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List of ISO 639-3 codes

I think List of ISO 639-3 codes should be renamed as List of ISO 639 alpha-3 codes or simply moved to List of ISO 639 codes. The same set of codes are not just used in ISO 639-3, but also ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-5. --✉ Hello World! 08:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC) Furthermore, there are lots of info about "native names" in the articles List of ISO 639-1 codes and List of ISO 639-2 codes. However, these native names are not included in the ISO standard; therefore I think that a better way is to move this part into this article (List of languages by name, or its sub-lists), remaining only ISO 639 codes, English names and French names (French names is a part of the ISO 639). --✉ Hello World! 10:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC) My plan is to:

  1. Copy the "native names" column inside List of ISO 639-1 codes and List of ISO 639-2 codes to → List of languages by name
  2. Merge contents inside List of ISO 639-1 codes (which is a relatively shorter list) to → ISO 639-1
  3. Deprecate / delete List of ISO 639-1 codes and List of ISO 639-2 codes
  4. Move List of ISO 639-3 codes to → List of ISO 639 codes
  5. Add ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-5 codes into List of ISO 639 codes

--✉ Hello World! 08:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this retitling is that there are also ISO 639 alpha-2 codes (in part 1, as you note) that are still used, and ISO 639 alpha-4 codes on the way (part 6 is in a draft form). It may be worthwhile to retain the "List of ISO 639 alpha-3 codes" title.--A12n (talk) 05:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
One argument in favour of Hello World's proposal is a natural error, at least one which i made when i first came across this set of pages. The error is that since there exist 639-1, 639-2 and 639-3 standards, and there also exist 1-letter road codes (e.g. F for France, E for Spain) and there exist alpha-2 and alpha-3 ISO codes, the natural guess made by someone learning about these is that there is a one-to-one mapping between 639-N and alpha-N. i know that this is wrong, but at least my brain tends to continually assume this mapping quite naturally. After all, it does sort of make sense to add an additional letter in order to make a new standard with a bigger number of available codes. It also happens that many of the alpha-2 codes are part of the 639-2 standard. i find i have to continually force myself to mentally unlink 639-i from alpha-i. Anyway, my suggestion is that whatever people want to do with this, try to do things in a way which either makes it difficult to make this error, or else warns people. e.g. WARNING: The 639-1, 639-2 and 639-3 standards do NOT correspond one-to-one with alpha-1, alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes. OK, this is a bit crude, but this is a wiki, so feel free to improve my suggested warning. :) Boud (talk) 14:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I know their difference. However since 639-2 and 639-3 share the same alpha-3 codes. I thought that it would be more useful for creating page(s) for alpha-3 codes, rather than separate pages for 639-2 and 639-3. That was my previous thought. --✉ Hello World! 03:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Taiwanese (linguistics) FAR

Taiwanese (linguistics) has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 15:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy of Ethnologue for Indo-Aryan

I found a major error in this regard, so I am going to avoid relying Ethnologue for Indo-Aryan as much as possible. At least until recently, the best "handbook" for Indo-Aryan has been Masica 1991. (Recently, the field has been enhanced with the publication of a second handbook, George Cardona and Dhanesh Jain (eds.), 2003, The Indo-Aryan languages (Routledge).) Ethnologue implies, through the respective population figures, that the border between "eastern P" and "western P" coincides with the India-Pakistan border (which splits the historical region of Punjab). This contradicts other scholarship, in particular Masica 1991. In fact, the local language of both the geographically Punjabi metropolis of Lahore, Pakistan and the geographically Punjabi city of Amritsar, India is indeed the same language, and that is eastern Punjabi. See Masica, p 20 and p 441. Hurmata (talk) 18:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ethnologue is badly confused as well as to the very matter of classification. This is a second reason to rely on sources other than Ethnologue when it comes to Indo-Aryan (I-A) languages, at least. (For background, be advised that for the last century, a major influence on I-A dialectology has been the Linguistic Survey of India (LSI; 21 vols.) by Grierson, published in 1903-28; reprinted 1968. Some of Grierson's ideas, in particular his proposed "Lahnda language", have been virtually debunked by subsequent workers, yet only virtually, and they continue to be used by lay persons, and this is to some extent reflected in the inventory of Wikipedia articles on I-A languages.)

  • The existence of a Punjabi language has been recognized for centuries. Grierson proposed that a group of dialects heretofore called "western Punjabi" were not dialects of Punjabi, and moreover constituted a common language, which he christened "Lahnda" (Masica 1991:17-18). "Grierson fixed the boundary between 'Lahnda' and Punjabi ... at a line running north-south ... west of Lahore, that is, well within Pakistan." (Masica 1991:20) "However, H. Bahri seems to have been wrong in his prediction (1962) that Partition would have the eventual effect of shifting the uncertain boundary of 'Lahndi' eastward to the new international frontier, presumably because P speakers in Pakistan would be cut off from influence from the main centers of the language in Eastern (Indian) Punjab. The reverse seems to have happened. Not only has Lahore proved to be a sufficiently strong center of Punjabi in its own right ...." (Masica 1991:20). The "takeaway" point is that nobody, including Grierson, ever claimed that "Lahnda" was spoken in what has since become the eastern side of the Pakistani province of Punjab. But Ethnologue gets that point wrong as it makes the following population claims for "Panjabi, Western" and "Panjabi, Eastern".

    "Panjabi, Western. 60,647,207 in Pakistan (2000 WCD). Population total all countries: 60,812,093 .... Alternate names: Western Punjabi, Lahnda, Lahanda, Lahndi. .... 'Lahnda' is a name given earlier for Western Panjabi."

    Panjabi, Eastern. 27,109,000 in India. (1991) ... Population total all countries: 28,006,704." [They then list localities in India and the West where the language is spoken.]

    But the population of the Pakistani province of Punjab was estimated in 2003 at 79 million, which includes 13.4 m. speakers of Siraiki (Seraiki) in the south of the province. 60.6 m + 13.4 m. = 74 m. Clearly, the only way you can claim that the number of speakers of "western Punjabi" nearly coincides with the non-Siraiki speaking population of Pakistani Punjab is through that misbelief that "western Punjabi" indeed is "Lahnda". According to Punjab_(India), the recent population of the Indian state of Punjab is 24 m. Bear in mind that the states of India are by political design based as much as possible on predominant language (in the sociocultural sense of 'language') -- Punjab was set up as "the Punjabi language state".
  • Ethnologue thus assumes the totally false belief that the Partition of 1947 resulted in a total segregation of "eastern Punjabi" and "western Punjabi" speakers across the India-Pakistan border. Again, Ethnologue misunderstands what "western Punjabi" is in the first place. Hurmata (talk) 19:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ido

Ido has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. D.M.N. (talk) 14:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Uniform names for articles on numbers in different languages

The following articles do not cover any pure numeral system where the symbols and notations are clearly defined, instead they cover how numbers are used in the respective languages. I have proposed all of them be moved. Please discuss HERE.

Thank you. --Voidvector (talk) 07:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Language... Maqui-ne

Okay, now this might not be the best place to put this. But I thought this group would be a big group of people who know language.

I am currently in the process of creating a numerical and categorised structured language, and was wondering if anyone was willing to comment, it's a long language, but can be understood easy once the foundations are known.

Please read the following two blog posts, and tell me what you think of the language, and any comments on it.

1. http://maqui-ne.blogspot.com/2008/09/organisms-cats.html 2. http://maqui-ne.blogspot.com/2008/09/3-and-and-mental-verbs.html

IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 15:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit revival

Sanskrit revival - as this is a phenomenon relevant to the 20th and 21st century, the subject should be expanded to reflect this transition from one century to another. As this is a large subject, the addition of many editors from diverse perspectives would benefit the expansion of this article. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 19:03, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

a proposal

I am wondering if every article on a language should contain a sample of about 1 paragraph of text in both English and in the language that the article is about, preferably the same consensus-selected text uniform across all languages. [For example, you could use a paragraph of WP:NPOV (using a literal translation if possible).]

69.140.152.55 (talk) 19:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Arabist

I bring to your attention the article Arabist, which seems to me potentially important and yet fundamentally weak. I tried to add Lady Hester Stanhope, in whom I have a passing interest, and was reverted by a new editor who added a whole essay about racism. I cannot fight this battle, but thought at least the article should be brought under your collective noses, if not microscopes; hence I aded the project flag -- it previously had nothing. Good luck! BrainyBabe (talk) 13:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Word-articles and WP:DICDEF

There's been a lot of discussion recently over the application of the WP:DICDEF. There seems to be an ever-increasing number of articles that appear to be violating the principle of not including dictionary articles, but still keep surviving AfDs because people believe they are well-written, or that they have room for encyclopedic expansion. Very poignant examples are articles like yes and no, but also vulgarisms like fart. There are a few threads going over at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I think it would be useful if we could have more insight from linguists into this, especially since many of the AfDs seem to be decided by pile-on votes that simply ignore the distinctions between dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Peter Isotalo 16:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Does any one want to start a Wikipedia in Romansch?

There are, according to list of wikipedias, some 262 language editions of Wikipedia, but I believe that Romansch is not among them. Does any one want to start Wikipedia in Romansch language?ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

There already is a Wikipedia in Romansh, it's on the list (perhaps you missed it because you were looking for the spelling with "sch" and we use the spelling with "sh") and it can be found at rm:. —Angr 19:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
(Moved from article page)--BlueNovember (talk) 20:07, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Danezaa → Dunneza

I'm of the opinion that a change Danezaa → Dunneza should be made (Beaver (tribe) in northeastern BC and northwestern Alberta). See Talk:Danezaa.Skookum1 (talk) 04:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

PS, once that's decided (also posted at WPCan-BC and in NorthAmNative), the language content of the article shoudl be split off as Danezaa language or Dunneza language although other precedents might suggest Beaver language though that's potentially a misleading title huh? Point is that tribal/ethno "peopel" articles and language/linguistics-content articles should be separated; even if pulling the language content out of the current title leaves it as a raw stub, it's better to ahve them separate for categorization reasons and also to leave "space" open for people to contribute ethnographic material who might think a page is about the language only. Not all such divisions have been made, but would WP:Languages contributors please bear it in mind when creating or working on indigenous languages articles, and also when possible please start a parallel ethno stub, if applicable, to any language article you may create (most are covered from what I can tell, though...).Skookum1 (talk) 04:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

A request for meanings/vocabulary

Hi; noting the lede on the project page about standardizing content on language pages, may I make a request that editors/contributors endenavour to have more than just phonology, morphology and syntax discussions/disputes in language-page contents. It's very frustrating and also alienating for "lay readers" who are unfamiliar either with the abstruse discussions/analyses of the formal structures of various languages to not find anything about the language "as she is spoke". Some pages have common phrases, bits of dialogue, and the like, and that's something I hope gets incorporated into your ratings/class system here as it's much-needed content to make articles on languages accessible to ordinary readers. This may be less important with languages remote from the North American/Anglosphere experience and for defunct languages and so on, but in areas and cultures where multiple languages are part of the landscape - literally. I edit extensively on British Columbia and Pacific Northwest and occasionally other Canadian and US articles, and there are no end of placenames in need of translation by "those who know", and there is little online in the way of dictionary/toponymy resources for most of these languages. Often what winds up happening is "tourist brochure translations" become somewhat standard, even when incorrect, if and when they are available. At the moment I just finished creating the Dil-Dil Plateau article and would have liked to give a translation of what it means, presumably in the Chilcotin language but there are no language resources online. Now, I wasn't expecting to find a lexicon on the Chilcotin language page but I was hoping to find either a dictionary link, or at least to be able to ask on the Talk:Chilcotin language page....then I found my old post there, from March 2008, listing Chilcotin placenames and asking for a translation of any of them. No such luck, despite a very thorough expansion of the phonology and morphology sections and nice infobox and so on; mercifully it still is only "stub" class in your project....This is only one of the dozens of examples just within BC concerning languages whose words are commonplace in local English because of geographic usages, and BCGNIS rarely has the answer (sometimes does though). I'm obviously too prolix to write up an addition to your talkpage about endeavouring to build semantic/lexical content, but in cases/regions/categories where indigenous languages are "part of the landscape", could there please be a special effort to assist geographic editors in making the geogrphiac etc articles more complete by digging out translations from wahtever texts the researchers who built hte phonology/morphology from their sources? "We" often get complaints that "white people don't give the indigenous names" of places, but at the same time indigenous language scholars and indigenous language-offices aren't very forthcoming with lay people/white people about cultural toponymy for fear they'll be appropriated; but simultaneously can be heard to complaining that white people are ignorant of native culture, history, language. Gatekeeping and condemning at the same time...I don't mean to complain, only to ask that "the doors of meaning" become opened, and maybe this project is a place to start: if you're a morphologist adding to an article concerning a language like Carrier or Secwepemc, do you mind looking around the related region categories for placenames that could use translation-material in their articles? Thanks. Sorry to be so long-winded....it's kind of my own language; I don't think in point form well....Skookum1 (talk) 02:58, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Ninilchik Russian language/dialect

User:Olegwiki just posted this very interesting link on the Russian America article so I'm shopping it around to related wikiprojects, obviously including this one though I already placed it on Talk:Russian language. Perhaps an article on Russian dialects in Alaska might be more than worthwhile? Not my field, but interesting no?Skookum1 (talk) 16:49, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Laal

Laal has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tpbradbury (talk • contribs) 14:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Articles on Dialects

The Languages template is very useful. Has any thought been given to providing similar guidance on articles for individual dialects of a given language? A general framework might provide useful assistance for editors looking to help develop good quality articles on dialects.
Thanks. John. Jomeara421 (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion it can be used for both languages and dialects. If you feel that it needs adjustments to better accommodate dialects, why not edit the template or make suggestions? I don't think we need a separate template just for dialects.
Peter Isotalo 14:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Speakers of Swedish

I noticed that there's no really reliable figure for the number of speakers Swedish in Swedish language. I've started a thread over at Talk:Swedish language#Number of speakers in an attempt to address the issue. If you have suggestions or just want to chime in, please join the discussion.

Peter Isotalo 14:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

West Frisian

These articles seem to be about different languages, see:

Regardless of which language is more properly referred to as "West Frisian" the above titles are not an acceptable way to disambiguate between them. Readers and editors alike should expect titles as semantically similar as this to point to the same topic. That is, one of these should redirect to the other and the other language should be moved to some other title with at least one unique word distinguishing it from the first language. — CharlotteWebb 11:02, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Problematic is also West Frisian (dialect), to which someone proposed merging West Frisian (language) last June. The fact that all three articles are completely unsourced doesn't help matters any. At any rate, West Frisian language should definitely stay at that name, since it is recognized under that name by most scholars as well as ISO 639. —Angr 17:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Orahovac, Kosovo

I have just found this unreferenced stub on a South Slavic "language" spoken in the city of Orahovac, in western Kosovo. If it merits its own entry, I guess that a cleaned-up version should be moved to a different title ("Rahoveci dialect", "Orahovac dialect" or even "naš govor" ?). I leave the issue in your capable hands. :-) Regards, Ev (talk) 17:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

New article

I've just created a new article Makonde language, but as I am not familiar with the structure of a language article, so may anyone pass-by take a look and add anything that is needed for a language article, such as infobox. Thx! Salt (talk) 10:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages/Template for a guideline on writing language articles, and Template:Infobox Language for the infobox. —Angr 11:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Article expansion requested

Could someone expand Experientia docet a little? kilbad (talk) 18:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

faux language?

Is Angaur language a real language? It is supposedly an official language of Angaur Island in Palau, but I can't confirm it even exists. Is it perhaps a local dialect of Palauan? (Angaur Isle is within the Palauan language circle on the Ethnologue map.) 'Cept Palauan doesn't have any divergent dialects ... kwami (talk) 05:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

There might be a similar problem with Tupiniquim language. Can someone confirm or refute its existence? G Purevdorj (talk) 08:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
That's just the Portuguese spelling of Tupinikin.[1] kwami (talk) 08:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
So the claim on Talk:Tupiniquim_language is wrong? G Purevdorj (talk) 08:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Dunno. Maybe it depends on what you mean by "Old" Tupi. But if the language is listed in Ethnologue, it was most likely spoken into the 20th century. kwami (talk) 09:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Aramaic language FAR

I have nominated Aramaic language for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Tasks

Like there is a lot of tagging work, what do you think about making proposal for the tasks of tagging in a new section in the main page? (By exemple, I can tag the A rated articles). So the work can be distributed better and everyone can know what are the others making and decide in what can he collaborate.--Auslli (talk) 14:56, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Task

I'm templating and ranking the articles. There are more than 3,000. --Auslli (talk) 22:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean?? It is not probable that there are 3000 additional articles that should be entered into WP languages, and there are just about 50 unrated articles. --- And why the heck is Aramaic language of low importance to WP languages? Any language (language familiy etc.) should be of utmost importance, and I guess that is why WP languages has not introduced an importance scale until recently. If so, we would need some project-specific criteria for assessing importance, but I would rather suggest to abandon this importance scale altogether. G Purevdorj (talk) 00:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
The truth is that this scale exists, and the truth is that there are so many articles uncatalogized with that scale. We have two possibilities, or cataloguize them, or put out this scale, but let some articles with a scale and lots without it I think is not the best solution. What about to work in criteria for the scale? I would collaborate.--Auslli (talk) 13:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure how reasonable criteria might look like. If you could come up with some suggestions, I (and hopefully some other people) may consider whether or not they look reasonable or rather arbitrary!? G Purevdorj (talk) 13:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, but when we must choose there is always subjectivity, even when we are rating the pages. Let me a bit of time for seeing other WikiProjects and I would present you a proposal for talking about it.--Auslli (talk) 13:33, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Of course there will be subjectivity, but I guess it shouldn't encompass more than subjective disagreement between two adjacent categories. Take your time - a few days more or less won't matter if you are able to come up with a good proposal. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


Here there is a proposal:

Importance scale

Label Criteria Reader's experience Example
Top These are the most spoken languages in the world and the languages who are spoken in more countries. Also we can consider Languages that by their top level importance in the history must be here. A reader who is not involved in the language field will have high familiarity with the subject matter and should be able to relate to the topic easily. English language
High These are languages that, because of their importance trough the time, are well-known by the visitor. More of the readers with a medium-level known about languages have listened to talk about them. Romanian language
Mid Languages middle known, with written literature, with international studies about them and considered that, because of their importance for the group or the work the rater is developing about this language, must be labeled in this way. Some readers will be familiar with the languages, but a larger majority of readers may have only cursory knowledge of them. Leonese language
Low All the other articles.

The source of the table come for WikiProject Austri, then I've done the categories. Also we can consider (finally I don't like it so much) to consider Low that kind of articles with the highest rating because they are finished. I did it with Aramaic but I think it must be very explanined and there are better solutions. I hope this scale can help.--Auslli (talk) 09:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "to consider Low that kind of articles with the highest rating because they are finished". No articles are "finished"; Wikipedia is always a work in progress. —Angr 09:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The word finished must be understood as "finished".--Auslli (talk) 09:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I still don't understand what you're trying to say. We should move "finished articles" (whatever that's supposed to mean) to low importance? Why? —Angr 09:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
No, I've said it was an ancient idea I had but just now I think the proposal table is better.--Auslli (talk) 11:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
There's no such thing as a finished article. I think the table looks good, but the descritions need a little work in order to be clearly understandable by the editors who wil undertake the assessment.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm altogether against this rating system, amended or not. Typologically, there is no reason why some language spoken somewhere in some village in Northwestern China by a few thousand people should be less important to our project than English, French etc.; this conception is dead wrong. For properly understanding language, areal linguistic matters etc., there is no graduation such as suggested here, and I hold that such concerns should matter to WP language. That is, a rating scale should not relate to number of speakers at all. This rating scale is just offensive to speakers (and linguistis, for that matter) of small languages! G Purevdorj (talk) 13:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
You're right, and small cities are not of less importance that the bigger ones. But we have to select an "objective" system, and wikipedia is a referent for the global people, where they expect to find some things, like some languages that as we like or not, people make more important or not. I'm sure there are more people searching for English than for Macedonian. That seems not that English is better, simply that we, like the working group of languages, must work in that sense. So, I let for "Middle" the articles in which any member of the Project could be specially interested in. I think that we must have, like you told, any reference for rating. There is another WikiProject called "Endangered languages" for those that are less used and in danger (whose I'm a member). I think this is better than anarchy.--Auslli (talk) 13:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any harm caused by "anarchy" or the absence of rating, for I do not think that improving Japanese language is more worthwhile than improving Ottawa language. Imagine that the first would be of "high importance" and the second one of "medium importance" to our project! I don't see any particular use in WP Endangered languages either; the necessary expertise and suitable guidelines for writing a good article on an endangered language don't differ from the guidelines for writing an article on Korean. For me, the use of this project is providing a platform for writing good language articles, but not for providing particular content. Thus, I'm decidedly for abandoning the rating scale. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
We could let rating be reversely proportionate with he articles quality though. So that All language stubs were top priority while featured articles were low priority. That would make a lot of sense in my mind - and it wouldn't discriminate agaonst any language but actually show us which languages' articles we should be working on.·Maunus·ƛ· 06:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
That's not what WikiProjects' importance scales are for. The point of the importance scale is to decide which articles we would want included in various abridged versions of Wikipedia, for example on CD-ROM. The most abridged version of Wikipedia would include only Top-importance articles, while a less abridged version of Wikipedia would also include High- and Mid-importance articles. The scale at the top is on the right track: a highly abridged Wikipedia would certainly have to contain articles on English, Spanish, French, and Chinese, but would not really have to contain articles about Leonese, Lingala, and Lower Sorbian. —Angr 06:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I would like to include the best-developed articles into an abrightet version, not necessarily the ones of greatest public interest. But I needn't repeat this for myself, so maybe some other editors might state what view they hold on this topic. G Purevdorj (talk) 08:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
WikiProjects have both quality scales and importance scales, and they're supposed to be independent of each other. There's no point in having an importance scale if it just copies the quality scale. I brought Irish phonology up to Featured Article level, but I'm under no illusions as to its importance. Its quality is the highest possible, FA, but its importance for this WikiProject is Low, and should be. If an encyclopedia only has room for 10 language articles, what should they be? Well, an article on one narrow aspect (the phonology) of a language that is little known outside its home island shouldn't be there, no matter how well written it is. —Angr 09:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Which could mean that all' language articles are of "high" importance, while dialect articles are medium, phonological articles and grammar articles maybe the same, bibliographies low etc. That would be a totally different approach which I would not be opposed to. It would have to be spelled out in the same detail as your above-mentioned proposal - if you'd like to adapt it. But as for which language articles might enter a 10 article lexicon: just the best, most thorough etc. as far as I am concerned. G Purevdorj (talk) 10:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Here we can find a solution:
Label Criteria Reader's experience Work in the article
Top Most spoken languages in the world and languages who are spoken in more countries. Languages that by their top level importance in the history must be here or those how could be labeled as High importance level but where a member of the Project is working in. A reader who is not involved in the language field will have high familiarity with the subject matter and should be able to relate to the topic easily. One member of the Project is working in the article, for languages that aren't the most spoken.
High Languages middle known, with written literature, with international studies about them, or less used languages where a member of the Project is working in. More of the readers with a medium-level known about languages have listened to talk about them. One member of the Project is wroking in the article for less used languages.
Mid Languages not in higher rates, dialects and articles where there is a member working in. Some readers will be familiar with the languages, but a larger majority of readers may have only cursory knowledge of them. One member of the Project is working in if the article is not a language Romagnol
Low All the other articles.

--Auslli (talk) 13:42, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The criterion „work in the article“ does not relate to the article itself and should be abandoned. It would also be difficult to operate as the actual presence or absence of an engaged moderator would have to be determined. While I’m sceptical whether the distinction between “Top” and “High” is justified, I make a proposal of my own:

  • Top: Article on a language, not on a dialect or a variety that is unanimously held to be a dialect by linguists. Alternatively, the most representative dialect of a language may be included. Furthermore, the variety in question must be or have been of exceptional regional or political relevance.
  • High: Any other language, also dialects that can be deemed highly independent from the language they are associated with or have exceptional regional or political relevance. Also articles on several varieties such as Turkic languages, Korean dialects.
  • Mid: Any variety. Also includes articles on grammar, phonology etc.
  • Low: Articles on single words or expressions, biographies, general linguistics.

Examples:

G Purevdorj (talk) 09:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this proposal resumes all what we have been talking. Just now, let open the door to some articles could "ascend" of category by its known exceptional value, and I think we have a very good solution.--Auslli (talk) 13:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The proposal differs considerably from yours, but if you accept it, you may take it as "resum[ing] all that we have been talking". I guess the door you mentioned will be found by anyone in the position to rate, but in case you intend to build it in, make a proposal! The last sentence on "Mid" should be reformulated as "Also articles on several varieties such as language families or dialect groups." Else, if really no one else deigns to voice her opinion, this scheme may be implemented as a guideline. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I really think initial proposals were different but finally they were so close. The spirit of both was that there were no languages better than others, but that there must be differences between languages, dialects, varieties. I think finally we have integrated all of that because there is a recognition of all proposals. So, we have a linguistic categorization by languages, dialects... that are more or less considered in the same label and we are talking about "more representative", "exceptional", "political relevance" that were the spirit of my proposal. So that's the reason I think all of us can fell integrated in the final proposal and that's the wiki spirit, the consesuos. Finally, I think that your last add is quite good and if we think the rater can "ascend" with a clear criteria, my opinion is that we have a very good solution.--Auslli (talk) 17:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
After a week, and because there are no other comments against, I will put the final proposal as a guideline.--Auslli (talk) 13:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I must say that I understand your last comments better now. I thought "reader's experience" was deleted from the table, and you didn't. It was a bit rash to immediately put a finished version on the article page without giving the complete finished form on the talk page first. I see two problems: 1. languages of great regional or historical impact like Manchu language or Wu Chinese are not familiar to every reader, and only linguists can be expected to even have heard of such varieties. So the different cells contradict each other. 2. In the table just beneath, "reader's experience" means the impression that the reader gets when reading the article, not her knowledge before doing so. But this term should be used consistently. G Purevdorj (talk) 20:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok, you're right. Just a little change for Leonese language (as the most representative through the history in its linguistic group).--Auslli (talk) 23:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I want to excuse myself because of adding "language" to the list without a higher explanation, but I was really with just a moment for writting. The reason is that wikipedia has a list of "Articles that has to been in a wikipedia", so that kind of articles must be "top" for all the projects that are working in them.--Auslli (talk) 07:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts

I must say I'm a bit puzzled by the motivation "most relevant language of its linguistic group" that uses Leonese language as an example. What relevance is referred to here, and what does "linguistic group" mean? Language family? Sub-family? Sprachbund? Leonese seems like a very poor example since it's a very small language and would be an important member only if you consider a very small sub-group of a much larger group of languages. If you applied the same reasoning for much smaller langauge families, you would probably wind up rating near-extinct languages in Papua New Guinea ranked higher than thriving languages in West Africa. And I have major trouble understanding why Leonese should be rated higher than Turkish languages or even Seoul dialect.

I'm also not sure what to make of the top level criteria. For example, is Swedish language top or high level? It's certainly an important regional language, and the most widely spoken North Germanic language, but it still feels odd to place it on the same level as Hindi or Indonesian. Any thoughts on this?

Peter Isotalo 08:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't say much about Leonese language, but the other languages you mention would qualify for top level (which can get fairly crowded given the actual criteria), probably even Norwegian. Afrikaans might be problematic, though. However, I wouldn't like to rate the importance of varieties I'm not slightly acquainted with. Seoul dialect should not be rated Top importance because it doesn't get a full-scale language article, but will most likely remain complementary to Korean language. My suggestion to rate Turkic languages lower than single languages is because WP languages provides better instructions for single language articles than for language families. If the project page would get a formula for writing articles on language families, it could be of Top importance. But as long as WP languages doesn't provide the means, I think it shouldn't. G Purevdorj (talk) 09:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
About Leonese language in their linguistic group, it is the same as Portuguese language in its. Galician-Portuguese Group contains Galician, Portuguese, Eo-Navian, Brasilian-Portuguese... The most important language there is Portuguese language. Leonese or Asturleonese Group contains Leonese language, Asturian, Mirandese, Extremaduran dialect, Cantabrian dialect... and historically the most important is Leonese language.--Auslli (talk) 14:56, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Again, though, I don't see the point of rating very small languages as top level simply because they happen to be the biggest language within any random sub-classification. As long as a language belonged to a small enough group, it would automatically qualify as a top language. It's completely dependent on how specificly they're classified. And what about isolates? Do they also qualify? And my suggestion was not to rate varieties like Seoul dialect as top level. I was just trying to illustrate that it's quite possible to argue that varieties of languages can be equally important to smaller languages.
I'm very much against the idea that language families should per definition be treated as less important than single languages. No way are Semitic languages or Turkic languages less important than Polish or Dutch, and certainly not Indo-European languages. Chinese language would obviously also not be appropriate to rate as anything lower than top level. That we haven't payed enough attention to certain types of articles doesn't seem like a good reason to rate them lower. It just means we need to get cracking on them.
Peter Isotalo 07:58, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Revision

Could someone whose computer doesn't screw around with wikipedia (like mine) please undo the changes that magically appeared when I tried to add my username, then subsequently tried to UNDO those changes. Also, if you can be bothered, add my name to the list! Thanks :) gaidheal1 (talk) 13:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

A merger discussion which may be of interest to members of this project

Is here. Background is here. Your input would be most helpful and appreciated. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Prject merge

I think we must decide if we want to merge or not this project with Language familis, because it has been talked for a long time, and the other project seems to be dead.--Auslli (talk) 07:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Why on earth

is there a List of ethnic slurs? I am asking this here because there is a template indicating it is under the scope of this project. I was trying to find some sort of discussion on this, but the talk page simply seems to be a chorus of "Oh, here's one you forgot". How is that something that should be included in an encyclopedia? I realize Wikipedia is not censored, but a page like this serves no purpose other than as a reference for bigots. --Susan118 (talk) 02:19, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Or a reference for non-bigots who want to know what bigots are talking about. Anyway, the page has been nominated for deletion five times and kept every time, so it looks like the community sees some point in having the list. —Angr 07:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately most of the people voting were probably those who contributed to it, I wonder what the entire Wikipedia community would think if they actually KNEW this stuff existed? I know I wouldn't have thought to look for it. (I only came across it after I found a page on the history of one of the words while using Huggle). I found several similar lists as well. I am surprised they did not get deleted per WP:NOTDIRECTORY or WP:NOTDICTIONARY if nothing else. Anyway, after looking more carefully, I did find small groups of dissenters on the respective talk pages, so I'll go join them. --Susan118 (talk) 14:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Susan is right. This is one of the very few instances where the majority unfortunately is flat-out wrong and doesn't seem to have a clue about it. People just go one keep-voting these word-list articles by sheer weight of numbers without anyone ever producing a single teneble argument why these particular violations of WP:NOTDICDEF are valid. The problem is that people either don't understand or simply refuse to acknowledge that Wiktionary exists and that it's actually better than Wikipedia when it comes to these things. Though they certainly mean well, I must say that those users who work on improving these articles with citations and whathaveyou here at Wikipedia actively divert much-needed attention from Wiktionary.
Peter Isotalo 22:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Task

To improve article "Russian language" per this review. The article is about to become a Good one. SkyBonTalk\Contributions 16:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:37, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Canes pugnaces

Hi, can some of you chime in on this Latin phrase Canes pugnaces, they are trying to #Redirect/delete it to the a similar English translation Dogs in warfare. See the talk page here: Talk:Canes_pugnaces. Thank you. Green Squares (talk) 14:58, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian

Ockay, one cannot say Croatian and Serbian is the same language. That would mean Croats and Serbs are the same. If that were true, there wouldn't be a war and Yugoslavia would exist. Besides, those are two different cultures and therefore two different languages. Croats were in the Western Roman Empire, they are Roman Catholics, have latin influence in the language and use Latin script. Serbs, in the other hand, were in the Byzantine Empire, are Orthodox Christians, have greek influence in the language and use Cyrillic. So, could you please separate them??

Well, truth-conditions in nationalist ideology and linguistics may differ. But let's go into detail: whether or not Koreans living in Japan are only proficient in Japanese or not, they are considered foreigners. They can clearly be perceived as a distinct social group whose being different is construed by ideology appealing to ethnicity. So, by merit of your argument, they would not be speaking Japanese. Then, if I would now continue using Cyrillic letters for English sentences, I would still be writing in English. Language influence (Latin vs. Greek) is more tricky, but that's a matter of degree. Few if any people say that Chakhar dialect and Khalkha dialect are two different languages, though some people will hold that they have somewhat different standard (written) languages. And well, French influence in Berlin is more notable than in Frankfurt an der Oder, but this doesn't render the German spoken in Frankfurt as Polish. I trust that you agree with my line of argument. G Purevdorj (talk) 17:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
People speaking the same language has gone to war with eachother since the first humans existed. You are presenting a non-argument.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

FAR for article Nafaanra language

I have nominated Nafaanra language for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.Cirt (talk) 11:04, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Hunglish, Czenglish, Dunglish, whateverlish

I can't see a reason for so many pages that are no more than "hilarious mistakes speakers of language X make when they are learning English", and are WP:OR, unsourced, or poorly sourced. That and lists of loan words from English dressed up as some crazy thing. There seems to be a lot of borrowed notability from Engrish, which is more than simply mistakes of East Asian learners. Whereas Engrish is a notable phenomenon in communication between speakers of the same language (advertising etc.), Dunglish (Dutch+English)? Really?

I recommend a cull. We shouldn't have articles on barely or non-existent phenomena.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

  • I agree. +Angr 08:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
  • A cull seems appropriate. Engrish is likely to be one of very few worth keeping. Peter Isotalo 12:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm ambivalent. "We shouldn't have articles on barely or non-existent phenomena" is inappropriate as mistakes in learning English are quite frequent. The article on "Engrish" deals with phonological differences and their consequences, much as the article on Dunglish deals with inference from syntax and idioms. Next to lots of stuff of next to no relevance, it addresses systematic kinds of mistakes. Both Dunglish and Engrish are poorly sourced. Linguistically, the topic of Engrish is of little notability, as it mainly addresses phenomena that could be described between any two somewhat distant varieties. On the other hand, Dunglish is more probable than "Hunglish" or "Czenglish", as these two languages are too far from English to justify inference from one's own language as an actual means of acquiring English. (I don't deny that such inference is a necessary tool in communication.) For Dutch people, on the other hand, such inference may be the norm, given that both varieties are extremely similar. Neither article actually deals with a variety like a pidgin, it's just that Engrish somehow manages to include actual loans (which should best be treated in a heading "Japanese loan word phonology" within the article Japanese phonology), which is not the case for Dunglish. I would say both articles have the potential for being kept, while neither actually fulfills the necessary requirements. On the other hand, "Hunglish" or "Czenglish" don't seem to be justified at all, though the existence (and use) of several studies that deal with the problems Hungarian etc. people have with acquiring English might also be notable (as would be the reverse, but that topic tends to be conspiciously absent from Wikipedia). Anyway, an article on a topic like that should most likely have a differnt name. G Purevdorj (talk) 16:27, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
You misunderstand me, G Purevdorj - I am not saying that mistakes in English are uncommmon - that would of course be a totally bizarre thing to think. What I mean by non-existent is anything beyond such matters.
  • There is a difference between the difficulties that learners at various stages have, and those "mistakes" taking on a life of their own as a form of communication (most notably in the case of Engrish in advertising) in a manner that has been documented by respectable sources. To be more specific the distinction between learner mistakes and notable "-lishes" is that in the latter, the relevance of correctness (as compared to English native speakers or other benchmarks) is contestable.
  • I agree that the article Engrish is not in a good state (it's been chopped and hacked into a mess from something better albeit still not encyclopaedic enough), but there are scholarly works considering the phenomenon. Similarly, Runglish under various names has literary and real-world attestation as forms of communication, although admittedly weaker. They are not so much linguistically notable (as you rightly point out), as sociololinguistically. Dunglish (and most of the others) do not fall into this category and are simply interlanguages.
  • These phenomena cannot realistically be considered one of the world Englishes (bad wiki article, btw), except in the loosest sense or by the ideologically extreme. That is, they are not like Singlish or Indian English. Nor is it useful to consider them simply as interlanguage or mere accounts of learner error.
Perhaps some of these pages could be changed to titles such as "Common errors in English by native Czech/Dutch/Hungarian speakers". Most of their current names have no attestation outside the chat pages and pub conversations of frustrated EFL teachers.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 12:19, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, I guess now I got what you mean. Unfortunately, information on apparently English items such as “konsento” or “petto bottoru” (or “sarari:man”) is rare and then immediately followed by the usual nonsense such as „ Engrish has long been a frequent occurrence in product manuals …”. The stuff on pop culture only addresses the special notability of Engrish up to line 6, the rest is the same as in the other articles. The presence of considerable research into the sociology of Japanese English would make the topic noteworthy, while this clearly doesn’t hold for the sociology of Dutch English. (I'd also agree that errors in themselves aren't noteworthy if they are not used for linguistic research and this research is detailed in the respective article.) It would be headway if this research would bear somewhat on the article, and be it as an unused list of research articles. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikiproject Latin

I'm not part of this group but I am considering starting a Wikiproject for the Latin Language, I was wondering what the thoughts of this wikiproject are and whether it should be 'under the wing' of this one. 95jb14 (talk) 15:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

If there were a WikiProject Latin, it really should be a daughter of this WikiProject, and maybe also of a WikiProject relating to classical history, if there is one. But I wonder if it's really necessary to have a WikiProject on a specific language. How many articles directly relating to Latin are there? +Angr 05:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

New Member

I want to help in this project. --El estremeñu (talk) 21:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Great! Put your name down under WP:WikiProject Languages#Project volunteers, and take a look at WP:WikiProject Languages#Open tasks to see what needs to be done (though that section is really very out of date). And welcome! +Angr 05:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I have colaborated in the article Extremaduran language. I think, that article is not in the category start class. --El estremeñu (talk) 02:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Licensing issues with Template:Pronounced

We have a rather serious problem concerning some of the pronunciation templates. Please see discussion at Template talk:pronounced#This needs immidate fixing.

Peter Isotalo 11:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The license page is currently linked through the speaker icon, as hovering over the text will show. We can add something more overt if needed. kwami (talk) 13:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Naming dispute

Please see Talk:Tajik Persian#Tajikistani Persian and comment. There is a slow-motion edit war over the past few days about the proper title for the article --- Tajik Persian or Tajik language. Thanks, cab (talk) 10:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Otomi language

I have drastically expanded the article Otomi language and am hoping to take it to FA in the near future. I have listed the article for peer review. Any additions, comments, or suggestions to improve it will be happily accepted.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:11, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge of Cornish language orthography articles

I have proposed that Kernewek Kemmyn, Kernowek Standard, Modern Cornish and Unified Cornish be merged into one article at Cornish orthography. Please discuss, support or oppose the proposal here. --Kernoweger (talk) 12:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

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