Talk:Kotava

Note

If you are interested in the old content of the article, it's still there in the page history. It's just not notable enough for us to have an article on it.

Undeletion of old edits to merge history

I undeleted the history per WT:LANG#Resurrect_Kotava_.26_Romanova.3F. — Sebastian 00:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! (The external link at the redirect provides info, but in French, as this conlang is so obscure there's nothing on it in well-written English.)

I had updated this in my sandbox. I copied it to the article & then reverted so that it would be in the article history, and rm'd from my sandbox. — kwami (talk) 19:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Quality problem

This is all good and nice, but it should be pointed out that this article in its current state is completely unacceptable. All external links point to the same cluster of websites (which may well be the work of one single person), and the entire article is either based on primary sources or on original research. Only non-primary source is given, but there is not a single footnote that makes clear how it was used. Furthermore, the article does not give the slightest hint at notability, and no explanation is given where the number of "50 fluent speakers" comes from. I'm not the type of person who'd stick "citation needed" and similar tags everywhere, but these issues should really be addressed. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 02:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Primary sources are fine for the grammar, but I agree that we shouldn't accept claims for the number of speakers. As for notability, probably the only thing that makes this language notable is that it got an ISO code. — kwami (talk) 02:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree we can' t too demanding when it comes to constructed languages, but only one secondary source is meagre by any standard. I mean, there should be something more. As for the ISO code, I'm not sure of an ISO code in itself is enough, but for a language to obtain an ISO code at all, a certain degree of notability must have been established already before that. And to be quite honest, I'm a bit surprised that this ISO code was awarded at all. Looking at the original application [1][2], there are a few things that surprise me:

• "Artificial language with approximately 40 fluent speakers around the world" - pretty bold claim, unsubstantiated
• 7 wikipedia articles - hardly an argument for notability
• Site in 10 languages - At least about the Dutch version of the page I can testify that it's probably Google Translate.
• Active forum with 75 members and 4250 messages of which majority in Kotava - I remember having a look at that a few years ago, and I had an entirely different impression; namely, that at least 90% of the messages was in French.

The crux is, however, that except for only self-published booklet, there is not a single reference to printed matter, which AFAIK is a pretty hard requirement for the SIL. The whole thing seems to exist solely on the Internet.

Now don't misunderstand me, I am not against Kotava or something. Especially the text corpus is quite impressive. But we also must keep to Wikipedia standards, and an article exclusively based on primary sources is simply not acceptable. In its present state, it won't stand the trial of WP:MADEUP, WP:OR, and WP:N. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 12:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This is why the article was deleted. And I'm also surprised about the ISO code. I suspect that it wouldn't get one today. And having only 75 members on a written board suggests quite strongly that there are not 50 fluent *speakers*, so I changed the infobox to give the # of forum members. There are several recent books on conlangs of the world, so we should check them for notability.

We had an undeletion discussion where people thought it would be okay to undelete as long as we had s.o. watching to control WEIGHT and OR issues. — kwami (talk) 19:57, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not finding "Kotava" in a Gbook or Amazon search of In the Land of Invented Languages (2009) or of From Elvish to Klingon (2011). — kwami (talk) 20:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Like I said, I'm not against Kotava and I'm not against Kotava having an article here, but one single secondary source really isn't enough. Come on folks, if this project has just a tiny little bit of notability, it should be possible to produce at least a few articles in newspapers or magazines. If these can't be found, then I really don't think this article should be here. Wikipedia is not there to make things notable, but to describe things that are notable enough to have been described before by others. We don't have to be extremely severe when it comes to conlangs, but at least the most basic requirements must be fulfilled.

That said, I think using the number of forum members as an indicator of the number of speakers is a really bad idea. First of all, you don't know how many forum members are actual participants. My experience with this kind of groups is that perhaps some 10% are active users or learners of the language, another 10% are interested bystanders, and the remaining 80% have never even posted at all or posted only a few times. For comparison: the Folkspraak group has 495 members and the Slovio group no less then 941 (even though Slovio itself has never had more than ca. 10 users and 2-3 fluent users). Secondly, it's easy to manipulate the number of forum members, for example by creating multiple accounts for one person, by adding people without their knowledge/consent or by not removing spam accounts. I am surely not suggesting this is the case, but it is reason enough to take this kind of figures with a huge bulk carrier of salt.

If anything, you might as well take the number of people who decleare themselves Kotava speakers on Facebook - 39 However, as I have already tried to point out on Talk:Angos (Constructed Language)#Self Referenced?, these numbers are gravely unreliable (for comparison: 6,500 Volapük speakers, 510 Ro speakers, 180 Universalglot speakers, 240,000 Klingon speakers and 10,000 Brithenig speakers, not even to mention 3,700 Etruscan speakers and 2,200 Tocharian speakers). Amidst these idiotically high numbers, Kotava's 39 are far from impressive, especially since some languages with no speakers at all score ten or even a hundred times higher. Which raises even more doubts about the number of 40 or 50 fluent speakers.

Basically, all I want is to see is some evidence that this is more than just the hobby project of four or five people.

There is other original research as well. For example:

• "the language of one and all" (the meaning of the name): all Google turns up is Wikipedia.en
• "a project humanistic and universal, utopian and realistic" appears in a text written by the author, just two months before it appeared on WP:FR.
• Revisions in 1988 en 1993: only on Wikipedia
• "In 2005, a committee of seven members was established with the responsibility of guiding the future evolution of the language" - only on Wikipedia.
• "Kotava Avaneda": only on Wikipedia + a French wiki.

It's not that I don't believe these things. It's just that all these things are inside information that made it into Wikipedia only because these articles were written by insiders with an obvious interest in promoting the language (or translated from them, which makes it even worse). And the bad thing is, this kind of information may start leading its own life, to the point that newspapers/magazines start copying information from Wikipedia, and Wikipedia subsequently quotes those as proof that it is true. In other words, whether it is true or not, sooner or later Wikipedia will make it true. Because it is completely unverifiable, we can do only two things: either we take someone's word for it and hope it is true, or we remove it. The rules make it crystal clear that the former is not an option. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 22:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I have no problem deleting the insider info and leaving the number blank. — kwami (talk) 02:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Me neither, but that still leaves the problem that 99% of the rest of the article is based on primary sources only. Mind, primary sources are okay, but at least some rudimentary notability should based on secondary sources, too. Whether we remove the OR or not, it remains a fact that this article is built on extremely thin ice. At present there are four hints at notability:

• the ISO code
• the book in which Kotava is used as a fictional language
• the not quite trivial but also not excessively non-trivial mentioning in Moskovsky/Libert
• the large corpus of translated literature

Quite frankly, I can't imagine that with these things around, there are not a few sources that could be used for rewriting the article - to create a well-sourced framework and jazz it up with details from primary sources. If really nothing can be found at all, then I believe it is too early for an article about this language. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 02:47, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Reverted to a rd. If people are interested, the article is still there in the page history. — kwami (talk) 00:37, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Once again shooting and killing

Once again, few people are struggling to delete this article (or more subtly by drowning it by a secondary redirecting). Kotava exists, is used in reality, produces texts and works and is recognized by serious people.

This annoys jealous people who do not understand that an aprioristic language may have emerged despite of their conformistic forecasts. And its speakers are not interested in endless lobbying. They prefer to speak and use Kotava rather than talk about Kotava, unlike the self-proclaimed "experts" of the microcosmic world of constructed languages​​.

• Kotava is recognized ISO since 2008. This is a standard. The respectable minimum is to consider that people who manage and attribute these codes are serious and know their job.
• Kotava is also, since 2008 and version 1.12, one of the interface languages ​​of Mediawiki software that used here for Wikipedia and all its satellites. Reject an article on this language would be an incomprehensible paradox.
• Another example, Kotava is present in the wide collaborative project Tatoeba (tatoeba.org) which counts now 2,572,174 sentences translated into 132 languages ​​and corrected by human translators (1° EN: 363,255# ; 2° EO: 272,259#; 33° IA: 6,734#; 42° IO: 4,129#; 49° AVK: 2,426#; 67° IE: 612#; 71° VO: 484#; ... NOV, SJN).

Wikimistusik (talk) 10:57, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

It's always best to not start an argument for the notability of the subject of an article with conspiracy theories and insults. Show us the Reliable Sources; that's what's needed here. ISO 639-3 is one brief mention. There's no requirement that all the users of Mediawiki have articles on all the interface languages; if you believe that, why don't you start with Wookipedia?--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:09, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

On this last point, you can discover Wikikrenteem, a kind of Wikisource, using Mediawiki, fully Kotava, hundreds of original texts and translations. And I'm just talking about the article in en.wiki, not of course an avk.wikipedia. Wikimistusik (talk) 15:27, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

First of all, Wikimistusik, I should point out that arguments like "jealous people who don't understand [...] their conformistic forecasts" are not exactly helpful in building a civilised debate. Try using meritorical arguments instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks. Suggesting that any of the participants in the discussions was guided by jealousy or personal interest is bloody nonsense and you know it. Given the fact that every single edit you have ever made to Wikipedia was about this subject only, I'd rather think you are the one who seems to have an conflict of interest when it comes to this article. The fact that I act as a "guardian of the temple in the field of constructed languages" is merely due to the fact that few others seem to care. There are thousands of constructed languages and we obviously can't have articles about every single one of them. Articles about constructed languages are most welcome, provided that they fulfill some basic requirements. The mere fact that something exists doesn't make it notable.

About Kotava. A month or two ago, I pointed out several issues on its talk page. You didn't care to respond. I have invited you to add a few relevant third party sources, but nothing happened. Subsequently I asked the community for its opinion, leaving a note on your talk page inviting you to participate, but again, no response. And now here you are, complaining about the bad people who do anything to delete your article at all cost. Why then didn't you address any of the issues I raised? If the language is really so notable as you claim it is, then there must a few independent sources to confirm that. And if it isn't, then why are so determined to have this article here anyway, considering that its speakers are "not interested in lobbying", as you say? —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 16:16, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I'm recalling the old times when I had very strong arguments with IJzeren Jan. Now we seem to be in agreement.

ISO code - yes, it is mentioned here, but that's all I can find. There's nothing about the language there. Is there anything more and I just don't see it?

MediaWiki translation is great! I love translatewiki.net, and I happen to be one of the developers of the software that runs it. But translatewiki.net happens to be itself a wiki, and that is a self-published source, and a self-published source is not supposed to be by itself a source on which you can support an article.

So are Tatoeba and Wikikrenteem - lovely projects, but self-published.

If there are non-trivial third-party sources about this language, I'd love to have an article about it. The language seems interesting to me, but more sources are needed. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:59, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Several quick points to Jan IJzeren:

• I contribute very little on en.wiki for the simple reason that I consider my English too weak, and English contributors of quality are widely numerous;
• I am not a geek diligently monitoring topics. It was almost by chance that I found out today the new deletion of the article and I react;
• You asked the third notice of deletion of the article and you are the only one who spoke. Where is the minimal consensus?
• English is considered by many kotava-speakers as the killing language of all other, "the language to pull down". This is obviously an "ideological" position, opinion I am partially sorry, but it widely explains why there are few things in English on Kotava;
• There are thousands of constructed languages​​, you say. How many speakers? How have translated The Little Prince, Molière, Sholokhov, Maupassant, Anna Karenina, hundreds of legends, thousands of proverbs from around the world? Ten, fifteen, maybe. What is the reality and vitality as the Noxilo language, Romániço, Uropi, Tsolyáni_language and many others? Wikimistusik (talk) 17:28, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

This is great. If there is a third-party source that says all these things, it is a point for having this article.

(By the way: Your English is perfectly OK. And I also think that the English language is too strong, and that this is a problem for many reasons, but it's not a place to discuss that.) --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:50, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree, Wikimistusik. It sounds like it should be notable, and I'm the one who got it reinstated. But where are the 2ary sources commensurate with that notability? Show us those, and you'll have your article. — kwami (talk) 19:56, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

@Wikimistusik: "Other stuff exists" is not an argument. If you have issues with other articles around here, then by all means go ahead and submit them for deletion. I should add that the existence of a large text corpus is nice in itself and definitely something to be proud of, but not something that makes the language inherently notable, nor does it prove the existence of a speaker community. There is in fact no evidence that all this is the work of more than one person. Ultimately, the whole thing boils down to one thing, namely verifiability. As Amir said, the article was mostly built on self-published primary sources (while most of the rest was inside information, not even found in the primary sources). The problem with that kind of sources is that on the Internet anybody can write anything. Except Kotava having an ISO code and being used in a book, there's nothing that can be verified. We don't know if a person named Staren Fetcey even exists. We don't even have an objective source confirming that kotava.org is really the website of the same language that got an ISO code – which effectively disqualifies it even as a primary source. The thing is, lots of people write lots of things here that might or might not be true, and that's why we cannot simply take your word for it. Indeed, Amir and I have had our arguments in the past, and in one case I ultimately had to acknowledge that he had been right all the time and I had been very very wrong – an interesting case study in how a Wikipedia article based on primary sources only can be instrumental in making an unnotable thing notable AND in disseminating various myths about it, by the way. To avoid such things from happening in the future, the content of an article simply MUST be verifiable. And that requires a few reliable, third-party sources in which the topic it is discussed in a non-trivial way. But if you think there was not enough consensus, I am willing to reopen the deletion discussion. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 20:02, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, the ISO code does not make it notable. I can think of probably a dozen ISO codes for languages which don't actually exist, and from time to time they are retired. Just last year ISO added a code for a language which even the application admitted is unidentified and may not have existed. Mistakes happen. — kwami (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

------------

My goal is not to disqualify one or another constructed language and turn myself into a specialist in this field. I simply have to say that some people are better to promote than others, regardless of tangible content, continuity in time or user comunity.

And let's be serious. Imagine you seriously only one person able to produce all these texts, all these translations, databases, to develop all sites, to produce all bilingual dictionaries (from and to Lingala, Zulu, Russian, Wolof, German, etc.)? It is well and truly impossible.

Personally, I communicate and talk with with at least five or six persons of good level (France, Senegal, Polynesia, Spain). They are not avatars.

As other references also exist:

• Knowledge Needs and Information Extraction: Towards an Artificial Consciousness, by Nicolas Turenne (EN)
• Artificial Languages, by Paolo Valore,Federico Gobbo (EO)
• Quick study of Kotava in a Canadian Esperanto review (EO)
• Commented Grammar of Kotava in Russian by Ilya Pechenkin (RU)

Wikimistusik (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure, in all likeliness there are several people involved, but still, producing an awful lot of text in a constructed language is not impossible for one person with a lot of free time. It's quite possible that there are a few people in the world who took the effort to learn Kotava as well. I believe you, but I don't know it. An since a less honest person in your place, interested in promoting his project, would probably have said the same things even if they weren't true, all I can do is quote a film I just watched: Mayhap it is, mayhap it ain't.

As for the sources you mention, the first two are clearly real books, but Kotava is mentioned only in passing – nothing to actually base an encyclopedic article on. I also notice that Turenne gives 1975 as the year when Kotava was created and not 1978, as is mentioned in the article. The fourth source is a personal website, in other words, a nice piece of work but still another primary source. No. 3 is undoubtedly a very nice and informative article, although I have my doubts about the notability and reliability of the journal itself (the electronic journal of a regional Esperanto club). Please, what we need is significant coverage in reliable third-party sources, so that at least the basic framework of the article is well-sourced. But like I said, if you believe these sources are sufficient, then by all means go ahead, revert this edit and add them to the article, so that we can resume the AfD discussion. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 00:30, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

(continuation of the discussion here —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 00:37, 29 August 2013 (UTC))

Remove notability template now that Kotava has an ISO code?

I was wondering if having an ISO code was sufficient to remove the notability template, which has been on this article since 2013. פֿינצטערניש (talk) 12:56, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

@פֿינצטערניש: No, it isn't. See kwamikagami's comment above.--Thnidu (talk) 22:47, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

The question would be whether we delete the article. Personally, I'd just as soon keep it, but it really isn't notable enough for WP. (But then, neither are many of the Pokemon characters we have articles on.) Glottolog doesn't have a single ref apart from the ISO request, for example, and that was written by partisans of the language. ISO has rejected dozens of conlang requests since then. The only reason this got through was that it was early, before the deluge that decided the committee against accepting conlangs unless they were actually notable. (I just requested two, but one is historically important and the other confirms an ethnic identity and has a Unicode range for its script, which e.g. Klingon still does not.) — kwami (talk) 23:05, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Stress in disyllabic words?

It is already explained in the article that polysyllabic words have a certain stress pattern. Sometimes, "polysyllabic" means "three or more syllables, but not two". Does the cited stress pattern always apply to two-syllable words, or are they a separate category? TooManyFingers (talk) 15:18, 10 July 2022 (UTC)