Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics

WikiProject Linguistics collaboration on linguistics in Wikipedia	Applied Linguistics Etymology Philosophy of language	Phonetics SFL Theoretical Linguistics
Main pageDiscussionAssessmentArticle alertsRecognized contentPortal

Welcome to the talk page for WikiProject Linguistics. This is the hub of the Wikipedian linguist community; like the coffee machine in the office, this page is where people get together, share news, and discuss what they are doing. Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, and keep everyone updated on your progress. New talk goes at the bottom, and remember to sign and date your comments by typing four tildes (~~~~). Thanks!

SOV SVO VSO VOS OVS OSV

Word order	English equivalent	Proportion of languages		Example languages
SOV	"Cows grass eat."	45%	45	Ancient Greek, Bengali, Burmese, Hindi/Urdu, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Oromo, Persian, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Turkish, etc
SVO	"Cows eat grass."	42%	42	Chinese, English, French, Hausa, Hebrew, Arabic, Italian, Malay, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese, etc
VSO	"Eat cows grass."	9%	9	Biblical Hebrew, Classical Arabic, Filipino, Geʽez, Irish, Māori, Tuareg-Berber, Welsh
VOS	"Eat grass cows."	3%	3	Car, Fijian, Malagasy, Qʼeqchiʼ, Terêna
OVS	"Grass eat cows."	1%	1	Hixkaryana, Urarina
OSV	"Grass cows eat."	0%		Tobati, Warao
Frequency distribution of word order in languages surveyed by Russell S. Tomlin in the 1980s ()

Each of the six articles on specific orders (but not the umbrella article Word order!) has this pair of huge boxes, squeezing the main text into an awkwardly narrow column. Talk me out of removing Template:Language word order frequency from the six and replacing it with a paraphrase of the relevant row of the table. —Tamfang (talk) 17:39, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I think the table provides valuable information and context to the layperson about the possible word orderings and the relative prevalence of the specific ordering that is the topic of the article, but I agree it's rather unwieldy and intrusive in its current form. Perhaps we could make the table collapsible and collapse it by default? Alternatively, we could also put it in a separate section as in Verb–object–subject word order. Or some combination of both solutions.

Additionally, I noticed that most of the excess bulk/intrusion in the template is coming from the example languages column, so perhaps the information in that column could be moved to the respective article and a link to the appropriate section provided instead. Indigopari (talk) 04:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, the other five are listed in "See also". —Tamfang (talk) 23:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Meanwhile, in the table itself, how about replacing "French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish" with "most Romance languages"? unless of course that's inaccurate —Tamfang (talk) 23:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

@Tamfang I agree this should be improved. If it must be kept, these would be my suggestions:

• Remove the bar graph column and just use the percentages. Also change the OSV percentage to say "<1%" since rounding to 0 there may lead to the false impression that OSV does not exist.
• Put the Word Order and English equivalent in the same column, with one above the other in each cell.
• Limit the example languages to one each, the most used living natural language for each typology. So that means: SOV: Bengali; SVO: Chinese; VSO: Filipino; VOS: Malagasy; OVS: Äiwoo; OSV: British Sign Language. There is more information about the grammar of these languages on their respective pages than on the average language article.
• Finally, some of the links in the "Linguistic typology" navbar are made redundant by the word order box. Make a truncated version of "Linguistic typology" without the redundant links, and then put the word order box on top of the navbar rather than next to it. And make them the same width if possible

عُثمان (talk) 18:13, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Edit warrior in the area of Serbo-Croatian

Kajkavian is currently being attacked by a nationalist edit warrior who keeps changing the classification of Shtokavian and Chakavian as Serbo-Croatian to an unscientific classification of them as "Croatian", which makes no sense and is clearly against the consensus. Sol505000 (talk) 23:23, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

This is not a question for consensus, but what is written in the source, and in the source it is written in Croatian, not Serbo-Croatian, as you would change what is written in the source, and that is against editing Wikipedia because it is based on sources. And stop attacking me on a personal level. Here is a source [[1]]that the user Sol505000 does not respect. I just fixed what the vandal ip changed what is written in the source here added and invented [[2]], but unfortunately it is supported by user Sol505000.93.143.79.158 (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

It does not matter what is written in the source. There's plenty of books written by authors confused by nationalist propaganda ex-Yugoslavians are bombarded with from cradle to grave that says that Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian are separate, distinct languages which they are not. They have extremely similar grammar, pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary (when you're dealing with their standard varieties) and hard scientific research cited in Serbo-Croatian has proven again and again that these are merely varieties of the same language. If you're looking for truly separate languages check Slovene or Macedonian. Those are genuinely distinct languages. Wikipedia is not a place for nationalist propaganda. Sol505000 (talk) 00:01, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place for your propaganda, which is based on adding and inventing something that is not written in the books. I won't comment on the rest of what you insult me, it all says about you.93.143.79.158 (talk) 00:26, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

As I explained to you before, the name Serbo-Croatian language was a form because we lived in the same country from 1918-1990 in Yugoslavia, that's why it had that name when that country fell apart, the Serbo-Croatian language no longer exists, something like Britain today has English-Scottish, for example. Today it has the Croatian language, which is also recognized in the EU, as will be the Serbian language and the Bosnian language when they enter the EU. The name Serbo-Croatian language no longer exists, it went with Yugoslavia. And the languages are very different, there are a lot of different words, and in addition, the Serbian language has "Ekavica" and Croatia has "Ijekavica" in the Štokavian dialect. Don't let me explain the difference between Croatian and Serbian, Croats write in Latin and Serbs in Cyrillic, etc. 93.143.79.158 (talk) 00:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

No, the standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian are not "very different" and the research cited in Serbo-Croatian proves that. What you're describing are mere regional differences in vocabulary and pronunciation (and orthography, every standard apart from Croatian uses Cyrillic to a bigger or lesser extent) that do not match national borders and there's variation within the countries themselves (I'm talking about the standard language alone), exactly as in the case of English, German and Spanish. If you asked a native Spanish speaker from outside Argentina and Uruguay if they consider Rioplatense Spanish a separate language in the same sense that Portuguese and French are foreign to them they would think you're crazy. The same applies here. You will not convince me otherwise. Sol505000 (talk) 00:53, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

You think what you want, I wanted to explain to you about that Serbian-Croatian name, that's how people in Serbia and Croatia think about that name, as I wrote here. They are very different languages, there are many different words, if they weren't, one wouldn't be called Croatian and the other Serbian, but they have nothing to do with each other.93.143.79.158 (talk) 01:05, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

"But they have nothing to do with each other" - Right, I forgot that they are language isolates. I'm sorry for my confusion. Sol505000 (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I only returned what was written correctly in the source, I did not say that Štokavian is only a Croatian dialect, it is Serbian as well as Bosnian. And now it is written correctly as it says in the source that it is a Croatian dialect, someone can use that source and write on the Serbian page that Shtokavian is a Serbian dialect or on the Bosnian page that Shtokavian is a Bosnian dialect, I have nothing against that. That's what it says in the source, and don't add something that isn't written.I hope you understand what I'm talking about. Goodbye93.143.79.158 (talk) 01:18, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

So one dialect belongs to three unrelated languages? I learn something every day. —Tamfang (talk) 22:22, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Academically this is not a debate. The Declaration on the Common Language was published recently, long after the fall of Yugoslavia. --Antondimak (talk) 23:10, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

“what is written in the source” — do all sources agree, or is there only one? —Tamfang (talk) 22:21, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

South Asian IPA keys

@All: Please have a look at what's going on in Help:IPA/Hindi and Urdu, Help:IPA/Nepali and Help:IPA/Marathi. Some of you already have chimed in, but this needs wider input and monitoring. Austronesier (talk) 14:43, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier It would be helpful if you specified what exactly you are concerned about; I cannot tell what the concern is here. عُثمان (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@عُثمان: Thank you for your response. The call for scrutiny has become moot in the meantime. The editor who produced dozens of problematic edits in these IPA keys and edit-warred over them with zero understanding of phonetics and the IPA has been topic banned. –Austronesier (talk) 19:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Uralo-Siberian languages, proposed macrofamily article?

There's an article on the proposed Uralo-Siberian languages which needs a heavy rewrite to meet wikipedia's standards. Right now it's essentially falling flat on the guidelines for how to handle WP:FRINGE considering it's being presented as a serious theory, even including references to how it can evidence Nostratic (which I've removed). I'm not 100% certain if this needs a rewrite to discuss its current status as a fairly rejected macrofamily proposal, or if it honestly simply fails WP:N. Either way, it definitely shouldn't be presented as a seriously considered and somewhat accepted proposal considering how little evidence/acceptance it has found.

Perhaps it would make sense to have a proposed macrofamily article which weighs several of these smaller theories, rather than giving each of them their own article? This is done somewhat on the pages for language isolates like Basque when discussing proposed genetic links. Warrenmck (talk) 20:01, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Warrenmck: Hey, what about Sino-Uralic languages then (a page which I succesfully PROD-ed only to find it refunded later)? :) Uralo-Siberian at least is something that one somehow might have heard of (especially after the publication of the Fortescue/Vajda volume last year).

But I agree, it's quite much space given to a proposal that is probably better described as "largely ignored" than "fairly rejected" (as with many long-range proposals), and which is largely associated with a single author. When excessive "cognate" tables visually outweigh the text that says that the proposal has little to no support in mainstream comparative linguistics, there is definitely something wrong.

Lyle Campbell wrote a review of Fortescue's 1998 book that includes an assessment of the proposal (with thumbs down), Kortlandt supports it. A recent review calls the proposal (together with Vajda's Dene-Yeniseian) "interesting, even if inconclusive". So all in all somewhere at the threshold of WP:N, I guess. But not in its current shape. Given the overlap with hypotheses like Eskimo–Uralic languages (yes, another standalone article!) and others, putting them together in a broad article is an attractive option. –Austronesier (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

By coincidence, different language families, but similar PROFRINGE pushing: Talk:Dravidian_languages#Dravidian_and_NE_Caucasian_connection. –Austronesier (talk) 21:37, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier:

probably better described as "largely ignored" than "fairly rejected"

I'm not convinced that's indistinct, given the reception we've seen with Dené–Yeniseian, but fair point. I think that perhaps with the exceptions of Altaic (since that does have far more proponents and gets a lot of discussion), there may be a case for merging all of the remaining propoposed macrofamilies. For example, Nostratic languages similarly suffers from huge tables used to explain (or justify) the findings, and from talking with someone today who is a hobby linguist (see my talk page) it does appear that the way these macrofamilies are presented is causing confusion.

I understand that this may be a controversial take, but a mix of improving Macrofamily (which really shouldn't be that much of a stub in comparison to more out their proposals), a new Proposed Linguistic Macrofamilies page, and a complete and total rewrite of Proto-Human language to discuss the scholarly understanding would probably do wonders to help dispel misinformation. The macrofamily pages on the whole seem to suffer badly from WP:NOTADVOCACY problems. Warrenmck (talk) 22:02, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Warrenmck: I think this will be a very ambitious project that soon will exceed any reasonable size limit. Lyle Campbell devotes 70 pages to long-range proposals for the native language families of the Americas in his 1997 OUP monograph. Obviously we wouldn't cover all these proposals with the same depth (especially the case studies where he illustrates the various pitfalls of long-range comparatism), but still there are a lot proposals out there which are at least sufficiently cited to get a sentence or a paragraph in Wikipedia.

Another thing is that marcofamilies can stand on very different footings (Campbell even applies two parameters in his subjective but compelling tour-de-force assessment). Some are very promising and just need more data for a full and conclusive discussion (especially in the Amazon and Papuan areas), some have been bickered over ad nauseam (Altaic is prime example), some are just rubbish that has rotten in the dustbin of history and doesn't have to be dug out just for the sake of building WP articles. It still believe that we can do better justice to each proposal by either giving them space in a standalone article, but of course tightly monitored for WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:PROFRINGE issues, or by due mentions in articles of estabilshed language families in sections entitled "Proposed external relations" (or something like that). And of course, some proposals are just too insignificant and ephemeral even to be mentioned in WP. –Austronesier (talk) 20:53, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:PROFRINGE would relegate many of those articles to stubs. I think there are proposals like Nostratic, which while fringe now had historical acceptance, and Altaic, which has some minor degree of acceptance probably should have their own articles. Beyond that, I think it's entirely possible to relegate many of them to a few sentences in a larger article, which yes, would be a pretty substantial undertaking. But you can look at my talk page for a pretty prime example of the current state of Wikipedia's presentation of these topics deeply misinforming people, which is a real problem, and I'm concerned that the amount of hobby linguists really into these macrofamily proposals well outnumbers the amount of linguists able to dedicate time to making sure they're up to a scholarly standard. Wikipedia is actually a pretty major source of disinformation right now, as is. I took an absolute hatchet to Nostratic languages yesterday, but I suspect that I'll step away from the computer some time and the fringe will return, and if current interactions are anything to go off of the misinformation on wikipedia is creating a feedback loop of credibility for discredited theories.

I definitely think this needs to be a coordinated effort with a lot of linguists and a huge amount of effort before any article is made live, but I also think it could be beneficial to have an explicit statement of scholarly consensus on macrofamilies somewhere that editors, particularly those capable of making binding decisions on wikipedia, can see. It's a bit like infinite energy stuff on articles about physics, but unlike physics people don't have the baseline knowledge to know that what they're reading is probably way out there away from the mainstream, and often it seems reasonable to the lay-reader. See: the thing we're bumping into with Dravidian Languages. It's almost impossible for the average novice to understand why we both balked at an otherwise seemingly good paper. Warrenmck (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allan R. Bomhard (3rd nomination)

There is a project-related afd here, the input of Wikipedians familiar with the topic wold be welcome. Warrenmck (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with Bhoti

Bhoti is currently a disambiguation page listing various articles about languages called Bhoti. On the talk page, I've written a bit about why there should likely be one broad-concept article discussing all the "varieties" of Bhoti. If anyone with more technical expertise in sociolinguistics and/or historical linguistics could give their two cents on the thread, it would be much appreciated! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 16:01, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with cleaning up some articles and AfD concerns

I think there's value in removing pages such as Proto-Dené-Caucasian roots which contain wonderful statements like

• The inclusion of Na-Dené (here understood to include Haida)

• Sumerian has been included only as a tentative member. As with other ancient languages, much work remains to be done to elucidate its phonology. Besides Dené–Caucasian, Sumerian has also been compared to Nostratic (and/or its branches) and Austric (especially Munda).

(emphasis added)

There's a huge amount of bad linguistics on a lot of these articles which run directly counter to the academic consensus, and many of these treat fringe theories well outside the norm of academic consensus as a given in how they are written. I would like to spend some time doing a substantial overhaul of these articles, including AfDing some like above (rejected macrofamilies should, frankly, not have their own articles dedicated to reconstructed roots in my opinion, but I'd like to see other input), but I think I'm running up against an issue with the sheer volume that has been written by proponents of these theories creating a false narrative that these are controversial, rather than widely rejected (for example, I was recently accused of attempting to "push an agenda" for calling Nostratic a fringe theory).

As I mentioned in my post a couple of days ago, I think the solution here is to, with the exception of Nostratic (historical support and interest) and Altaic (ongoing interest despite lack of evidence, some serious scholarship still being done), most of the hypothetical macrofamily articles should be merged into one. I don't think we need thousands of words in tables explaining cognates in theories which are rejected by mainstream linguists, especially because I've seen more than a little clear evidence that the way these are presented are confusing lay-readers into assuming they are taken more seriously than just a proposal by one or two linguists. I'm afraid that my attempts to be bold look more reckless to people unfamiliar with historical linguistics, and I'd rather not do this solo in that context.

Given the liklihood that non-experts would weigh in, I think it's best if there is a coordinated effort to clean up some of the more fringe-adjascent articles on Wikipedia rather than attempting to do it solo and risk looking like I'm pushing an agenda. This is particlarly true when an idea falls so far outside the mainstream consensus that there actually aren't many linguists talking about it at all beyond a tiny cadre publishing on a given topic. It's quite challenging to provide negative evidence for things linguists don't take seriously, for obvious reasons. Warrenmck (talk) 22:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Are you planning on also merging Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen into the grab-bag macro-family article? AnonMoos (talk) 07:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

...with the exception of Nostratic and Altaic...: I haven't been sufficiently clear about it in my response in the a few sections further above, but 1) macrofamily proposals are not just some kind amorphous undifferentiated mass of bullshit. And 2) there are more notable macrofamily proposals than just Nostratic and Altaic. There are e.g. Penutian and Hokan which are heuristically appealing but actually not built on any significant amount of substantial evindence except for some interlocking lower-level proposals with various degrees of plausibility, yet these two marcofamilies have haunted the linguistics of Native American languages as high-visbility axioms for more than a century. Some proposals are only weakly supported by the data, but have gained much attention and coverage by scholars outside of linguistics and are often treated by them as established language families, e.g. Elamo-Dravidian or Dene-Yeniseian. Our readers will come across these proposals in otherwise very valuable literature about archeology, population genetics etc., so we need articles for these notable concepts in order to present what specialists have to say about them. And then there are success stories like Austro-Tai (and probably some others outside of my line of research).

Attempts to be overly bold will appear as reckless also to people familiar with historical linguistics. We should by all means avoid the kind of zealotism familiar from blogs, forums etc. that are indeed largely crowded by people unfamiliar with historical linguistics.

That said, trimming, pruning, purging, tagging, also merging, PROD-ing and AfD-ing where necessary, sure yes. There is too much in-universe detail in many of these articles that might give the wrong impression about the acceptance of these proposals. But I don't support anything that goes in the direction of a priori rejection as if historical linguistics already has reached the saturation point of estabilshed and establishable knowledge beyond which only crackpots dare to go. This is not representative of how historical linguists look at these things. –Austronesier (talk) 09:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

That’s entirely fair, which is why I didn’t want to proceed solo or recklessly. I think Dené-Yenesian in particular I wasn’t considering in the same breath as it does have a lot more acceptance. Elaml-Dravidian has so little consensus I’d merge it though. I’m not proposing purging all mention of these from Wikipedia, but rather the only way that some of these pad out an article to full length is to include a lot of rejected scholarship in them.

Our readers will come across these proposals in otherwise very valuable literature about archeology, population genetics etc

Which is is a pretty good reason to have a centralized place discussing these, in my opinion. Im not saying all should be labelled as crackpot theories, but rather a large number of these proposed macrofamilies are on equal footing in terms of how not seriously they’re taken due to the lack of evidence at present. Dene-Yenisian is a good example of where it probably should be expanded into an article, since the scholarship on that is lukewarm and growing, to an extent. The notion of Elamite as related to Dravidian languages isn’t, really.

We don’t need, nor would it be beneficial, to treat these as crackpot theories (arguable except those which clearly are), but rather that a fair treatment of many of these proposals which would make their standing clearer probably results in a stub-length article. Rather than a series of stubs discussing theories put forward by a small group of individuals, it gives each time to be presented on its merits with a high level discussion about the competitive method and current issues in addressing them.

And for certain I’m not familiar with the veracity of all macrofamily proposals, I am a little appalled by how many articles on Wikipedia take Nostratic and Altaic as a proven fact, however. Warrenmck (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

But I don't support anything that goes in the direction of a priori rejection as if historical linguistics already has reached the saturation point of estabilshed and establishable knowledge beyond which only crackpots dare to go.

I actually want to be very, very, very clear that this isn't my intent. I want to be careful to avoid Type I errors, so I don't think that there is anything to gain from describing these theories as rejected unless they explicitly are by consensus such as Proto-World or Nostratic, as much fruitful research does eventually come from some of these proposals. That said, the critiques of a lot of these proposals are pretty consistent, and articles on individual macrofamily proposals will inherently end up rehashing the same critiques article after article, with modification for the specific languages in question. Let's take Elamo-Dravidian as an example, there are four small sections plus the Spread of Farming section. That could very easily be truncated into two or three reasonable paragraphs with the infobox, and a link at the top to Elamite and the Dravidian languages, respectively. But again, I would like to seek consensus for something like this and you do raise some good points. Warrenmck (talk) 19:45, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Debate on whether linguistics is science

We are having a bit of a debate at Talk:Non-science#Place of linguistics (at the literal page Non-science, of all topics). Would love others to weigh in. Wolfdog (talk) 13:34, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The article Platdiets on Dutch Wikipedia

Hello. I need help with placing the citation needed tags. The article is almost completely unsourced and there is an editor who keeps edit warring with me, has zero interest in providing the required sources and now refuses to speak to me because I can't write in Dutch, which is ridiculous. Stonewalling at its best. Platdiets needs to be either filled with the CN tags or made into a redirect. Sol505000 (talk) 05:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

And there is another edit warrior on Chinese Wikipedia. Sol505000 (talk) 05:17, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Assuming those Wikipedias have similar rules and norms as this one, what you've done here may put you at a disadvantage as it is canvassing, and you should alert the relevant local noticeboards instead. Nardog (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Pannonian Romance

This article has been completely rewritten in a way that flatly contradicts earlier versions. More eyes would be welcome. Srnec (talk) 00:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with Draft:Please call Stella and phonemic pangrams

I'm trying to get together a page on phonemic and phonetic pangrams, specifically those used in speech and accent research. I drafted a page on Please call Stella but realise that there are more sentences that have been used but that finding their first use is difficult. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Ej159 (talk) 10:59, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Walhaz#Requested move 1 August 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Walhaz#Requested move 1 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. SilverLocust 💬 14:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

This is about whether to include an asterisk at the beginning of most reconstructed words (Category:Reconstructed words) in titles. For example, *Walhaz. The pages are Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic reconstructed words. SilverLocust 💬 14:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/H₂weh₁yú - we could use expert opinions

Our article starts out:

"H₂weh₁-yú is the reconstructed name of the god of the wind in Proto-Indo-European mythology."

Our AfD nomination:

"This is not an encyclopedic topic. It is a bunch of synthesis based around a name that is not attested by anyone other than Proto-Indo-European reconstructionists. It is a modern creation being fraudulently passed off as ancient."

I can't tell for sure but I suspect some of the other participants don't know what they're taking about. I know I don't.

I think this discussion could benefit strongly from participation by people who know something about Proto-Indo-European topics. A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 22:46, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I tried adding a general statement about historical linguistics and how reconstructions work but this is a deep, deep cut. Warrenmck (talk) 01:02, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your assessment!

--01:09, 5 August 2023 (UTC) A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 01:09, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Please help with "local" pronunciation at Talk:Toronto

I'm trying to get the "local pronunciation" in the opening sentence of Toronto fixed or removed, but (a) as an IP, I can't edit a locked article; and (b) participants in the Talk discussion have declined to help as they have no understanding of IPA, and are unable to understand the notation and jargon in this PDF.

There's a commenter who insists they hear [ə] instead of [oʊ] in videos such as this. I don't know how to respond to this.

See: Talk:Toronto#"Local" pronunciation is archaic (note: I made an initial error in assuming the "[təˈɹɒɾ̃ə] / [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə]" pronunciation given was "archaic". It turns out it's a rural, non-local pronunciation, rather than a local one that's fallen out of use). 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:AE4C:7DF0:1BA5:297E (talk) 11:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Y Done. By the way, a better link to The 10 and 3's article is this. Wolfdog (talk) 15:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

While you guys are at it, I’m pretty sure Seattle’s pronunciation guide is wrong? There’s definitely a dark L in there for most speakers. Warrenmck (talk) 21:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Warrenmck: That's true, we just don't usually represent dark L's in our Wikipedia lead-sentence pronunciations, which tend to be phonemic rather than phonetic. Wolfdog (talk) 22:21, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

While I personally wish it was a little less of a broad transcription, fair enough! Warrenmck (talk) 23:09, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, @Wolfdog:, though I'd hoped for participation in the talk page discussion first. I hope this doesn't turn into a revert war or something. One of the commenters there was being awfully aggressive. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:15A6:AC05:C486:C3CD (talk) 21:35, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Transcription conventions and a Chesapeake Islands dialect

I'm currently working on an article for the dialect of Tangier, Virginia in a sandbox (feel free to edit). I've found a couple of journal articles that go into great detail on the specifics of vowel stressing in this dialect, but I'm very much unfamiliar with WP's IPA conventions and how they would map to the transcriptions provided in the journal articles. These articles are also from the '80s and use conventions that slightly differ from the ones I'm familiar with, which complicates things a little more. I'm specifically referring to the table in the "Phonological features section"; any help with this would be much appreciated. AviationFreak💬 05:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Have you had a look at the article High Tider? Those sources may have better use in that article instead of a new one. Nardog (talk) 05:38, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I have, but I'm pretty sure Tangier's dialect not only clears the GNG through both scholarly and media sources, but also is reasonably distinct in terms of features. There even seems to be some difference between the dialects of Smith and Tangier despite their geographic proximity. AviationFreak💬 05:56, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

In fact, from what I see, "High Tider" terminology is typically reserved for North Carolina in sources. I don't see most sources referring to Smith Island's dialect as being a part of that sphere, so if anything I think a more source-reflecting article structure would be "High Tider Dialect" and "Chesapeake Islands Dialect" (or splitting Chesapeake Islands into Tangier and Smith, depending on what sources say about Smith's dialect compared to that of Tangier's). AviationFreak💬 06:09, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Simple past § Merger discussion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Simple past § Merger discussion. A user has proposed merging Simple past to Preterite. Cnilep (talk) 07:33, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Explanation of linguistics use of * and ?

Per a discussion at WT:DYK § Horror aequi, I was wondering if some boilerplate explanations of the use of * and ? in linguistic contexts could be discussed here before using them in articles. (See Asterisks § Linguistics for more info on the subject.) My suggestions are (depending on the usage):

1. An asterisk before a form indicates an ungrammatical or impossible form, while a question mark indicates that the form is questionable, but not outright ungrammatical.
2. An asterisk marks words or phrases that are not directly recorded in texts or other media, but that are reconstructed on the basis of other linguistic material.

I'm not crazy about using "form" in the first example, but "word, phrase or sentence" is a little long.

What think ye? Is there already something better out there? —  AjaxSmack  18:00, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

How about the number sign for infelicitous or semantically ill-formed utterances? Aamri2 (talk) 22:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think a lengthy explanation is needed in an article. The text already explains what is meant; you could just add "marked with X" where relevant. For instance, then it could say "the latter of each pair is unacceptable (marked with *)" and "...can be nearly incomprehensible (marked with ?)". You could link to the article(s) explaining the symbols in detail, I guess. But this makes it easier to stay close to the sources. The text should in any case make it clear what an example is supposed to show. //Replayful (talk | contribs) 08:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I actually think a larger problem can be pointed to here: any page that employs such symbols should either define them or pipe them to some article that will explain their meaning. For example, the template IPAc-en sends newcomers in a helpful direction. Wolfdog (talk) 22:47, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Proto-Dené–Caucasian language and Proto-Dené-Caucasian roots at AfD

Since the Dené–Caucasian languages appear to be lumpering, I've nominated their proto-languages for outright deletion rather than merger. Feel free to discuss the nomination if you are so inclined. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 03:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Proto-Altaic Language at AfD

In the spirit of @John M Wolfson's AfD above, I've thrown up Proto-Altaic as well. Please join the discussion if you're interested. Warrenmck (talk) 21:02, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Variety → Lect RM

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Variety (linguistics) § Requested move 25 September 2023. Nardog (talk) 23:23, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Merger discussions for various Southern England dialects

Please contribute thoughts to two merger discussions:

1. Proposal to merge Norfolk dialect and Suffolk dialect into East Anglian English; see reasons here.
2. Proposal to merge Essex dialect, Kentish dialect, Sussex dialect, and Surrey dialect into English language in Southern England (specifically, the already-existing section English language in Southern England#19th-century Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey English; see reasons here.

Thanks for any comments. Wolfdog (talk) 01:30, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

FAC of Communication

Hello, I wanted to let you know that I nominated the article Communication for featured article status, see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Communication/archive1. So far, there has not been much response from reviewers and I was wondering whether some of the people here are inclined to have a look at it. If you have the time, I would appreciate your comments. For a short FAQ of the FA reviewing process, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:00, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Help-class

See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics/Archive 21 § Project-independent quality assessments, and Template talk:WikiProject Linguistics § Help class proposal

Hello project members! Note that per WP:PIQA, all the class ratings are being harmonised across different WikiProjects so we are looking to remove any non-standard classes like Help-class from your banner. If Help-class is removed, then all the pages in Category:Help-Class Linguistics articles will go back into Category:NA-Class Linguistics articles where they were originally. Please let me know if you have any questions — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:27, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Ontology of articles on Chinese Characters

• Talk:Written vernacular Chinese#Proposed merge of Modern Chinese characters into Written vernacular Chinese

There is a discussion about what ontology to use to organize a series of articles about Chinese Characters. A key topic is what ontological patterns have been used for other similar groups of articles about other languages, so I'm seeking views from editors that have experience in this space. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 20:39, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

AfD note

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unsolved problems in linguistics. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 00:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

ALL-CAPS for "keywords for lexical sets"?

See [3]: An anon is putting various words in ALL-CAPS (misusing {{sc2}} in the form {{sc2|FOOT}} which simply outputs regular all-caps not small caps), insists this is proper for "keywords for lexical sets", and claims that this is how they "are generally represented ... across Wikipedia", yet I have never encountered this before here, and it is not to be found in MOS:ALLCAPS or any other guideline I'm aware of. The anon seems to want to do this for any word containing a sound that is under discussion in the article, such as the ʊ in foot, to be rendered FOOT. I can't see any rationale for doing that instead of just writing foot. If there's a good reason to do it after all, then it needs to be accounted for at MOS:ALLCAPS. However, it seems to conflict with a specialized linguistic use already codified there:

* In linguistics and philology, glossing of text or speech uses small caps for the standardized abbreviations of functional morpheme types (e.g. PL, AUX) ....

The only thing like this I'm finding elsewhere on-site is at Help:IPA/English, where it has been done seemingly to random words, then veering back into lower-case, e.g.:

ɔː — THOUGHT, audacious, caught

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

It is standard (on Wikipedia and elsewhere discussing English phonology) to have keywords for lexical sets in all caps, see Lexical set, Fronting (sound change) (See "GOOSE-fronting"), the alternate name LOT–THOUGHT merger in Cot–caught merger, throughout in English phonology, New Zealand English phonology, Rhoticity in English etc., etc. Umimmak (talk) 23:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Also see : Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 26#I'm still confused on difference between sc and sc2 templates Umimmak (talk) 01:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, there's some followup discussion at Talk:Hiberno-English#Merger of monophthong and diphthong sections (which is rather confusingly trying to address two things at once, but this is one of them). Anyway, the fact that some people write a lexical set this way doesn't seem to imply that it is "standard" that WP has to follow, especially when it is not likely to signify anything to more than a vanishingly small fraction of readers. Where is this standard published, and what body issued it? Also, doing {{sc2|GOOSE}} seems to serve no purpose at all, since it renders and copy-pastes the same as just typing GOOSE without a template. If we're certain we want to render lexical sets in all-caps, then this should be accounted for at MOS:ALLCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:05, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

some people write a lexical set this way — everyone writes the keyword to lexical sets in small caps (or all caps if there are typological limitations). The IP editor and I have both provided a few of the many Wikipedia pages already doing this, because the sources used for writing the articles also do this because everyone who refers to keywords for lexical sets does so in capital letters. See myriad sources noting this explicitly if you search Wells lexical sets "small caps" in Google Books.

These are J.C. Wells’ lexical sets, so if people make use of his sets they follow his typographical conventions (1982, p. xviii):

Words written in capitals
Throughout the work, use is made of the concept of standard lexical sets. These enable one to refer concisely to large groups of words which tend to share the same vowel, and to the vowel which they share. They are based on the vowel correspondences which apply between British Received Pronunciation and (a variety of) General American, and make use of keywords intended to be unmistakable no matter what accent one says them in. Thus 'the KIT words' refers to 'ship, bridge, milk . . .'; 'the KIT vowel' refers to the vowel these words have (in most accents, /ɪ/); both may just be referred to as KIT.

Note this isn’t in violation of MOS:WAW because GOOSE is referring to more than just the word goose.

Also GOOSE and GOOSE do appear differently so I’m confused what you mean by them rendering the same? Umimmak (talk) 12:22, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/ELRA Language Resources Association

Your input is invited at Articles for deletion/ELRA Language Resources Association

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Linguistic elaboration

Hi, folks! Hope you're doing well. Found this redirect, Linguistic elaboration, but the phrase doesn't show up and is not linked anywhere in Wikipedia. Thought I'd ask some knowledgeable Wikipedians because I don't want to take it to WP:RfD if it's easier to insert and wikilink the phrase somewhere and "rescue" it that way.

Details: the target article, Abstand and ausbau languages, doesn't even have the string "elaborat" (the closest is langue par élaboration). Autonomy and heteronomy defines ausbau as the elaboration of a language to serve as a literary standard; Standard language mentions elaboration of function (and defines Ausbau as further linguistic development).

An extremely rushed Internet search has led me to "linguistic elaboration" as a translation of sprachlicher Ausbau, a concept introduced by Kloss (1929) and popularized by Haugen (1966).

tl;dr what should I do? a) take the "Linguistic elaboration" redirect to RfD or b) find some way of mentioning or wikilinking the phrase in existing articles? Thanks in advanced for reading and for any input!

References

Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:58, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Mr. Guye: who created the redirect in question. Umimmak (talk) 09:53, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

• (pinged) You can take it to RfD for deletion, I don't remember why I created it, though it probably did have to do with the translation from German. My guess is that I was trying to find a general term for the subject (e.g. "magnetic polarity" instead of "positive magnetism and negative magnetism") but I don't think this term does a good job of that (and could be considered OR), so I have no issue with deletion, especially since I am not an expert on the subject. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  02:59, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

FAR for Harold Innis

I have nominated Harold Innis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the 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 "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 01:29, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Specialization (linguistics)

The discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Specialization (linguistics) has been relisted three times but has received minimal participation. If you have ideas about the article, please consider commenting. Cnilep (talk) 03:50, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion on Talk:Romance languages: Representation of Classical Latin–Vulgar Latin split in infobox?

If anyone here is interested in this discussion, it can be found at Talk:Romance languages#Representation of Classical Latin–Vulgar Latin split in infobox? Arctic Circle System (talk) 09:56, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Help needed in Synthetic language

More than a month ago, I opened a discussion in Talk:Synthetic language#Fusional and agglutinating languages, about a number of changes by a single editor in Synthetic language, changes that I found flawed. There's been no reply so far. Please help, any comment is welcome. Jotamar (talk) 22:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Please anyone familiar with Mandarin/Dahalo/Danish/Loloish phonology take a look at alveolar approximant

This article, terribly Anglocentric until 27 February 2015, is still somewhat lacking a global viewpoint. The recording since 27 February 2015 may be somehow called an "alveolar approximant" but anyone who read John Wells uses the detailed transcriptions ⟨sz̞ᵚ⟩ for si and The Nuosu language has two similar "buzzed" vowels that are described as syllabic fricatives, [β̩, ɹ̝̍]. from apical vowel, an article itself is also problematic and labelled by me, would find the two alveolar approximant totally different, much more different than the recording of the alveolar approximant and of the postalveolar approximant.

I initiated a discussion after the thread of a German IP: Talk:Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants#Two symbols; only one explained. However, given the fact that the exact nature of the stereotypical "rhoticized alveolar" approximant (such as the recording) as opposed to plain alveolar approximant is not at all well-studied, it is unlikely to give a wellsourced scientifical definition in Wikipedia. However, the writing of Wikipedia should not work against common sense, when the ears of a billion people can notice the difference of the sound it is no longer a minor difference but a phonemical difference or at least a difference of potentially phonemical importance. I have basically stopped actively pushing the idea of separation of the two sounds but the writing style of that article should be changed. Ten years ago when I first read that article I found it absurd because no matter how hard I try I cannot articulate any sound that is remotely similar to the English sometimes alveolar sometimes postalveolar approximant, and always get a acoustically non-rhoticized sound - this is not what Wikipedia intends to do. I no longer actively push the idea not only because the topic is itself not well-studied but treated like an elephant in the room by people in the circle, but also because I myself cannot give an accurately describe all ways to make an alveolar approximant rhotacized (what I can say is, when one keeps one's tongue flat except for the articulation point it's a plain sound while when one's tongue is relaxed and curled somewhere other than the articulation point, or sulcalized, etc. it tends to produce a rhotacized sound acoustically not very different from a postalveolar approximant) and I do not want to give any original research or even misstatements (I might already did by saying Huashan Mandarin has two oral alveolar approximants phonemically but they seem to be only semi-phonemically different). It is much easier to say the difference is not something than is something: I can seriously tell that Sol505000's idea that the Dahalo and English difference is apical/laminal difference or the difference between alveolar this way and postalveolar were wrong and original research, but I don't want to characterize it either (if someone can characterize this acoustic rhoticity by F3+ it's highly appreciated). Both Nardog and Sol505000 in the discussion are unfamiliar with the topic (Mandarin/Dahalo/Danish/Loloish phonology, thus outside that part of the academic circle) so I don't trust their opinion, and I don't trust myself either. So please if anyone in the circle can take part in that discussion I would appreciate that and may comfortably leave the talk. Note that the discussion were filled with unrelated wording-problem such as "rhotic". Here's the last version that distinguishes the rhoticized alveolar from plain alveolar approximant, where you can find the academic primary source that indicate the Huashan Mandarin to have two semi-phonemically distinct alveolar approximant:

• BLCU Centre for the Protection of Language Resources of China (2020), "Chinese Language Resources Protection Project Collection and Display Platform", National Language Affairs Committee {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help), entry 安徽马鞍山花山霍里街道.
• It is not hard to find sources for Dahalo and Danish soft D sound that are never perceived as English r by English speakers.

(P.S. With the help of pronouncing a rhotic alveolar approximant as in the recording, I now can pronounce a strongly fricative alveolar or even dentialveolar sibilant, apical or laminal, that are acoustically not very different from a postalveolar/retroflex sibilant, but this may be entirely a different topic and may be just a strongly hushing dentialveolar.)

The separation of sounds dealt in the article is also ad hoc: I didn't see any source making a separation between apical postalveolar and apical retroflex approximants phonemically, I guess the only difference is how back your tongue curls but both Mandarin and English seemed to have the two adjacent approximants in free variation (some even argued that all Mandarin retroflex series are all merely postalveolar - tongue tip not going toward as back as palatal). Given the fact that when pronouncing an approximant your tongue doesn't touch the passive place of articulation, the difference between the two are even harder to define. However, Wikipedia has them in different articles anyway. On the other hand, Sol505000 (talk · contribs) argued that dentialveolar approximant would be my original research, well I am not sure but I have seen some Chinese linguistic graduate student using "prealveolar approximant" [ɹ̟̍] in their blog to describe the Chinese flat-tongued apical vowel because the stereotypical rhotic alveolar approximant is acoustically too different from that apical vowel but sounds closer to retroflex apical vowel. Of course saying a dentialveolar approximant to have a passive place of articulation sharply at the edge between your teeth and your alveolar ridge is not possible, but I don't think use the term "dentialveolar approximant" to emphasize the sound to be neither close to interdental/front dental nor close to the Dahalo-like "alveolar tending toward post-alveolar" may cause any problems. I have no idea why Sol505000 considers the distinction between apical postalvelar and apical retroflex to be founded while dentialveolar to be unfounded, and I would promote the ExtIPA [ð͇˕] for Dahalo language apical-alveolar series instead of [ð̠˕] because the current usage of [t̠] and [d̠] in Dahalo language is not quite accurate. 146.96.28.10 (talk) 02:59, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I have also included many well-sourced examples of Sinitic languages, which are reverted by Sol505000 without explanation. Nardog once had some problem with it but they no longer opposes that. My point is, if the article apical vowel describes the these vowels in three controversial ways, these examples should be listed as examples in all three articles rather than neither. Similar treatment should be done with the Mandarin final nasal approximants (like the Burmese one), such as Tian'anmen (tʰjɛ́͢ð̠̃˕.á͢ð̠̃˕.mə̌͢ð̠̃˕): if Mandarin phonology describes it in some way, it deserves to be mentioned as an example in corresponding articles. The awkward treatment of apical vowel and the IPA rejection of Sinologist IPA shouldn't be used as a tool to intentionally ignore the existance of these sounds in Mandarin (I personally find it very discriminative to assign Swedish ɧ an IPA symbol but the Chinese ones and Danish ones rejected). The latest version with these example but without the controversial rhotacized/plain difference is here. --146.96.28.10 (talk) 04:08, 2 December 2023 (UTC)