Talk:General Language

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Indigenous peoples of the Americas Low‑importance

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Merging; NY Times article

As having contributed a little to the article "Nhengatu", I agree that it should be merged with this one ("Língua Geral"), since these articles are about, as far as I can tell, exactly the same language. One thing I would do, however, is make the distinction between what one of my sources lists as (1) "Língua Geral of São Paulo" (which I think is the same as "Língua Geral Paulista" mentioned in the article) and (2) "Língua Geral of Amazônia". According to my sources, it is the second of these (L.G. of Amazônia) which is the ancestor of Nheengatú; the first one (L.G. of São Paulo) has no descendants.

I'm a bit puzzled about the number of speakers listed for the language in the NY Times article (30,000); this number doesn't agree with SIL's Ethnologue, which puts it at 8,000 (another source has only 3,000). I'm more inclined to agree with Ethnologue, which isn't perfect but is widely consulted by linguists. Journalists, even those writing for the NY Times, sometimes get things wrong or just accept as fact what they hear from people they interview. S. Neuman 17:49, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This difference is probably due to some confusion in the attempt to separate the number of first language speakers from that of second language speakers, as Nheengatú is primarily a contact language - and also the fact that in the Amazonian region natives often speak 3 to 5 languages, sometimes even among different members of their family, so it is hard to establish a clear figure of first and/or second language speakers for most major languages.201.37.64.107 00:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My changes

I changed the order of the paragraphs to show the living language first and the extinct one second.
I put Nheenhgatu up front in bold so that this can stand as the central (sole) article for both LG and Nheehgatu.
Also, a question: is LG an "Indigenous language of the Americas" (I haven't researched that category)? --Dpr 03:13, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]