Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics

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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

Order	Example	Usage		Languages
SOV	"Sam oranges ate."	45%	45	Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Ainu, Amharic, Ancient Greek, Akkadian, Armenian, Avar, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bambara, Basque, Bengali, Burmese, Burushaski, Chukchi, Elamite, Hindustani, Hittite, Hopi, Hungarian, Itelmen, Japanese, Kabardian, Korean, Kurdish, Latin, Lhasa Tibetan, Malayalam, Manchu, Mongolian, Navajo, Nepali, Nivkh, Oromo, Pali, Pashto, Persian, Quechua, Sanskrit, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Tigrinya, Turkish, Yukaghir
SVO	"Sam ate oranges."	42%	42	Arabic (modern spoken varieties), Chinese, English, French, Hausa, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Kashmiri, Malay, Modern Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Standard Average European, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese
VSO	"Ate Sam oranges."	9%	9	Arabic (modern standard), Berber languages, Biblical Hebrew, Filipino, Geʽez, Irish, Māori, Scottish Gaelic, Tongan, Welsh
VOS	"Ate oranges Sam."	3%	3	Algonquian languages, Arawakan languages, Austronesian languages, Car, Chumash, Fijian, Malagasy, Mayan languages, Otomanguean languages, Qʼeqchiʼ, Salishan languages, Terêna
OVS	"Oranges ate Sam."	1%	1	Hixkaryana, Urarina
OSV	"Oranges Sam ate."	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)

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)

References

Third opinion for Talk:Hindi request

@Austronesier and I can't achieve consensus on our last discussion on the talk page. I'd like a third opinion. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:52, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

The misleading Adage redirect

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Proverb#Adage needs to stop redirecting here. Summary: Proverb has a very narrow scope, and that of the term adage is much wider (proverb is a traditional folkloric subset). We probably need a set-index article for such terms, either a new one at Adage itself, or develop the even more generalized bare list at Saying into a proper set-index article with encyclopedic content not just links to articles. At any rate, Adage needs a more appropriate link target than just going to Proverb.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:06, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Long-term OR abuser, now inactive

Thanks go to Doric Loon for this removal of an entirely unsourced OR paragraph at English phrasal verbs. Unfortunately, that paragraph survived ten years in the article, added in 2012 by Tjo3ya (talk · contribs), now inactive. Glancing at their contrib history, they were a heavy contributor to linguistics-related articles, and I notice an unusual proportion of their edits being reverted by other editors, some fat cuts and restores, and where content is added, it's either unsourced (diff1, diff2) or appears to have a citation or two, but they often don't back the preceding article content, instead, they are more of a forward-looking, "see-also"-style explanatory note within <ref> tags, of the "See Foo & Bar (2000) for a debate" type thing. There are a lot of big cuts of 5, 10, or 20kb of content, indicating a bold style, but that bothers me less, as at least they don't introduce OR content (well, one can't be sure without examining the diff, but probably not) and mostly they are not reverted.

The 2012 OR paragraph at English phrasal verbs is the first time I've encountered Tjo3ya, so I don't really know how much damage they may have done. I wonder if anyone who enjoys gnoming articles for old OR content would like to try and tackle this, or at least, provide a better idea of the scope of the problem? I notice that Botterweg14 appears to have tangled with them in April 2021 at Predicate (grammar), and had edits at half a dozen other linguistics articles around the same time, so perhaps they will recollect those edits and be able to give their impressions about this editor, in order to to better scope the extent of the problem, if indeed there is a problem. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:45, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

The problem is generally WP:NPOV more than WP:OR. Their contributions often argued in Wikivoice for their idiosyncratic version of dependency grammar, and even their less argumentative contributions still give undue weight. I removed some blatant instances, as did Kaĉjo, but there's still a lot out there. This isn't trivial to fix, since this editor was the main person working on syntax articles for quite a while, and their problematic contributions are often intertwined with good ones. I'll do what I can when I have time, but unfortunately their battleground behavior contributed to an unwelcoming environment for many of the people best positioned to fix it. Botterweg14 (talk) 03:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

To add to this: their idiosyncratic version of dependency grammar is based on the notion of a catena, so I used Special:WhatLinksHere/Catena_(linguistics) a couple of times. The trouble was that, when edited to give a neutral point of view on catenas, the passages generally looked OK to me, but gave undue weight to this theory in the context of the article. So the best solution (I thought, not being very familiar with wiki guidelines) would be not so much to cut down on the catena content but to add content about other approaches to make articles more representative. Unfortunately this would take much more work than simply cutting down on catena content, and should also be done with someone with much more knowledge of syntax than myself. Kaĉjo (talk) 16:01, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Pinging Mundart and RM_Dechaine, since their syntax expertise goes far beyond mine. Botterweg14 (talk) 03:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)