Talk:Kusasi people

Requested move 7 February 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Kusasi people → Kusaal people – Following Talk:Kusasi_language#Requested_move_1_February_2023, there are some evidences that the real world rural community that this article is referred to, would much more prefer calling themselves as Kusaal instead of Kusasi. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 05:33, 7 February 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 08:02, 14 February 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 11:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose I am not aware of such evidence, nor have I been able to find any. The term for the people is "Kusasi". That's what I've found everywhere. "Kusaal" is a language. The different suffixes mark the difference (a common feature in many African languages). The Kusasi are Kusaal-speaking people. But they are not called "Kusaal", but Kusasi. Pakistanis are an Urdu-speaking people, doesn't mean we call them "Urdu people". Walrasiad (talk) 17:46, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Support per WP:NCET and WP:NCL. The current title is grammatically incorrect, equivalent to "Englishman people", as Kusaasi already means 'the Kusaal people'. Per our naming conventions, peoples and their languages should share a common name where possible. We just moved 'Kusasi language' to 'Kusaal language'. It's not the case that "Kusaal" necessarily means the language, though it may be used that way (just as "French" is understood in context to be the language, but may refer to anything French). Rather, it's an attributive that may be used for either the people or the language, or anything else Kusaal. This RM is equivalent to moving 'Waswahili people' to Swahili people. Joshua Project refers to the people as Kusaal,[1] and the Kusaal phonology available at SIL[2] speaks of both la langue kusaal and le peuple kusaal in addition to les Koussasi, which are equivalent to 'the Swahili language', 'the Swahili people' and 'the Waswahili'. The trilingual Kusaal dictionary at SIL[3] defines kʋsaaŋ, pl. kʋsaas as "Kusaal person, Kusaasi". — kwami (talk) 21:41, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, those pdf links don't seem to work. Where I have looked, I never see Kusaal referring to people, only language. Yes, the word "Kusasi" already implies people (plural, singular is Kusage). Just like we have "Mandinka people" and the "Soninke people" which contains the "-nka" (= men) suffix, and so they would also literally translate to something like "Englishman people". But the subtleties of West African suffixes are not known to most English-speaking readers. I'd prefer to go with what RS's commonly refer to the people, and they call them Kusasi, quite consistently. Kusasi is the common name for the people, and that is what is recognizable. The subtleties can be explained in the text, but the article title needs to be clear and recognizable to Wiki readers. Including "people" in the title may seem redundant, but is a necessary disambiguator for those who aren't aware of suffix modifiers. Walrasiad (talk) 09:30, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

The pages hosting the PDFs are here and here.

Since the people are called both 'Kusasi' and 'Kusaal', and the language 'Kusaal', then it is more consistent to use 'Kusaal' for both. That is the preferred pattern on WP. The names are extraordinarily uncommon in English, so no sense asking readers to recognize two names when they likely don't know either. — kwami (talk) 09:51, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Weird. Those links are still not working for me (goes to error page saying "requested page could not be found").

I disagree. We shouldn't be inventing things. If the people are commonly referred to as Kusasi (and it seems they are in most RSs, e.g. [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]), then the title should be Kusasi here. The suffixes (I am going to guess, since I am not familiar with Gur languages) seem to be variants attached on be root "Kusa-" with "Kusage" (person), "Kusasi" (people) and "Kusaal" (language). You are asking to retitle "Pakistani people" to "Urdu language people", when nobody calls them that. There's no obligatory consistency between language and people - Romans speak Latin, Pakistanis speak Urdu, Kusasi speak Kusaal. Other sites have no problem with this (e.g. [9], [10], [11]), and I don't see any problem here. The link between Kusasi people and Kusaal language can be explained in the article text. But the article title itself should be "Kusasi people".

The recognizablity issue at stake is that in texts talking about peoples in Ghana and Burkina Faso, the term "Kusasi" - and only Kusasi - will be used, so readers should be able to look it up and find it on Wikipedia. Walrasiad (talk) 15:42, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

No, not only "Kusasi" is used. "Kusaal" is the attributive form, so it's "Kusaasi" but "Kusaal people". The situation is analogous to "Waswahili" and "Swahili people".

Your straw-man counter-example is so ridiculous I can't take you seriously. "Pakistani" is not an ethnic group and Pakistanis do not in general speak Urdu. What I'm arguing is that we should have "Sindhi people" and "Sindhi language".

Yes, Romans spoke Latin. That's a necessary exception to our normal naming convention. But the Kusaal people speak Kusaal -- that works just fine, so no exception is necessary. — kwami (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I would appreciate refraining from rudeness, and keeping this discussion civil.

Urdu is not an ethnic group, it is a language and language only. Like Kusaal. You are trying to impose a language term on a people. I don't see any evidence of people being referred to as "Kusaal" in any RS, only "Kusasi". Kusasi is clearly the common name for the people in English sources. If you have evidence otherwise, I'd welcome it.

FWIW, Swahili, like other Bantu languages, use prefixes as modifiers. And as most Bantu language terms, prefixes tend to get dropped in English usage (but not always, e.g. Baganda, Batswana, Basotho, etc. are retained in English as demonyms). But West African languages tend to use suffixes as modifiers, and they are often retained in English, e.g. Mandinka, Soninke for people, or Pulaar for the language of the Peuls, and (of course) Kusaal for the language of the Kusasi.

Anyway, our theories don't matter. We are not here to invent new naming conventions. What matters is common names in RS. And they point clearly to Kusasi people. Walrasiad (talk) 21:02, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not being rude, I'm simply calling you out on your behaviour.

If you think that "Kusaal" is only used for the language, then you're not paying attention. In which case debunking your false claims is probably a waste of our time.

Yes, we're not here to invent new naming conventions. Which is why I suggest we follow our naming conventions and move this article to "Kusaal people". — kwami (talk) 21:34, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

You were rude. Please be more respectful.

I have asked for evidence, and you haven't given me any yet. Your links didn't work. I gave you more than a few RSs on "Kusasi". I haven't yet found one using "Kusaal" to refer to people. Surely, if "Kusaal" is commonly used, as you assert, it shouldn't be any trouble for you to provide some sources?

I don't know what you mean by "our convention". But the convention on article titles here is using WP:SOURCE and WP:COMMONNAME. And that certainly points to "Kusasi" people. Walrasiad (talk) 23:55, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I did provide evidence. Twice. To claim that you can't find any evidence for "Kusaal people" when I gave you sources for that wording, and then gave them to you again, is just playing at WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. That's not appropriate behaviour for someone editing in good faith.

Also, if you "couldn't" find any instances, that means you didn't bother to check a search engine.

I linked to our conventions in my very first statement. — kwami (talk) 01:38, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• Weak support to move. At the moment, I'm inclined towards "Kusaal language" because I find @Kwami's points convincing. A good-looking dictionary says "Kusaal person, Kusaasi", and I understand from this that the word "Kusaasi" already includes the meaning of "person", so "Kusa(a)si people" may be redundant (the link to the dictionary worked for me, but I had to confirm that I want to use a non-https connection). On the other hand, there are some online sources in English that say "Kusaasi people". But since both names are in use in English, WP:NCL kicks in, and it says to prefer the same title.

Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

A few additional sources:

In contrast to these coastal Kwa terms, Cousalle refers to the Kusaal people of the northern part of modern-day Ghana and the Gur language that they speak. -- Singler (1996) Theories of creole genesis, sociohistorical considerations, and the evaluation of evidence. JPCL 11(2).

We wish that all the Kusaal people can read it. -- blurb written in Ghanaian English for Kusaal Bible on Google Apps

The Kusaal people often live in an open Savanna land that has scattered trees. A lot of Kusaal people are farmers and cultivate their widely scattered compounds. -- YEN Ghana News, 2019.

As I have said twice before, your two SIL links don't work! They go to "page not found". There's nothing there. I ask any other editors to please verify that is not a unique problem I am facing. As to your third link to the Joshua Page, that is wrongly directed - the correct link to the profile page on the Joshua Project is here, and it explicitly starts "Kusaal is the language of the Kusasi people." and goes on that way for the rest of its article, referring to Kusasi people consistently, and referring to the language only as "Kusaal". So no, the Joshua Project does not call them Kusaal people. So two of your sources are unverifiable, and the third contradicts you. That's 0/3.

I have spent quite some time searching - evidently quite more than you have. I have given you verifiable links above, to both RSs and internet sites. I find constant references to "Kusasi people" and "Kusaal language", but I'm not finding references to "Kusaal people". I'm sorry if that fact annoys you.

If this is as common as you allege, then it shouldn't be hard to find. But it is.

As to your new evidence:

The Ghana YEN news article is actually here here. Did you even bother to read it? Let me quote it for you: "It is the Kusasi people who are in plenty in the area where Kusaal language is spoken.... Both Togo and Burkina Faso have areas where the Kusasi people live...The Kusaasi people are the majority settlers of the far northeast of Ghana.", etc., etc. and goes on that way for the rest of the page ("Who are the Kusasi people?", "Kusasi are organized in clans that have taboos.", "Kusasi also believe in God whom they call upon using proverbs and greetings."). Your selective editing honed on two instances on that page where they suddenly call them "Kusaal people", but given the preponderance and relentlesss usage of "Kusasi people" throughout the rest of the page, it is evident these are accidental slip ups by the writer. So again, I take this evidence you provided as contradicting your very argument. The article you cite uses Kusasi people far and away as the common name. (as do other articles on the Ghana YEN site, e.g.)

As to your Singler quote, congratulations. You found the only mention of "Kusaal people" in the entire Googlebooks archive. There are no others. That rarity indicates the author probably made a mistake too. Again, it is not common usage.

That you decided to quote these singular instances seems to me evidence enough that you actually found no evidence either in your own searches. If you were right, then it shouldn't have been that hard.

Kusasi people turns up references aplenty in book & journal archives. With ease. I have linked several verifiable sources above, and can link more. But you know that, of course. Because you couldn't have found your couple of mistaken instances of "Kusaal people" without wading through heaps of references to "Kusasi people".

I'm sorry, but this is very weak sauce. If your argument had even a modicum of validity, it should be very simple to find sources and you wouldn't have to scamper around like this. By all evidence, your argument has no grounding. And rudeness is not going to get your way. Give me actual evidence, and I'll reconsider. But I sincerely doubt you have any, or will find any. Walrasiad (talk) 05:00, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

That's why I linked to the pages that host the PDF files. I suspect it is something at your end, because I've visited them several times and there hasn't been any problem. I just checked again in case I'd miscopied the links above, and the work fine. You might want to check them with Internet Archive.

Actually, I could have found "Kusaal people" without wading through heaps of "Kusasi", because search engines don't return one when you search for the other. I didn't claim that "Kusasi" wasn't common, I was countering your claim that "Kusaal" doesn't exist. It clearly does exist. You claimed that "Kusaal" specifically means the language. That's not true: it's used for both the language and the people. "Kusasi", on the other hand, is only used for the people.

Per our naming conventions, we prefer shared terms like "Kusaaal". Whether that's enough to counter COMMON is a matter of opinion. All your objections that source that contradicts your opinion must be false, that those authors -- including authors of Kusaal dictionaries and grammars -- must've made a mistake, because reality couldn't possibly contradict your opinion, are just silly. — kwami (talk) 05:41, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• Pinging remaining participants of the language RM: TaivoLinguist and Amire80. – Uanfala (talk) 14:40, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. I've checked one of kwami's sources [12] and yes, it is RS, and it does refer to the people as either le peuple kusaal or as les Koussasi. There are some sources that use this in English as well. However, when I search on either Google Scholar or on the web, "Kusasi people" returns a lot more results than "Kusaal people" (including variant spellings of the latter term), and these results don't appear to be biased towards older publications either. The priority in an article title should be to match the usage in the existing literature first. Consistency with other Wikipedia articles only comes second and, in my opinion, is relevant mostly in edge cases, not when one of the alternative names has such a big lead. – Uanfala (talk) 15:19, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. We're trying to impose arbitrary Wikipedia conventions on real-world data which is not always the optimum or even correct solution. If the people are called "Kusasi" and the language "Kusaal", then that's just too bad for Wikipedia and the straightjacket that its policies sometimes force on the real world. The presence of the word "people" in the title Kusasi people, when (I presume) the suffix -si means "people", is just an artifact of Wikipedia naming practices. We use the English word "people" overtly here to mark the entry as an ethnic group rather than, say, a placename or song or individual or machine. I can't think of any examples among the languages and peoples that speak them that I specialize in, but I'm sure that Kusasi people would not be unique in the pages of Wikipedia where an ethnic group entry literally means "X-people people". I experience no heartburn by that fact. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 16:40, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Let me provide a couple of items from my interest area. We have Shoshone, the name of the ethnic group because the majority of reliable sources (and the majority of tribes) spell the ethnic group name with an "e", but Shoshoni language because the majority of reliable sources use an "i" for the language. Plus, many names of Native American tribes in the US (the ethnic names and not the legal names) are referenced in Wikipedia without "people", e.g., Comanche, Kawaiisu, Shoshone, Timbisha, Yokuts, Yurok, etc. Perhaps "Kusasi" without "people" is sufficient if the tautology is irritating. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 16:53, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

As suggested above, the West African examples of "Mandinka people" and "Soninke people" (with "-nka" as people suffix) would be another example of "X-people people". As for languages, also in West Africa, we have Pulaar language of the Peul. As cautioned, I am not as familiar with Gur languages, but suffix modifiers are present in all their West African neighbors. It is apparent that "-si" means people and "-al" means language, as explicitly or implicitly confirmed by all RSs I've come across.

I am not sure what "Wiki convention" is being referred to. As far as I am aware, "American people" speak the "English language", and are not renamed "English language people" here. Ditto for Canadians, Australians, etc. If there is a convention, then I cannot seem to find it. And if it poses such a statement, it strikes me frankly as a tad ignorant, and perhaps also imperialistic, and should be changed or disregarded.

Which brings up another word of caution: what we name this article may have political implications. From what I have gathered from reading about them, the Kusasi are small and vulnerable people, under pressure from larger neighbors, who have encroached on their lands and cast doubts about the genuineness of their ethnicity (seeking to portray them as loose refugees from other ethnicities, rather than a genuine long-living ethnicity with traditional land use rights). Renaming this article away from "Kusasi people" is denying their ethnic identity, and inadvertently assisting a predatory political view which may have disastrous real world consequences to their rights and survival. So these kind of decisions, made by distant foreigners about small and vulnerable peoples who do not have internet access to speak for themselves, should be made with caution. Walrasiad (talk) 17:38, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

• Comment After repeated failed attempts, I was finally able to access Kwami's two pdfs. Again, his position is misrepresented. Both PDFs refer repeatedly and pretty relentlessly to the people as "Kusasi" and the language as "Kusaal", confirming my point.

(1) In the fist document ("Phonologie"), there is ONE instance of the term "peuple Kusaal" in a heading, but in the text everywhere it is "Koussasi" constantly. I went through all 160 uses of the term "Kusaal" in that document, and not once did it refer to the people by that name, only to language. It is clear beyond clear the document writer considers the people "Koussasi" and the language "Kusaal"

(2) In the second document ("Diccionaire") there is only ONE INSTANCE referring to people as "Kousaal" as a variant in the definition of "Kusasi" itself (as in "Kusasi" is a Kusaal-speaking person). The entry for "Kusaal" defines it as a language, not a people. And again, throughout the rest of the dictionary, Kusaal refers to language, Kusasi to people (e.g. "ene" = Je suis un Koussasi. Nous sommes des Koussasi"). I admittedly didn't go through all 600 mentions of the word Kusaal in this text (as I did in the previous - it is in the heading of every page after all), but I went through plenty and I could not find one instance of its use in referring to people. People are always "Koussasi".

Both these RS's confirm that the name is "Kusasi people", and that "Kusaal" is the language. I can't understand how this can be doubted anymore. There's no RS supporting this move. Walrasiad (talk) 18:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

You've repeatedly misread the sources. I see no evidence that "Kusaal" is specifically the language, only an attributive form. Yes, "Kusaal" is used for the language, but so is "French". (La langue kusaal, le parler kusaal → le kusaal, and similarly le dialect kusaal and 'Kusaal language', just as with français or anglais; but also 'Kusaal person' and 'Kusaal village' just as with 'French person' and 'French village'.) As for you not being able to find confirmation in the dictionary, I quoted the entry for the base word above. You could always check that. You can of course argue that Kusaasi is more common, that's a reasonable argument, but denying what the sources say even after it's been pointed out to you does not strengthen your argument. Looking further through the dictionary, there's also List de villes et villages Kusaal, and in the other source, le peuple kusaal = les Koussasi. These indicate that, at least in English and French, "Kusaal" is an adjective for the people, including for their language, but also for anything Kusaal. — kwami (talk) 20:14, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

In the the reader on animals,[13] it has dans le pays kusaal, also Le pays Kusaasi translated as 'The kusaal country'.

In the text collection,[14] we find 'Kusaal marriage procedures', where 'Kusaal' translates kʋsaas ('Kusaal person' per the dict.). — kwami (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.