talk about the Admiralty Islands node of Oceanic, then these references satisfy the requirements of common English usage. Others may talk about the Admiralty Islands, but we're not concerned with pottery or fauna or flora here, where there are probably not proper names referring to specific types of pottery, etc. We are talking here about a named node of a linguistic family tree. The name of that node is "Admiralty Islands", not "Admiralty Island". The attributive adjective form for that named node is, as quite adequately demonstrated among contemporary specialists in that language family, "Admiralty Islands" or "Admiralties" (as found in John Lynch, Malcolm Ross, and Terry Crowley, 2002, The Oceanic Languages). Whether you want to name these articles "Admiralty Islands languages" or "Admiralties languages", the evidence from scholarly sources is quite clear--the attributive form of the node name is plural. --Taivo (talk) 22:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

You are again not arguing from terminology, but from grammar. Wurm and Blust do not use the phrase, therefore you can only extrapolate from their choice of grammar. That in itself would be WP:OR, but in addition you claim that we are not debating grammar. Therefore Wurm and Blust are irrelevant. Your evidence is not at all clear, and when presented with counter-evidence that other scholars use the more formal form, you place restrictions on dates and academic fields. If you want to do that, let's restrict ourselves to linguistics from this century, shall we?

Of course the name of the node is "Admiralty Islands", which is why I have repeatedly used the phrase "Admiralty Islands". Except, of course, when used attributively, since we are an encyclopedia here.

Scholars will differ in their choice of orthography, formality, and dialect. We don't need to imitate them unless there is a meaningful difference in such usage. A difference between British and American spelling might be critical in some technical field, but that requires demonstration. You have provided zero evidence for such a meaningful difference. — kwami (talk) 23:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I have shown you multiple examples of how scholars from the last two decades consistently use the plural form of "Islands" when naming a node of Oceanic attributively. You have presented zero evidence from the last two decades. You mention Geraghty in passing, but you don't provide a quote to show his usage of "X Islands" attributively. You're not arguing from usage, but just from some hyper-formal grammar of English. Usage dictates grammar and grammar rules. As a linguist, you should know that. Scholarly usage here is crystal clear--you're only obfuscating it to make your grammar point, which is irrelevant. Usage is key and usage by scholars is fundamental. This isn't WP:OR on my part since I've provided enough quotes from reliable sources to demonstrate usage. Indeed, your point is actually the WP:OR because you are applying obscure and somewhat archaic English grammar rules to a proper name. You argue for "encyclopedic" usage, but then ignore Bright whose usage was "encyclopedic". --Taivo (talk) 00:07, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

So now it's not a matter of the name of this one node, but rather the grammatical convention of linguists discussing Oceanic languages in general. Are we to have different grammatical conventions when discussing different fields? I'm sorry, but that strikes me as rather odd.

If we're going to consider grammar among scholars discussing Oceanic languages, rather than any particular term, then we should consider other nodes of Oceanic. Is Tryon & Hackman (1983) Solomon Island Languages: An Internal Classification too far past your arbitrary deadline? How about Bradshaw, Rehg, Bender (2001) Issues in Austronesian morphology, p 214: "Human agents are not allowed with passive verbs in the Southeast Solomon languages". Or Senft (1997) Referring to space: studies in Austronesian and Papuan languages, sect. 4.2.2.2 "The Loyalty Island Languages". Or König & Gast (2008) Reciprocals and reflexives, p 124: "In some Polynesian and Loyalty Island languages, ...". Or Hodvhaugen & Mosel (1999) Negation in Oceanic languages: "... give a survey on negation systems in the New Caledonian and Loyalty Island languages" (p. vii); "Note that the Loyalty Island languages have the same negatives for assertive predicates and imperatives" (p 9).

As was obvious before, there is variance in usage. When the proper noun is removed, for example, as in Wurm, "Islands" takes the plural to emphasize the plurality, an allowance made in non-proper attributive nouns that doesn't directly address the issue here. You're cherry-picking one usage in an OR attempt to morph a grammatical choice into ad hoc technical terminology. You have provided no evidence that this grammatical convention makes any technical difference. Repeating that it is "crystal clear" does not make it so: It is crystal clear to me that the difference is technically meaningless. — kwami (talk) 01:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) I have never claimed this for Oceanic languages in general, it is specific to Admiralty Islands languages and the usages I have cited have all only specifically been tied to Admiralty Islands languages. What I have shown you is crystal clear usage among Austronesian specialists on how they treat the word "Islands" among the Admiralty Islands languages. You are ignoring WP:NCON and pushing your own grammatical usage despite the common usage among Austronesianists which I have clearly demonstrated. There's no "cherry-picking" going on. There are four solid linguistic sources that show that in contemporary usage among the Admiralty Islands language nodes specialists use the plural "islands" in attributive position. You have offered no contemporary counterevidence, just your own WP:OR opinions about English grammar. --Taivo (talk) 03:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

And you expect anyone to believe that there are special grammatical conventions for discussing the Admiralties which don't apply to the Loyalties or Solomons? Come on. There's nothing crystal clear in what you presented: you have four scholars who happen to use the same grammatical convention, which you're trying to twist into technical jargon. Other scholars have used other conventions. It's as if you came across a group of languages which only Usonian linguists have written about in the last 20 years, and insist that therefore British linguists must use American spelling when writing about these languages. It's completely irrational. — kwami (talk) 05:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Kwami, that's close to what Wikipedia policy states about varieties of English--that articles should be internally consistent. So if an American editor wrote an article, then that article will remain in American English no matter what the national usage of subsequent editors. Wikipedia makes no reference to the dialect in use outside Wikipedia. But if scholars are using X form in their writing, then our article titles should reflect that form. That alone makes it common English usage and therefore subject to WP:NCON. If there were a mix of forms in contemporary scholarship on these languages, then you would have a point, but the overwhelming contemporary usage among Austronesionists is "X Islands" in attributive form. --Taivo (talk) 12:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

But that's exactly my point: there is a mix! By chance, one obscure node may be dominated by one form, and another obscure node by the other, but that's nothing more than what one would expect from chance. — kwami (talk) 23:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move to Admiralty Islands languages. For consistency I will also move closely related articles such as Western Admiralty Island languages. Orlady (talk) 02:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Admiralty Island languages → Admiralty Islands languages — Contemporary specialist literature on this language group virtually all uses the structure "X Islands" when used attributively, as in "X Islands languages", "X Islands group", etc. (It is virtually never referred to outside linguistic literature). The usage "X Island languages" is only found in literature that was written 40 years or more ago. --Taivo (talk) 12:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Move. References:

• William Bright, 1992, "Admiralty Islands Languages," International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Volume 1, page 29.
• Patricia J. Hamel, 1994, A Grammar and Lexicon of Loniu, Papua New Guinea (the only published grammar of an Admiralty Islands language), page 1, "Capell (1971) provides short word lists from several Admiralty Islands languages..." (also uses "Admiralty Islands languages" on pg 3).
• Robert Blust, 2008, "A Reanalysis of Wuvulu Phonology," Oceanic Linguistics 47:275, "Together with the Aua dialect...it forms part of the Western Islands branch..." (Wuvulu is an Admiralty Islands language and the Western Islands is one of the branches of the Admiralty Islands group)
• Stephen Wurm, 1994, "Australasia and the Pacific," Atlas of the World's Languages, page 102, "North-West Islands subfamily", "South-East Islands subfamily" (both are branches of the Admiralty Islands group)

Common English usage should prevail per WP:NCON. Since specialist scholars are the only ones who discuss this language family, then their usage is primary. In the standard linguistic encyclopedia (Bright, above), the article is labelled "Admiralty Islands languages". --Taivo (talk) 12:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

A couple other references:

• Peter Ladefoged & Ian Maddieson, 1996, The Sounds of the World's Languages, Blackwell, page 131, "...and several of the Admiralty Islands languages in addition to Kele"
• Darrell Tryon, 2006, "Language Endangerment and Globalisation in the Pacific," Language Diversity in the Pacific: Endangerment and Survival, Multilingual Matters, page 99, "the Admiralty Islands group" --Taivo (talk) 01:10, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment This is simply logic, no specialist literature needed. This refers to the Admiralty Islands (plural), i.e. the languages of the Admiralty Islands. TakakaCounty (talk) 01:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose This is merely a matter of formality in writing, no different than British vs. American spelling, not of specialized terminology. Taivo would have us believe that there are special grammatical considerations when dealing with the Admiralty Island(s) branch of Oceanic that do not apply to the Loyalty Island(s) or SE Solomon(s) branches of Oceanic, which on the face of it is ridiculous and which he has not demonstrated, rather than there being simply a coincidence of which scholars have recently preferred which grammatical conventions. This is the language family of the Admiralty Islands, and whether one chooses to use the formal singular or colloquial plural when using that phrase to modify a noun such as 'languages', 'branch', or 'group' is entirely irrelevant to the name itself. As Taivo pointed out, Blust uses the singular with "Admiralty subgroup", but the plural with "Western Islands branch", suggesting that use of the name of the islands is sufficiently clear that he doesn't feel a need for the plural in the former case.

Also, specialists are not the only ones to discuss the language family. Anthropologists do as well, and they may use the formal singular attributive, as have journals such as Nature and the Journal of Human Evolution. As well as Ethnologue and linguistic journals such as Current Trends in Linguistics if one goes back a few more years. (This isn't a group that is covered very often.) If a new author comes along who uses the more formal grammatical construction, does that mean the terminology will have changed? If a new author makes a different choice than we do as to American vs. British orthography, do we need to rewrite the article to reflect that as well? — kwami (talk) 20:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

While I have cited specific sources and provided quotes as evidence, Kwami just throws out things without dates, quotes, or page numbers so that they can be verified. The reason is that most (if not all) of his material is from the '60s and '70s. I searched the Admiralty Islands records in Ethnologue and could find absolutely no evidence for his contention that Ethnologue uses the singular form in attributive position for this language group, so his listing of Ethnologue as an example is questionable. The first grammar of one of these languages was not published until 1994, after an initial article-length publication about '91 or '92, so all specialized publication on these languages is less than 20 years old. In the last two decades I have found no publications dealing with the language group that use a form other than "X Islands" in attributive position. The plural form "Admiralties" is also found in attributive position rather commonly, but most sources call the linguistic node "Admiralty Islands" and retain the plural in attributive position. Kwami claims that anthropologists use the term "Admiralty Islands", but they are not talking about the linguistic group specifically, but the Admiralty Islands population in general--this is not an article on the people of the Admiralty Islands, but only on the languages there. During the last 20 years, which covers the entire publication history of Admiralty Islands languages, linguists have been uniform in using "Admiralty Islands" in attributive position unless they use the name "Admiralties" for the node name, in which case the majority of linguists also use the plural for the attributive. Kwami has no contemporary evidence to show the switch from singular to plural other than one linguist (Blust) who uses "X Islands" everywhere, but varies between "Admiralties" and "Admiralty" when he doesn't use the "X Islands" form. Kwami has provided no evidence to show why this article should not follow WP:NCON. --Taivo (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The Ethnologue cite, which you can find by entering the phrase in their search engine, is a ref to Z'graggen ("Comparative wordlists of the Admiralty Island languages, collected by W. E. Smythe."). The fact that Blust varies between sg and pl shows that the distinction is not meaningful. — kwami (talk) 02:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

So Ethnologue does not use "Admiralty Island languages", but simply accurately cites the title of Z'graggen's old book. Every other scholar would do exactly the same even though they might use "Admiralty Islands languages" normally. --Taivo (talk) 05:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support. It's a rare topic but the nominator marshals evidence of the proposed usage without specific counterevidence (yet). The grammatical argument, that plural noun adjunct shouldn't be used, is held by many but, as the Wikipedia article notes, "there is a recent trend towards more use of plural ones, especially in UK English." In this case, the noun is a proper noun that doesn't exist in the singular (in reference to these islands, anyway) and the plural serves a clarifying purpose as well, showing that these are not the languages of Admiralty Island, USA. — AjaxSmack 01:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The latter is a reasonable argument, based on the actual issue at hand: Which grammatical convention better serves our purpose. As for the former, there are multiple cites of counter-evidence, just not many within the time frame that Taivo set. (If we set the time frame to this century, then there are no citations for either wording, apart from one partially relevant cite of Blust 2008, which if we took things as literally as Taivo takes them, would mean that we should move Western Admiralty Island languages to Western Islands languages, which would be much more ambiguous than the mere matter of number.)

I don't see why the Admiralties should be treated any differently than the Solomons or the Loyalties, just because the Austronesianists who happen to have published on these languages have made different grammatical choices. — kwami (talk) 02:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I do. That's how usage is established. By reliable sources using certain terms. We at Wikipedia should reflect that and not try to establish our own usage for whatever reason. But feel free to present other citations to support your case. I will monitor this page and change my comments accordingly. — AjaxSmack 03:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

A 20-year time-frame as a measure of "contemporary sources" is perfectly reasonable especially since all of the specialist publications on these languages (aside from the isolated example of Z'graggen's word lists) has occurred within the last 20 years. Trying to only deal with publications within the last decade (as Kwami tried to argue) is unreasonable for virtually every language family. Twenty years is a perfectly reasonable time frame in linguistic discussions, especially since the most recent material that kwami is trying to use for evidence is from the '70s or earlier. --Taivo (talk) 05:22, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No, much of it is from the past couple decades. There is no field of study on Admiralties languages. They do not have their own conventions or their own nomenclature. They barely have any research at all. The specialists are the Austronesianists and Oceanists, and they vary in their usage, including publications from the last 20 years, just as everyone else does. You're attempting to create a field that no-one in the field recognizes, and then impose your own terminology based on the personal conventions of those who you accept as being in your newly invented field. This is nonsense. — kwami (talk) 05:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You keep claiming to have support, but have yet to offer a single reference and quote from a linguist in the last 20 years who doesn't use the plural attributive in describing the Admiralty Islands languages. Blust is the closest you've come because he uses "X Islands languages" but "Admiralty languages". The others uniformly use the plural attributive whether it is "Islands" or "Admiralties". --Taivo (talk) 06:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

A couple other references:

• Peter Ladefoged & Ian Maddieson, 1996, The Sounds of the World's Languages, Blackwell, page 131, "...and several of the Admiralty Islands languages in addition to Kele"
• Darrell Tryon, 2006, "Language Endangerment and Globalisation in the Pacific," Language Diversity in the Pacific: Endangerment and Survival, Multilingual Matters, page 99, "the Admiralty Islands group" --Taivo (talk) 06:43, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

And you have yet to give any reason that the Admiralty languages should be treated differently than any other group of Oceanic languages. Of course there are going to be patterns when you're dealing with groups studied by small numbers of people: that's what you'd expect from a random distribution, and is statistically meaningless. You could find groups in which all recent scholars use American spelling, do or do not allow split infinitives, or insist on "whom", but that's all quite beside the point. If the only recent info on a group of languages is published in German, does that mean we have to write the article in German, because that's the established scholarly convention for that group of languages? According to your logic, we would at least have to use German for the name of the article because the English is not "current". — kwami (talk) 07:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You're being ridiculous now, Kwami. Of course, if all modern scholarship were in German or French or Russian, then we would use the most common English usage, even if it weren't based on recent English sources. But, in this case, we have clear and uncontested evidence from a number of scholars over the past 20 years that one usage is overwhelmingly prevalent. I've presented a half dozen reliable sources that unequivocally demonstrate that common English usage among the people who are writing about that language group. Your only argument is that you don't want it to be so. --Taivo (talk) 11:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No, my argument is that (a) there is no such field as "Admiralty Island linguistics", with its own terminology, and that (b) writing style should not be confused with terminology. — kwami (talk) 19:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

In other words, you have still offered no evidence, just your own opinion on the specialists' usage and your personal English writing style. --Taivo (talk) 00:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: On the one hand, I don't see why putting the s at the end of Island implies that there is then a specialized subfield of linguistics. On the other hand, if this is, as Kwami states, a stylistic distinction that carries no meaning, then we should be consistent within the project in spite of what the sources use.

On the one hand, Taivo has provided contemporary sources while Kwami has sort of glossed over citation lists (something that people find more compelling). On the other hand, if this is an academic topic that moves so slowly that it churns out less than a dozen books in the last twenty years, then it seems to me that a 20-year time-frame is not a reasonable cutoff for considering usage in this regard.

It seems to me that, above all else, establishing that this is an important distinction should come first. If that's established, a greater list of citations (from both the pro and con sides of this discussion) would be helpful. If it's not, then we can put a note in our style guidelines about the matter and move on. Less cattiness would also be nice. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

To me, it is an important distinction. Readers will find "Admiralty Islands" or "Admiralty Islands languages" in the literature as a node name or in a contemporary text (people rarely read the sources that Kwami has referred to in passing anymore) and naturally (since that is the state of the contemporary language) do a search for "Admiralty Islands languages". That's where they should end up, not at an article whose title sounds more like there is only one Admiralty Island. English has moved beyond the strict formalist construction that Kwami is insisting on and the contemporary literature on this group of languages clearly and unequivocally reflects that. I should also note that two different editors have moved this article to Admiralty Islands languages and Kwami has unilaterally used his admin powers to revert both moves. A third editor has listed his support for this move above. Kwami is standing alone and using his admin power to get his way. The "cattiness" level would be substantially less if the majority of editors weren't being ignored by an admin using his power to push his own POV and block the majority. --Taivo (talk) 00:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide evidence for your two parenthetical assertions? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

1) Kwami lists two linguistic sources--Z'graggen's "Comparative Wordlists of the Admiralty Island languages, collected by W.E. Smythe" from 1975. This is a data source and not a discussion of the languages. Only individuals who are directly researching one of these languages would refer to this text. Hamel (1994) lists it in her bibliography, but she still uses "Admiralty Islands languages". Blust (2008) doesn't even cite it even though his article is the first major analysis of one of these languages. The other source that Kwami cites in passing is the "Austronesian Languages of Australian New Guinea" article in Current Trends in Linguistics. The title "Current" was in reference to 1971, its publication date. Needless to say it has been superseded by multiple other more recent sources. Hamel (1994) cites it, but still calls the family "Admiralty Islands languages". Blust (2008) doesn't cite it, nor does Ross in his 2002 sketch of Kele (another Admiralty Islands language) in The Oceanic Languages. It's very outdated and has been superseded by the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (which doesn't use any phrases with either "Admiralty Islands" or "Admiralty Island" as an attributive that I could find), The Oceanic Languages (which uses "Admiralties"--always plural--rather than "Admiralty Islands"), and Blust's recent handbook on Austronesian published by Pacific Linguistics (the pages I've got photocopies of don't have attributive usages of Admiralty Islands either). If I were advising a new linguistics student researching a language, there are very, very few instances in which I would recommend him or her to investigate the relevant Current Trends in Linguistics volume. They are of historical interest, but nearly every chapter has been superseded by more recent research. 2) Kwami himself admits in the discussion above that the usage of plural noun as an attributive is very common in contemporary English and that his favored singular usage is very formal. I daresay it's also archaic. --Taivo (talk) 02:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you purposefully misrepresenting the issue? I at least expect you to act in good faith. I've presented several quite recent examples. The only reason for disregarding them is your fantasy that "Admiralty Islands linguistics" is a separate field, with separate terminology, than Oceanic linguistics. You have provided zero evidence for that. You're obviously intelligent enough to know your argument is flawed, which I can only conclude means that winning this silly argument is more important for you than your academic integrity. — kwami (talk) 05:16, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, I've misrepresented absolutely nothing and you have provided absolutely no references or quotes to substantiate your argument that plurals are not used in attributive constructions by contemporary linguists when talking about the Admiralty Islands languages (except for Blust's usage of "Admiralty languages" even though he consistently uses "X Islands languages"). Point out where you produced a single, solitary, actual reference and quote. You can't because you haven't. You threw out the names of a non-linguistic journal or two, but that doesn't prove anything because you provided no actual references. You threw out the Current Trends in Linguistics name (a series forty years old and out of date), but without a precise reference I had to deduce which article you might be referring to. You threw out Ethnologue, but I showed you that the usage in Ethnologue was actually a bibliographic entry to Z'graggen's 1975 article, so your reference to Ethnologue was completely bogus. (Hamel also correctly cited the name of Z'graggen's 1975 article as "Admiralty Island languages", but she still used "Admiralty Islands languages" in her text.) I have asked you several times to provide actual references and quotes to the usage you claim is more recent than 1975, but you have yet to provide a single reference. My academic integrity is just fine, Kwami, since I've provided quite adequate references and quotes to contemporary usage while you have provided none yet claimed that you have. --Taivo (talk) 05:27, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you're in sound health, you either have no integrity, or you're an idiot. I know you're not an idiot. — kwami (talk) 07:25, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I know things have become quite heated here, but let's try to stick to WP:NPA, shall we. --JorisvS (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

You're right, the issue at hand isn't worth the bother. Dishonesty just pisses me off. — kwami (talk) 17:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, thank you for the personal attacks. I will not reciprocate. You are still avoiding the issue that you've shown no evidence that contemporary linguists use any construction other than a plural as an attributive. You keep saying you have, but I don't see a single, solitary reference that you've provided. If English has changed so thoroughly that you can't find and quote a single linguist who uses "Admiralty Island languages" in the last 20 years, then your argument (that it's part of "formal" English), falls on its face anyway. Wikipedia policy is clear in WP:NCON that we follow common English usage. If common English usage is "Admiralty Islands" as an attributive, then that's the usage that should be followed. Your personal preferences don't matter. Counting noses here, there are now four editors (counting JorisvS) who have supported moving this article to Admiralty Islands languages and not one who has supported keeping it here, with one neutral. As an admin, you have used your power to revert the move done by two different editors and continue to block the move despite the majority preference. I'm not sure why you're so angry and have resorted to personal attacks. I've simply asked you for references and quotes to demonstrate the "Admiralty Island usage" among linguists in the last 20 years. You keep side-stepping to complain about "Solomon Islands", etc. Perhaps the Solomon Islands language articles need to be revised as well, but that's not what we're talking about here. I haven't reviewed the Solomon Islands literature to see. We're just talking about the Admiralty Islands languages here and linguistic usage is nearly all in favor of using a plural as an attributive (with the sole exception of Blust's mixed usage--"Admiralty" versus "X Islands"). "Admiralty Islands" is the label for a node of Oceanic and contemporary linguists don't like to change that to a singular just because it's an attributive. --Taivo (talk) 13:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Cut the crap, Taivo, you're not illiterate. I've given multiple refs above; your only argument is that they don't count because the Admiralties are a different discipline than other branches of Oceanic. "Contemporary linguists don't like to change that to a singular just because it's an attributive"--but they do like to change other island groups to the singular? You live in a bizarre world. — kwami (talk) 17:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

You've not listed a single reference. You accuse me of poor scholarship, but you have practiced it here in spades. "Nature" does not constitute a reference. It is the title of a journal, nothing more. "Margaret Mead" does not constitute a reference, it is the name of an anthropologist, nothing more. I've been very accurate in my references, providing all relevant details including page numbers and brief quotes or subheadings illustrating the usage in the cited reference at the page cited. My references easily fulfill all the requirements of verifiability. Yours don't even begin to. Your personal attacks aside, your rhetoric has completely boiled down to, "I don't like it". If we change all the articles that represent Oceanic language nodes of the form "X Island(s)" because that's the form that scholars in the field use, then so what? If we match scholarly usage that also happens to match the usage of our readers, then isn't that a good thing? I would think so. But you have not provided references, you've just thrown random names around without referencing anything. WP:NCON is clear that common English usage should prevail. The common English usage to be summoned is the usage among contemporary specialists because no one else talks about the linguistic node labelled "Admiralty Islands" or "Admiralties". That's what this article is about--that linguistic node--not kinship or fauna or geological formations. --Taivo (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Why are you keeping up this charade? Names, dates, and page numbers don't constitute references? Who are you writing this nonsense for? I'm completely baffled.

As far as me not liking it, true, I'd prefer that we stick to formal grammar. But it's not that big a deal. Not enough to lie and to misrepresent editors that you should be able to work with. — kwami (talk) 18:21, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you are referring to, but none of those references are to the Admiralties. Your personal attacks are still unwarranted, Kwami, and beneath you. You could have simply reiterated that you were referring to things outside the Admiralties and repointed to them (they are buried in the middle of one of your paragraphs and not bulleted and easy to find like mine are). You've still not proven your point for the Admiralties usage. And many of the sources I've cited for using the plural form of the attributive for the Admiralties also use it for the Loyalties as well. Common English usage is changing and you're behind the curve on that, Kwami. --Taivo (talk) 18:35, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

My apologies if I wasn't clear. Both forms are used; one is considered more formal. When there are multiple groups with relatively little published on them, we will of course find a couple where only one form or the other is used during some period of time. That may easily (and I believe probably) be nothing more than random distribution. There's no reason to think that it's solidified into set terminology. — kwami (talk) 18:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

My apologies for not noticing and not realizing what you were referring to. --Taivo (talk) 20:23, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting to get Kwami's argument a little better. If we treat this article differently than the way we do for Loyalty or Solomon Islands, then it makes it seem as though there's special terminology for the Admiralty Islands. I don't think that inference is what Taivo intended, so this summary of Taivo's position is a bit unfair IMHO. However, the implication is still there, even if you don't mean it, Taivo.

It seems to me that we should be consistent. If the newer sources use the s, then this reflects a change in the English language, not in specialist terminology. Looking outside sources specifically on the Admiralty Islands to see if this sort of construction is reflective of the English language in general would help us determine that (something I notice Taivo has brought up at Talk:Loyalty Island languages). We may need to make a clarification on our policy in this regard. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:41, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Riiiight... Only now I get it. I agree we should try to have some consistency here. I will note that we already have Central Solomons languages, without the "Island(s)", but with the "-s". --JorisvS (talk) 20:18, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) There is also the difference between "languages of the Admiralty Islands" (whether Austronesian or not, including Tok Pisin and English) and "Admiralty Islands languages" (members of the Oceanic node labelled "Admiralty Islands", excluding Tok Pisin and English). It's a subtle difference since all the native languages of the Admiralty Islands are also Admiralty Islands languages. My point has been that the latter should reflect the node name precisely--"Admiralty Islands languages"--since "Admiralty Islands" is no longer a geographical term in that usage. This differs from the case of the Solomon Islands, where there is no "Solomon Islands" node in either Austronesian or "East Papuan". The Loyalty Islands, however, are more analogous where there is a "Loyalty Islands" node as part of New Caledonian. --Taivo (talk) 20:23, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

True, but we do have the (non-Austronesian, "East Papuan") Central Solomons languages as a (primary) node, also showing the plural-attributive pattern. I don't know how the literature treats it, though. --JorisvS (talk) 22:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

And Southeast Solomon Island languages, which is also a node, though that tends to be Southeast Solomonic languages these days.

I've also never seen a singular/plural distinction that was meaningful, unless the plural form is a different lexeme (arm wrestling/arms race), or if the plurality needed to be emphasized, or if it were jargon (Taivo's chemical example). I doubt anyone would read the sg or pl in this case to mean either the node or all of the langs on the islands; either meaning would need to be clarified through context for either form. — kwami (talk) 01:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

But it's not a question of "meaningfulness", it's a question of usage and the plural usage is more common than the singular usage when there is a node label involved. "Hawaiian Islands languages" doesn't sound right on several levels. 1) There is no "Hawaiian Islands" linguistic node, and 2) we are used to "Hawaii" as a singular collective term for the entire chain. But the Admiralty Islands/Admiralties are different for the opposite reason on both counts--there is an "Admiralty Islands" node and we always pluralize it whether it's Admiralties or Admiralty Islands. That's why "Admiralty Island languages" sounds so strange and isn't used by most people. --Taivo (talk) 02:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

But there's no reason to think that the few authors you've found who've used the phrase in the past 20 years represent a change is terminology specifically for this node. A hundred years ago, the plural would have been unthinkable in formal writing; now it's becoming much more common, but for everything, not just this. We don't always pluralize it, and you even provided a counter-example from Blust. It's the same construction as other "X Island(s) languages" nodes, and those show more varied usage, not just a century ago, but this century. There's no reason to think that the Admiralties are an exception to the rule, that they're any different in this regard than the Loyalties or Solomons. — kwami (talk) 02:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

But the point is that the "few authors" represent everyone writing about the Admiralties. Blust's singular usage is only with "Admiralties" > "Admiralty", not with "Islands", which he consistently pluralizes in the attributive. If the general usage (beyond just the Admiralties) has changed over the past 20 years, and the majority of authors are using "Islands" as an attributive form, then Wikipedia's naming policy should be changed to reflect that. I haven't spent a lot of time gathering references beyond the Admiralties, but with the Admiralties, the plural attributive usage is solidly evidenced in contemporary English. --Taivo (talk) 04:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you simply list the references you have below, then, kwami, like Taivo has? And I'm not specifically looking within a 20-year time frame. --JorisvS (talk) 09:15, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Gimme a day or two. We have s.o. in the hospital, so I can't put much into this right now. — kwami (talk) 16:03, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support This refers to the Admiralty Islands (plural), i.e. the languages of the Admiralty Islands. TakakaCounty (talk) 01:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not the issue. We all know it's plural. The point is that in formal writing, when plurals are used attributively, they take the singular, as in "ten-foot pole" and "scissor kick". It's a question of writing style, not of which islands they are. — kwami (talk) 05:16, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, unless you're actually claiming that all the contemporary Austronesian linguists I've cited don't write formally, then your claimed "rule" is archaic and unused in modern scholarly writing when used with proper nouns. True, you cannot say, *the islands languages, but you can say "the Admiralty Islands languages" because "Admiralty Islands" is a proper name. That's what you're not grasping here--that contemporary English, even formal contemporary English, preserves the proper noun, even when it is formally plural. You've grabbed onto an archaic usage and are holding onto it like the last person off a sinking ship grabs a life ring despite all the evidence that has shown conclusively that modern usage is "Admiralty Islands languages" or "Admiralties languages" with a plural attributive from the proper name. --Taivo (talk) 05:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course some people say "the Admiralty Islands languages". When did I ever say otherwise? You're arguing that this is mandatory for the Admiralties but not for the Solomons or Loyalties, which is farcical. It could be that people have decided that they'll only use the plural when discussing this single branch of Oceanic, or it could be that, by chance, people who use the plural have written about the Admiralties. You've provided zero evidence that it's terminology rather than grammar. Why do I even need to say this? You're obviously intelligent enough to understand it, yet you continue to obfuscate. It's a petty argument, nothing more than a matter of style, yet you evidently feel that you need to appeal to authority to support your preference, and will manufacture that authority if need be. — kwami (talk) 07:25, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

"Admiralty Archipelago languages" -> subst Admiralty Archipelago with Admiralty Islands. Done. The plural stays, it's a proper noun. TakakaCounty (talk) 11:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

?? What are you saying? --JorisvS (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, TakakaCounty, but "Admiralty Archipelago" has zero support in the literature. --Taivo (talk) 13:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't need references, it is simple English grammar. It must be plural. The 10-foot analogy by kwami is not fitting. The languages are named after the island group. On Admiralty Island (disambiguation) I don't even see there is a single Admiralty Island within the "Admiralty Islands". It must be plural. Done. TakakaCounty (talk) 23:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand the point of grammar. — kwami (talk) 02:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - Perhaps I am missing something here but why can't this article be located at Languages of the Admiralty Islands in line with similar articles like Languages of Australia and Languages of Papua New Guinea? Green Giant (talk) 09:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a good question. The difference is that "Languages of X" means all the languages spoken in a given region, thus, "Languages of Australia" includes English, Torres Strait Creole, Malay, and all the native languages, whether they are related to one another or not. That differs from an article like "Indo-European languages" where all the languages covered in that article are related in a family called "Indo-European". The Admiralty Islands languages are a genetic group, that is, all the languages are closely related in a small family group called "Admiralty Islands" that is a subgroup of a larger family called "Oceanic". That's why "Languages of the Admiralty Islands" is not the right title for this article since the article doesn't cover the unrelated Tok Pisin and English languages which are also spoken in the Admiralties. The article is just about the closely related languages in the group called "Admiralty Islands". --Taivo (talk) 10:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Taivo and I are in agreement here. — kwami (talk) 02:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Both are used, neither is really wrong per se, there's no problem of ambiguity and the redirect is present and works. Consider this a "neutral" if you wish, but no "decision" needs even be made - it'll make next-to-no difference to the reader experience whichever is picked. And if there's no benefit to the readers, the discussion is a criminal waste of the time of some very capable editors. It's your choice, but please consider putting your effort and talents frittered away here into editing elsewhere that actually makes a difference. Knepflerle (talk) 15:13, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

References for requested move

• Comment - I would like to ask you guys, kwami and Taivo, to (re)list the various references you have (the way Taivo has listed a number), for the Admiralties as well as other relevant nodes (like the Loyalties). Such an overview would really help people like me to get a better grip of the situation here. --JorisvS (talk) 10:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

References demonstrating the "X Islands" usage as an attributive relating to the Admiralty Islands node of Oceanic:

• William Bright, 1992, "Admiralty Islands Languages," International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Volume 1, page 29.
• Patricia J. Hamel, 1994, A Grammar and Lexicon of Loniu, Papua New Guinea (the only published grammar of an Admiralty Islands language), page 1, "Capell (1971) provides short word lists from several Admiralty Islands languages..." (also uses "Admiralty Islands languages" on pg 3).
• Robert Blust, 2008, "A Reanalysis of Wuvulu Phonology," Oceanic Linguistics 47:275, "Together with the Aua dialect...it forms part of the Western Islands branch..." (Wuvulu is an Admiralty Islands language and the Western Islands is one of the branches of the Admiralty Islands group)
• Stephen Wurm, 1994, "Australasia and the Pacific," Atlas of the World's Languages, page 102, "North-West Islands subfamily", "South-East Islands subfamily" (both are branches of the Admiralty Islands group)
• Peter Ladefoged & Ian Maddieson, 1996, The Sounds of the World's Languages, Blackwell, page 131, "...and several of the Admiralty Islands languages in addition to Kele"
• Darrell Tryon, 2006, "Language Endangerment and Globalisation in the Pacific," Language Diversity in the Pacific: Endangerment and Survival, Multilingual Matters, page 99, "the Admiralty Islands group"

References demonstrating the "Admiralties" usage as an attributive:

• Malcom Ross, "Kele," The Oceanic Languages, page 123, "Kele...is a member of the Eastern Admiralties family." ("Admiralties" is also used as an attributive in the classification)
• Hamel, op. cit., page 1, "Z'graggen (1975) provides extensive word lists from 20 Admiralties languages..."

References demonstrating the "X Islands" usage as an attributive relating to the Loyalty Islands node of Oceanic:

• William Bright, 1992, "Loyalty Islands languages", International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, volume 2
• John Lynch, Malcolm Ross, & Terry Crowley, 2002, The Oceanic Languages, page 776, "Loyalties subgroup" (in Iaai article), page 888, "Loyalty Islands f[amily]" (in classification)
• Ian Maddieson & Victoria Anderson, 1994, "Phonetic Structures of Iaai," UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 87: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages II, page 163, "...its closest linguistic relatives are the other Loyalty Islands languages..." --Taivo (talk) 11:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Admiralty Island language(s)

• Thomas Albert Sebeok, 1976. Current trends in linguistics 8:250

Table III: Vocabulary of Admiralty Island Languages

• Margaret Mead, Jeanne Guillemin, 2001 (1931). Kinship in the Admiralty Islands, p 163

also (1934), Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 34

The term identity is used advisedly with such allowance for dialectic variation as a knowledge of only one Admiralty Island language will permit.

• Nature, 1880.11.20, 20:66

In the Koitapu language the numerals ... as in the Admiralty Island language.

• SW Serjeantson, RL Kirk, PB Booth, 1983. "Linguistic and genetic differentiation in New Guinea", Journal of Human Evolution, 12:1:77ff

The two Admiralty Island languages, Manus and Usiai, cluster as expected,

• JA Z’graggen, 1975. "Comparative wordlists of the Admiralty Island languages, collected by W. E. Smythe."

Admiralty Island subgroup

• Stuart Bedford, Christophe Sand, David Burley, 2002. Fifty years in the field: essays in honour and celebration of Richard Shutler Jr's archaeological career, p 22

This gives every indication that its dissolution derives from a once regionally extensive Proto Oceanic dialect chain. Only on the Western end of the rake, in respect to the Admiralty Island subgroup of languages, ...

Admiralty (sub)group

• Robert Blust, 2008. "A Reanalysis of Wuvulu Phonology", Oceanic Linguistics 47:275

"Admiralty subgroup" (as Taivo noted)

• John Lynch, Fa'afo Pat, 1996. Oceanic studies: proceedings of the first International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics

the existence of an Admiralty subgroup becomes clear only through careful application of the comparative method (p. 6)

the ... last piece of evidence which Ross offers for an Admiralty subgroup is perhaps the most compelling (p. 33)

• Chicago Linguistic Society, 2000. The panels: the 36th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 2:35

In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic)

It is a member of the Admiralty subgroup, a primary subgroup of Oceanic (for subgrouping see Ross 1988 and Healey 1976).'

• Amran Halim, Lois Carrington, Stephen Adolphe Wurm, 1982. Papers from the Third International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, p 313

I made a fairly serious effort to determine the position of the Admiralty subgroup within Oceanic, and failed to uncover support for any larger grouping short of Oceanic itself.

• H. Steinhauer, Malcolm Ross, 1998. Papers in Austronesian linguistics, vol. 5

These five languages in turn belong to the Admiralty group, which is believed to form a primary branch of the Oceanic division of the Austronesian language family (Blust 1978, Ross 1988).

• Macleay Museum, 1984. South Pacific islands. p 52

There is also an Admiralty subgroup recognised, consisting of the languages of the Admiralty Islands together with Wuvulu and Aua

Admiralty language(s)

• Robert Blust, 2009. The Austronesian languages, p 194

The third atypical feature in the phonologies of Admiralty languages is a retroflexed and partly affricated voiceless stop

• Blust 1978, The proto-oceanic palatals, p 80

The words ... in Eastern Admiralty languages reflect earlier *Nansa- and *tansi-

• John Lynch, Fa'afo Pat, 1996. Oceanic studies: proceedings of the first International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics

Constructions of the form NUMERAL + CLASSIFIER do occur both in western and in eastern Admiralty languages.

• Donald C. Laycock, Thomas Edward Dutton, Malcolm Ross, 1992. The Language game: papers in memory of Donald C. Laycock, p 173

the gender-marking prefixes ... were a later innovation, not shared by the Admiralty languages.

• Thomas Albert Sebeok, 1976. Current trends in linguistics 8:268

They do, however, allow more consonant endings than the Admiralty languages, ...

• John Lynch, 2000. "Reconstructing Proto-Oceanic stress". In Oceanic Linguistics 39:1

3.6 THE ADMIRALTY LANGUAGES AND MUSSAU.

• Beata Wozna, Theresa Wilson, 2005. Seimat grammar essentials, p 4

we believe that the lack of grammatical information on the Admiralty languages warrants this publication.

Loyalty Island languages

• F Ozanne-Rivierre, 1997. "Spatial references in New Caledonian languages". In Referring to space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan languages, vol. 1

We shall see below that the Loyalty Island languages have more complex systems.

sect. 4.2.2.2 "The Loyalty Island Languages".

• RH Codrington, 1885. "On the Languages of Melanesia". Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain

But some, till they are examined, seem strange and widely different, such as the Loyalty Island languages, Ambrym, Santa Cruz, Savo, ...

• Claire Moyse-Faurie, 2008. "Constructions expressing middle, reflexive and reciprocal situations is some Oceanic languages. In König & Gast, Reciprocals and reflexives, p 124

In some Polynesian and Loyalty Island languages, two kinds of circumfixes coexist

• Hodvhaugen & Mosel, 1999. Negation in Oceanic languages

... give a survey on negation systems in the New Caledonian and Loyalty Island languages (p. vii);

Note that the Loyalty Island languages have the same negatives for assertive predicates and imperatives (p 9).

• T Crowley, 1993. "Pre-1860 European contact in the Pacific and introduced cultural vocabulary". In the Australian Journal of Linguistics, 13:2:119ff

which is still somewhat less than the number of English-derived items which are recorded as having been found their way into the Loyalty Island languages ...

• Steve Mullins, 1995. Torres Strait: a history of colonial occupation and culture contact, 1864-1897, p 122

His situation was made worse by the fact that he could not speak a Loyalty Island language

• Alfred Cort Haddon, Sidney Herbert Ray, 1907. Reports, p 511

There is not the slightest resemblance in grammar between the Loyalty Island languages and those of either language of Torres Straits.

• Sidney Herbert Ray, 1978. A comparative study of the Melanesian Island languages, p 110

As in the other Loyalty Island languages the English numerals have been introduced for numbers above 'five.'

• Ray Harlow, Robin Hooper, Linguistic Society of New Zealand, 1989. VICAL: Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, p 145

All agree that the Loyalty Island languages are separate, and that the New Caledonia mainland is divided into at least two major sub-groups.

• Roger M. Keesing, 1988. Melanesian Pidgin and the oceanic substrate, p 83

We may take as examples Iai, one of the Loyalty Island languages (spoken on Uvea)

Solomons

• Tryon & Hackman, 1983. Solomon Island Languages: An Internal Classification
• Bradshaw, Rehg, Bender, 2001. Issues in Austronesian morphology, p 214

Human agents are not allowed with passive verbs in the Southeast Solomon languages.

• Cashmore, Christine, 1969. "Some Proto-Oceanic reconstructions with reflexes in Southeast Solomon Island languages." In Oceanic Linguistics, 8:1

Note Wozna & Wilson (2005) is another grammar on an Admiralty language, and they use the singular.

If all these people were getting it "wrong", you'd think there'd be a comment somewhere to that effect. — kwami (talk) 01:31, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments on References

Concerning the Admiralty Islands languages, excluding the abbreviated "Admiralties/Admiralty" references, you have only the top section that is relevant. Margaret Mead's references are the from the 1930s, so are completely irrelevant for this discussion of contemporary usage. Is that Nature reference really from 1880? If so, that is also irrelevant. If it's from 1980, then you have two references from the 1980s, but still nothing more recent and all the recent references have "Admiralty Islands" when the full form is used. I'm not personally concerned about the Solomons in this because they are not a linguistic node in either Austronesian or Papuan. I haven't gotten on Google Scholar to check out Loyalty Islands at this point to see if there are more references that just those I've cited above, but it's clear that "Loyalty Island" is common in contemporary usage. I'm not talking about "right" and "wrong"--I'm just talking about contemporary usage and contemporary usage still shows "Admiralty Islands" for the attributive. --Taivo (talk) 04:27, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

JorisvS asked for refs regardless of date, so I supplied them regardless of date. You've sung this song before, and are again misrepresenting things: SE Solomons *is* a node.

You haven't shown anything about contemporary usage. The data points are too few to establish any particular usage for the Admiralties (you have just three for "Admiralties Islands languages"), which is why the Loyalties & Solomons are relevant. Again, your argument only works if the Admiralties have special nomenclature not shared with other branches of Oceanic, s.t. which you have yet to provide any evidence for. I wouldn't mind an argument that plural attributives have become common enough to use in formal writing, even if I personally disagree. But I do mind misrepresenting evidence to support your personal POV.

If you're going to count "Western Islands group/languages" as a substitute for "Admiralty Islands group/languages", due to a dearth of actual usage, then we should also note Roger Blust, 1978, The proto-oceanic palatals:

a western island subgroup within the larger Admiralty group.

Here's another ref, which is rather illuminating: Darryll Tryon, "Language Endangerment and Globalisation in the Pacific", in Cunningham, Ingram, & Sumbuk, Language diversity in the Pacific: endangerment and survival, pp 99-100

The Admiralties Island group consists of all of the languages of the Admiralty Islands ... and the Western Isles. The Western Oceanic group ...

But in the preceding paragraph, they have:

The Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian, then, consists of three major groupings, the Admiralty Islands group, the Western Oceanic group ...

In other words, the author switches between the two uses. Several of the refs are like that: There is no meaningful distinction between the two! It is simply a matter of style. A grammatical distinction, not a terminological one. — kwami (talk) 07:40, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I see you've listed Seimat Grammar Essentials, kwami. Note that while they do use Admiralty languages on page 4, they use Admiralties family several times on page 1. --JorisvS (talk) 23:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that nicely illustrates my point: This isn't a distinction in terminology, as Taivo keeps insisting, but rather one of style. — kwami (talk) 00:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Whether style or terminology, Kwami, you've said that you don't care whether this is "Admiralty Islands languages" or "Admiralty Island languages". --Taivo (talk) 02:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Where did I say that? — kwami (talk) 06:58, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. I read back through all your comments and you don't specifically say that, but the impression you've given is that you don't care, you just didn't like my arguments on changing. And I'm not the only one who got that impression based on Aeusoes1's comment below. It seems that at least two of us have gotten the wrong impression of your position. You have stated that you prefer a more formal usage for an encyclopedia, but since there are encyclopedias that use the "X Islands languages" construction, that argument isn't really valid. If you are truly opposed to the move, then you stand alone in your opinion on this. If you weren't an admin, then this article would have been moved already. --Taivo (talk) 08:58, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's a rather petty issue to be having this extreme an argument over, and I've spent more time debunking your argument than presenting one of my own, but I do oppose the move. — kwami (talk) 09:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Getting to Consensus

After 4 days, the move request stands at:

• Move: Taivo, AjaxSmack, TakakaCounty, JorisvS
• Neutral: Aeusoes1
• Don't Move: Kwamikagami

--Taivo (talk) 04:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a vote, and Takaka does not appear to understand the argument. Also Knepflerle for neutral/no need to move. — kwami (talk) 21:50, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not a vote, I understand that. But "consensus" isn't always unanimous either. What irritated me the most is that you had two editors who moved this article for legitimate reasons, but you, as an admin, just moved it back without getting a consensus for moving it back. You have generally stood alone in these discussions. Sorry, but the impression you gave of "I'm an admin and I don't give a damn about what anyone else thinks, I'm going to do what I want," is not the impression you want to be giving and is not the image of administrative action that you want to be illustrating. --Taivo (talk) 23:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

If we're going by consensus, where was their consensus to move it? It's not a matter of being an admin. I haven't protected the article, threatened to block anyone, or done anything else other than edit, argue for my POV, and object to your attempts to invent terminology. I haven't even reverted your latest edits. — kwami (talk) 02:23, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

But as an admin you were permitted to move these articles back to Admiralty Island languages twice after JorisvS and I had moved them to Admiralty Islands languages. You could not have moved them back had you not been an admin. I didn't say you had blocked or threatened anyone. Far from it. And I haven't edited these articles since this discussion has started, so I don't know what you're talking about "latest edits". It's just the use of your power to move articles as an admin that JorisvS and I don't share after we had moved them and a consensus was growing against your POV. You still stand alone in opposing the move. Two neutrals don't count since "neutral" means they'd be happy either way. You have even said above that you don't really care, but you just don't like the arguments I've made. That sounds a lot like, "I'll move them if you say the magic word." --Taivo (talk) 03:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think the options presented in the strawpoll may not reflect those that have arisen since the nomination began. Here are the options as I see them:

1a. Move this article and also move the other related articles to have the plural

1b. Only move this article

2a. Don't move this or the other articles

3a. Neutral, but it should be consistent with other related articles

3b. Neutral, but it should be on a case-by-case basis.

If Kwami really doesn't care, then he and I are in the same camp (3a) as his arguments against the move circle around consistency. I'm guessing that Taivo and JorisvS would be in 1a. I'm not sure about AjaxSmack or TakakaCounty, but if I'm right about Kwami not being in 2a, then it seems we can go ahead with the move as long as we move the other articles. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:36, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Taivo, you have a point about moving the pages.

As for not editing these articles, how about here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here? In all of those cases, the latest edit has been yours, pushing your POV, and I haven't reverted them to mine. Yes, you haven't reverted them for a while, but you've had no reason to, as your edits stand.

I do care. I think it's an awfully petty argument to be twisting the evidence for, and I'm upset by your behaviour rather than the title. It would be petty to have this argument over moving French and German to "Français language" and "Deutsch language" too, but that doesn't mean I'd be okay with it.

A singular attributive is more formal, even if the plural is becoming more common, and as an encyclopedia, I think we should stick to formal English. In my mind, that's the only legitimate debate here. Trying to change this from a stylistic debate to a terminological one—trying to establish this as terminology—is nonsense. It's not so much about consistency, as there are lots of considerations when making stylistic choices, and they might not apply equally to all articles. My point about other branches was only to point out that it's ridiculous to think that a variable grammatical choice is only set in stone for this one group of languages. — kwami (talk) 07:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that all those edits were prior to the initiation of the move request, but I'm not going to bother to check. They were a long time ago (in terms of this discussion) anyway. I take offense to your continued personal attacks about "twisting evidence". I have twisted no evidence whatsoever--I have provided page references and quotes the whole way. At no point have I made a personal attack against you, but have endured repeated personal attacks from you. I thought you had moved past that and I'm disappointed that you continue to lower yourself to such personal accusations. As a linguist, you know how language changes over time--it does not suddenly take a quantum leap to the left, in this case uniformly using the plural in the attributive rather than the singular. We must accept the linguistic fact that languages change step by step through the lexicon and not always uniformly. In looking at the usage of "X Islands" versus "X Island" in the attributive, it's been very clear from the references and quotes I've provided that the usage for "Admiralty Islands" seems to have been consistent over the past two decades. You've provided evidence that the usage of "Loyalty Islands", however, has not been so consistent and is variable over the past two decades. I've never distorted that evidence and I've been very clear on the scope of my evidence and the scope of my arguments throughout this, no matter how much you may accuse me of doing otherwise. We agree that English usage may not be uniform in all cases and for all articles. And if we agree that usage can be variable, then this article can be moved to the place where usage pushes it--Admiralty Islands languages. Does it really matter whether it moves for the reasons I have stated or the reason you have stated? And since there are encyclopedic articles that use "Admiralty Islands languages", your argument for "encyclopedic usage" is not borne out by the evidence. --Taivo (talk) 07:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The personal attacks, as you call them, are because I can't understand how any educated person would think that 3 attestations is a statistically valid sample. I also have a difficult time accepting that you actually believe what you say: that a few authors choosing the same grammatical construction demonstrate an establishment of terminology rather than a choice of style. That's too ridiculous to take seriously. — kwami (talk) 20:07, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Think what you will, but the frequent personal nature of your attacks is beneath you. Keep your thoughts about me to yourself as I have kept my thoughts about you to myself. As an admin you should be setting an example. Out of respect for the positive interactions we have had in the past, I have not filed a formal complaint. My patience, however, is not infinite. --Taivo (talk) 20:47, 23 August 2010 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.