Talk:Interlanguage (disambiguation)

This page was proposed for deletion by Cnilep (talk · contribs) on 13 January 2011 with the comment:
DAB page with only one potentially ambiguous link.
It was contested by Talnat (talk · contribs) on 2011-1-13 with the comment:
Additional sense

Proposed deletion

It seems fair enough to delete this, although we will need a disambiguation header on the interlanguage page. I'll go ahead and add it now. — Mr. Stradivarius (drop me a line) 13:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I had a go, but it's a little ugly. If you can think of a better way to word it, be my guest. — Mr. Stradivarius (drop me a line) 13:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The term ”Interlanguage” had already been in use for several decades in sense (1), ’language used between persons who cannot communicate by means of their first languages’ (Otto Jespersen, 1931), when it came to be used in sense (2) ’lerner’s interim language’ (Larry Selinker, 1972).

Since there is no substitute for the term ”interlanguage” in sense (1), I find it preferable to both retain this disambiguation page and the disambiguation header on the page "Interlanguage", which covers only sense (2). The terms "interlanguage" and "interlingua" are also used in the sense of 'pivot language'. I have added this to the disambiguation list. (In the Wikipedia, "interlanguage" also occurs in the expression "interlanguage link", but I think this does not need to be mentioned.) Talnat (talk) 14:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't realise there was another sense of "interlanguage". In this case, I think the appropriate thing to do would be to keep the disambiguation page and restore the hatnote to it from interlanguage. I'll do that now. — Mr. Stradivarius (drop me a line) 15:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The role of a disambiguation page is to help Wikipedia users navigate among various articles with the same or closely-related titles. Although the word interlanguage may be used in multiple senses within linguistics or other fields, the Wikipedia articles treating these topics have distinct titles. Therefore, a disambiguation page is not called for. The way to treat this type of ambiguity is, instead, through internal links on the relevant pages. Cnilep (talk) 23:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was curious about this, so I had a look at Wikipedia:Disambiguation, and it looks like it's not quite so clear-cut. I quote:

Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead. In this situation there must be a way for the reader to navigate quickly from the page that first appears to any of the other possible desired articles.

So it appears not to be just the article name, but what a user is looking for when they search for a word. I think it is reasonable to assume they may be looking for the interlinguistics sense of the word when they search for "interlanguage". Pivot language, however, I'm not so sure about, as the word "interlanguage" doesn't even appear in the article. I think that if we can't find any sources that mention "interlanguage" being used in this sense, then we can just use a hatnote on interlanguage and delete the disambiguation page. I do, however, see that there is a disambiguation hatnote leading to interlanguage on the Interlingua page. — Mr. Stradivarius (drop me a line) 04:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the page to reflect how the words are used. I think this is the logical result of applying the disambiguation guidelines here, but let me know if I've missed something. — Mr. Stradivarius (drop me a line) 10:00, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]