Talk:Rendille–Boni languages

This article was nominated for deletion on 9 July 2014 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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Merger

Commentors in the deletion discussion seemed concerned about preserving the information that this grouping has once been proposed. OK, we can do that, but I still don't think any arguments have been presented for why this bit of info needs to exist as a separate article.

A few participants also raised the possibility of further supporting sources. I invite them to do so, if they are able. Especially secondary sources actually arguing in favor of Rendille-Boni, not copycats who just cite Ethnologue or Lamberti (1983, 1984, 1986; see Tosco's paper) without actually addressing the issue? --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 12:28, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Thanks for staying on top of this issue, Trɔpʏliʊm. For those of us who have not read carefully the sources you refer to, could you sketch out (1) the relationships between the various Somali/Sam/Oromo etc. languages involved here as described in linguistic literature, and (2) how you think Wikipedia articles should reflect that literature? I happened to notice that Mauro Tosco has written more recently about Somali variants (Tosco 2012, "The Unity and Diversity of Somali Dialectal Variants"), but I've not read the article. I also see that Heine and Nurse (2000, African Languages, p. 81) refer to Rendille and Boni in the "Omo-Tana" group along with somewhat vaguely described "numerous varieties of Somali spoken in Somalia, Djibouti, eastern Ethiopia, and north-eastern Kenya". Glottolog appears to show a similar grouping. Cnilep (talk) 01:26, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A synopsis of the various Lowland East Cushitic languages can be found here. Middayexpress (talk) 16:10, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Both of your questions are important, Cnilep, but they also go well beyond the topic of this article. I have sketched out some of the points on the general issue of Somali dialect classification over at Somali languages (and as various bits of source literature such as Tosco's papers are available online thru Academia.edu, I welcome you to look at the matter yourself as well).

The second is part of a larger can of worms that should probably be discussed instead over at Wikiproject Linguistics. But FWIW my basic stance here is that articles that state nothing more of substance than the alleged existence of a grouping, without any discussion of common features (sometimes simply due to underedition, but frequently instead due to near or total absense of detailed discussion also in the source literature) are obfuscating cruft that would be much better stated as a single bullet line on a "Subgrouping" section of an established language (sub)family article. Wikipedia has a bad habit of conflating proposed linguistic groupings, typically cited from tertiary sources such as Ethnologue or Glottolog specifically tasked with classification; and consensus linguistic groupings that are actually argued for by reliable secondary sources.

I am running the deletion/merger of this article as a test case of sorts to gage the current consensus on such matters. Rendille–Boni is actually a notch above "proposed", as some actual shared features have been noted by Lamberti. However, if Tosco's review of his work is to be trusted, then what Lamberti argues for is not a genetical Rendille-Boni grouping, but a typological one. In principle, also areal groups might deserve separate articles; but this requires a sufficient number of reliable sources, as well as clearly indicating their status, and not confusing them for genetical groups. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 18:12, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Tropylium: thanks; that is helpful. How would you feel about merging Macro-Somali and Rendille-Boni to Omo–Tana languages? The reasons I ask are (1) all three are currently short stubs, and (2) I gather from the Macro-Somali article that that grouping is not entirely without controversy. On the other hand, if Macro-Somali is relatively well accepted, my suggestion might go too far. Cnilep (talk) 06:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

They should be kept separate. The Herbert Lewis/E.R. Turton "Omo-Tana" hypothesis is actually pretty dubious; it's contradicted by archaeology, genetics and historical tradition alike [1]. Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi discusses this in his work [2]. Middayexpress (talk) 21:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As stated above by Midday, it should not be merged but kept separate. AcidSnow (talk) 14:24, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]