Talk:Proto-Japonic language

Notice about multiple issues in the article

Hello!

While making a complaint on the issues of this article (copy-and-pasted almost entirely from a Wikipedia article, obsolute sources and etc..), I accidentally added copyright issues on the article about Proto-Japonic.

I beg for a pardon for this and I apologize for the error!

-Newroderick895

Two of those issue templates don't seem justified to me:

• Copy-paste: It wasn't copy-pasted, the content about Proto-Japonic got too large and was split out from Japonic languages into a separate article. The two articles now have different content. For comparison, it's the difference between Romance languages (an article on the modern and known Romance languages) and Proto-Romance language (the reconstructed ancestor of those languages).
• Unreliable sources: Why are any of them unreliable?

— Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 16:50, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable/obsolete sources? These are overwhelmingly 21th century sources, and represent top-quality scholarship. @Newroderick895: please tag sources which deem problematic to you, otherwise the template is moot.
Further, get familiar with WP:SPLIT. The necessary context is in the mother article Japonic languages. –Austronesier (talk) 17:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: On second thought, I see almost no obsolete sources upon checking on a handful, with few exceptions. (although there is one that suggested ɨ as the seventh vowel in proto-Japonic, now rejected by most scholars. Also don't know if this is necessary.). Nevertheless I still have some problems at hand detailing this article, mostly on how PJ *itu is reconstructed and other miscellaneous stuff. Newroderick895 19:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Most authors do reject *ɨ, but they usually take the time to say so.

PJ *itu 'five' is sourced to Whitman (2012). What is the source for an alternative form? Kanguole 09:33, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Upon thinking harder on the matter, I decide to respectfully detract my arguments here, due the fact that I was wrong with initially suggesting PJ *etu (five) as the the correct answer to this. Initally tried suggesting so because Miyakoan yields itsï and therefore incorrectly assumed *etu as the etymology, atleast the one on Wiktionary. I apologize for the mistake.

Also what I wanted to further clarify; why do the languages on the numeral sections on the page (Shuri, Hatoma) not be renamed as Central Okinawan and Yaeyaman respectively? If they are the names of the languages' respective dialects then I would understand without any confusion, but how come? Ideally there also should be more available Ryukyuan languages there of in the Japonic numeral list and of those should belong to one distinguishable language entirely, instead of one individual dialect in that language. Newroderick895 (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Wiktionary needs to be used with caution. That PJ entry, the corresponding PR entry, and many other PJ&PR entries are completely unsourced.

It seems fairly common to specify the dialect used when dealing with non-standardized languages. The intention of the table is to give a spread of Ryukyuan examples to compare with the other forms. A larger selection might be appropriate for a Proto-Ryukyuan page, but seems out of place here. Kanguole 16:32, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kanguole: Either way, it most certainly clears up confusion for beginners in the topic with a format of something like this; Central Okinawan (Shuri) and Yaeyaman (Hatoma). It's an ideal compromise at best I would say anyways. Makes it easier to distinguish a separate language in a separate branch much easier.Newroderick895 (talk) 17:23, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted the Ryukyuan numeral forms to the IPA versions given by the cited sources, which seems more appropriate for dialectal material than a pseudo-Hepburn romanization. For example, recasting Hatoma /h/ as /f/ is something of a distortion. Kanguole 11:28, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Three Ryukyuan varieties are sufficient, with representatives of Northern, Southern and the highly divergent Yonaguni. Any more should go in the Ryukyuan languages article. I'm not sure why you consider Pellard's report on Ōgami "incredibly inaccurate",[1] but the 2015 source is a study of an unpublished Russian manuscript from the 1920s, which makes it rather difficult to use. Kanguole 23:51, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kanguole: In what ways is it difficult to use? An answer for this would be appreciated. Also, what I meant by incredibly inaccurate is unknown. Don't really know why, I'm afraid, possibly mixed up a source. Also, having only three out of possibly six Ryukyuan languages. Four or even five in my opinion is already sufficient enough for convenient comparison between Ryukyuan languages. Newroderick895 (talk) 20:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)