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RfC: What should the language infobox display when editors have not found any speaker figures?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus to display nothing. The majority opinion is that displaying "no data" is confusing and has multiple possible reasons that could explain the wording, and that showing nothing shows there is no data. The proposal has no consensus as the participants in the RFC that replied are to evenly split on the proposal. AlbinoFerret 19:17, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

In the case that editors have looked for speaker figures, but have not found any, they can set the parameter |speakers= of Template:Infobox language to ?. This currently causes the infobox to display “Native speakers (no data)”. There are two questions:

  1. Should we display something in this case, or should we display nothing?
  2. If we should display something, then what should it say?

--mach 🙈🙉🙊 09:35, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Survey

  • Don’t display anything. – When there is lack of information about an infobox item such as native speakers, then this item should be concealed, see MOS:INFOBOX#Causes of inconsistency. The infobox is no place to tell the readers that editors have looked for speaker figures, but have not found any. The current wording “(no data)” is unclear and ambiguous: It does not actually tell the reader that editors have looked for speaker figures, but have not found any; and we cannot possibly verify that there is “no data” – at best, we can verify that a particular source does not contain any data. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 09:35, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Both Comment I haven't made up my mind but I have made up my mind, see my reasoning and proposed solution below. I do want to point out an important distinction. There are two reasons for lack of speaker data, one is that the data simply have not been collected, but the second is that the data exists but we editors haven't found it yet. I think we maybe should make that distinction, but I'm not sure how and whether it's actually too practical on the whole. Wugapodes (talk) 21:07, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
    Also, regardless of what conclusion we come to, I strongly oppose using footnotes like that one that was added a few days ago. It messed with a number of articles, including one I have at FAC, by including a note in a reference section. Hard-coding a note into a template leaves very little customizability for editors which is problematic for something as variable as reference and footnote formatting. Wugapodes (talk) 21:14, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
    How would you know the difference between a piece of information that hasn't been collected and one that you haven't found? Under what circumstances would we be able to provably, citably state that a figure has been collected, but not be able to state what that figure was? This "important distinction" would simply give a place for the editor's personal opinion of whether or not the information is out there somewhere - which doesn't sound very wiki to me.Chuntuk (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
    If a source states that there's no estimate, we can say that, otherwise we presume we as editors haven't found one (regardless of the reason we haven't). There are four possible situations: 1) An estimate exists and editors have found it in a reliable source, 2) an estimate does not exist and editors have found that statement in a reliable source, 3) an estimate exists and editors have not found it in a reliable source, 4) an estimate does not exists and editors have not found an estimate in reliable sources (because it isn't there). Those last two are functionally the same: there are then three knowledge conditions editors can have: we know an estimate (#1), we know we can't know an estimate yet (#2), and we don't know if we can know an estimate (#3 and 4). We need a way to distinguish between those last two. The last one is a default, we don't know what we don't know, but when we do know what we don't know (and it's stated so in reliable sources) we need a way to put that in the infobox. We can't conflate those two because it's an important distinction that some articles need to make. Wugapodes (talk) 23:31, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
    That's why whenever we place "No data" in the infobox there should either be a paragraph in the article or a footnote which describes the lack of data in reliable sources and records our efforts to find those data. That will give the ambitious editor a clear jumping off point if he/she wishes to try and find the data in some utterly obscure source rather than having to trek through the already examined places. --Taivo (talk) 00:32, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
    I disagree as I feel that 1) it can easily be construed as self referential and 2) it will lead to a lack of consistency which is the opposite of what we want in an infobox. Now that I've put more thought into it, I think that we should display "(no data)" in cases of #2 from above (reliable source says no estimates available) and display nothing otherwise. I'm going to come up with a proposal below. Wugapodes (talk) 02:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Display the text "No data" and then manually add a footnote that indicates why there are no data. The footnote should not be "hard code", but customized for each language/dialect article where it appears. If there is already a section in the article that discusses the lack of speaker figures, then the text in the infobox should read "See section XXX". --Taivo (talk) 01:54, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
The reason we must display something is that this is one of the major pieces of information that readers will be looking for when they come to a language/dialect article. To just leave it blank violates principles of usability. It requires readers to waste their time looking for other sources when we have already looked and not found anything. If some editor in the future finds something in an obscure source written in Swahili that no one has seen before, this is not the beginning of the apocalypse. It just means that the new editor changes the entry in the infobox. There are no criminal charges filed by wikilawyers against past editors who looked, but failed to find any valid information in reliable sources. But we waste our readers' time by not providing them the key piece of information from the beginning--that we've already made a good faith effort to find the information, but it's not out there. --Taivo (talk) 22:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
There is no evidence that speaker figures are “one of the major pieces of information that readers will be looking for when they come to a language/dialect article” – that is just a POV by you and kwami. Not even the Ethnologue says anything about speaker figures when there are none (see [1]). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 10:06, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
It's too bad that what was a decent, well-mannered discussion had to be turned into your continued personal attack against me and Kwami. You have no evidence that speaker numbers are not one of the primary pieces of information that readers are looking for when they first investigate a language/dialect article. Whether Ethnologue displays that information or not is immaterial to the discussion here. --Taivo (talk) 13:54, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
I am merely pointing out that the burden of proof is always on the side of those who want to include an information. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 15:26, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Don’t display anything. "No data" is a positive statement that no data exists anywhere any I'm not sure how often we can be confident that that is the case.©Geni (talk) 22:26, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Display nothing, "Wikipedians haven't found the sources", "the research has not been done", and "it's impossible for the research to ever be done" are all three different cases that "no data" confuses. We don't use "no data"-kinds of meta-commentary for other fields in infoboxes. They're infoboxes, not "WeDunnoBoxes".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:22, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Display the text "No data". "No data" is ambiguous enough that it doesn't violate OR, despite Mach's insistence that is makes a specific claim. (It could simply mean no data is available to WP, and even if we were to find a source that says no data is available, that only means no data is available to them, not that there is no data at all.) If an editor likes, an explanatory note can be added via the ref= field. — kwami (talk) 19:54, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
What I am insisting on is precisely that a mere “no data” is too ambiguous. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:19, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
We don't want to make it more precise because we can't count on every article being the same. I think "no data" is just fine. You object that "no data" is too ambiguous, but also that we can't make it unambiguous because that's OR, so your only solution is to hide our ignorance from the reader, which is at best a disservice and at worst dishonest. — kwami (talk) 00:15, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
I am not saying that we can’t make it [“no data”] unambiguous because that’s OR – what I am saying is that it is too ambiguous: It can be read as a disclosure of our ignorance or it can be read as a verifiable claim. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:16, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Don't display anything (as the Ethnologue does in such cases). Later editors may be helped by a record of the sources in which no information was found in a comment or (probably better) on the talk page, but this is editorial data that does not belong in the visible text and would be unhelpful clutter in the infobox. Kanguole 11:46, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Don't display anything if we can't find a reliable source for the estimate or for the fact that there is no estimate. Display "no estimate exists" if there is a reliable source for that. Don't use "no data" because readers won't know if that means there isn't any data anywhere or just that the authors of the article didn't have any. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:43, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
That's not a relevant distinction. There's generally no way to know if there's no data anywhere. All we can know is what is in our sources, and "no data" sums that up adequately. — kwami (talk) 01:56, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
I disagree. The wording “no data” only adequately sums up a source if the source affirms that there is no data. It does not adequately explain to the reader that editors have looked for sources, but have not found any. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 09:54, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Don't display anything I can't see any way that "no data" is less ambiguous than not showing anything. The only time I can see this being what should be written is when a reliable source has stated "there is no data about speaker figures". If we simply can't find a source we shouldn't make any statement about the availability of the information. Sam Walton (talk) 13:18, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Don't display anything Lack of information is expresed by ... (surprise!) no information is displayed. The are virtually infinite number of places in an excyclopedia, especially in a constantly edited excylopedia, with lack of information. The only real and practicable solution is to leave it off. Otherwise you would have to read all the time "no data found", "we had no time to add the lack of information", "we know, there must be more, but it is still missing", and so forth. That would be substantially ridiculous. -- ZH8000 (talk) 14:40, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Proposal by Wugapodes

Going off my comment above about the distinction between a reliable source saying no estimates are available and we just not having any, I propose the following:

  • When a reliable source states there's no estimate available, we display (No Data) as that is a statement we would have evidence for. Otherwise the space is left blank and nothing is displayed.
  • We would have "?" produce "(No Data)" so that current implementations aren't broken.
  • We would include in the template documentation the distinction; something along the lines of If you don't have an estimate, leave the parameter blank unless a reliable source says no estimate is available. In that case, use "?".
  • We add a "|ref=" parameter that would append a citation for the claim of no data.
  • We would have a maintenance category for any article that uses "?" without "|ref=" so they can be fixed by editors at their leisure.

Wugapodes (talk) 02:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

That seems quite reasonable to me. I think, though, that we do not need the special case where the paramater |speakers= is set to ?. When there is a reliable source that says there is no data, it is simpler and clearer that this be encoded as |speakers=no data and |ref={footnote text linking to reliable source}. Therefore, I would rather remove the special ? case after it has been removed from the articles (using the maintenance category you are proposing). There are probably little more than a hundred articles that use |speakers=?, see the tentative at User:J. 'mach' wust/sandbox#2015-11-24 list of pages that have speakers=? in the language infobox, and most of them are rather stubs. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 10:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
This proposal seems to have no overlap with how |speakers=? is used now (to record that a search of the literature has not turned up a figure). Those instances that also use the |ref= field either give an explanatory note (e.g. Sekele language) or link to a single source that does not contain a speaker figure (e.g. Akuku language). I don't know of any that cite a source saying no estimates are available. Such would be rare, as when people are interested enough to document the problems with getting figures they typically discuss the limits of the uncertainty (e.g. Sentinelese language). Certainly it would be rare enough to be best handled at individual articles rather than the coding of the infobox template. Kanguole 18:42, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Kanguole that this isn't useful. — kwami (talk) 19:56, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Implementation of RfC consensus

I have now edited the code so the information no longer shows up in the infobox as per the above RfC consensus [2]. The articles with |speakers=? can be tracked in Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'unknown' (a maintenance category that apparently existed all along). I have added a note about that in the template documentation [3].

The articles with |speakers=? that have a link to a source in |ref= can now be looked up in the new maintenance category[4] Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'unknown' despite a reference. I have looked up whether any of them pointed to a source that affirmed the lack of data. None did, so I removed the |ref= parameter. I have left the |speakers=?, so these articles are now listed with the others in Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'unknown', and I added a hidden comment as to which source had been consulted already. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 04:30, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

@kwami: I have two issues with your recent edit [5]:
  1. You are saying that it “messes up tracking cats; all articles now tagged as lacking refs”. That is not true. Only those articles are tagged as lacking refs that have |speakers=? and at the same time |ref=⟨some ref⟩ – you probably have overlooked that I have reordered the code [6] so the tracking cats are not messed up and not all articles with |ref=⟨some ref⟩ are tagged. I have merely introduced a new tracking category – Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'unknown' despite a reference – for keeping track of exactly these articles. With your edit, keeping track of these articles is extremely difficult. Is there any reason why you want us not to keep track of these articles?
  2. Your reintroducing the “(no data)” wording in hidden comments makes no sense and is contrary to the consensus of this RfC.
I have reverted it in the spirit of WP:BRD. Now is the time for discussion. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:01, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
I am sorry – I had my mind all set to Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'unknown' despite a reference while you were referring to Category:Language articles without reference field. I have now fixed the latter category [7].
The current code does not only introduce the new tracking category Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'unknown' despite a reference. It also keeps better track of articles that have |speakers=none in Category:Language articles with speakers set to 'none'. Previously, these articles were only tracked if they had no |ref=. Now, they are all tracked (incuding articles such as Modern Standard Arabic that were not tracked previously). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:40, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

RfC: What should we do now that Ethnologue has put up a paywall?

On December 1, 2015 Ethnologue announced a new paywall. Users will be allowed to access 7 pages per month free of charge. To access more than this will require a subscription of $9.95/month or $60/year. The Infobox currently links directly to Ethnologue in several places by way of ISO3 codes. Given that Ethnologue no longer allows free access, linking to this source would seem to violate the spirit of Wikipedia. What do people think about changing the Infobox to link to an alternate but open source, such as Glottlog? Gholton (talk) 22:46, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The codes link to ISO639-3 pages that are on sil.org (which is the registration authority), but presumably will remain freely available. However, these pages are very sparse, and rely on a link to the corresponding Ethnologue page for the denotation of the code. So ISO639-3 codes have become less useful.
Ethnologue is used in many instances of this infobox as a source for speaker population figures, but that use (like the similar use of Nationalencyklopedin) seems compliant with WP:PAYWALL. Kanguole 23:20, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
The Ethnologue or Glottolog are tertiary sources. Instead of pointing to them, we can always point to the individual secondary source they are based upon. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 23:38, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Actually, Ethnologue often refers to primary sources, and for many languages is a primary source itself. Verifying the sources it does use is always a good idea, but that's more work than we're likely to be able to handle for more than a small fraction of the world's languages. — kwami (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
I think Ethnologue is a valuable resource (or, as Kwami alludes to, a collection of valuable resources). Our current usage seems compliant with WP:PAYWALL to me. And, for the casual WP reader, seven pages per month is probably adequate, although, for an editor without a subscription, it can be frustrating (even if there are easy ways around it).--William Thweatt TalkContribs 02:39, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
(ec) As long as our links are to the ISO, then they remain free. And linking to a pay site is not unheard of in Wikipedia, e.g., all those links to Britannica or to media sites that are behind firewalls. The user must decide if verifying the Wikipedia information is important enough to pay for it. And the information on Ethnologue and Glottolog are not equivalent. For example, Glottolog doesn't include speaker numbers and the maps are not really useful other than locating the center of mass of a speech community. It's great strength is bibliographical. --Taivo (talk) 02:43, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
I agree with what Taivo said. Peter238 (talk) 14:45, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
There is no link to Ethnologue in the infobox, User:ZH8000. The link is to the ISO 639-3 standard, which is not behind the paywall. And since the ISO 639-3 code is used far beyond Ethnologue, it is important to include. So your comment is irrelevant. --Taivo (talk) 16:06, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
What about providing a separate link in the Infobox to the Endangered Languages Catalog (ELCat)? Gholton (talk) 20:12, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I hadn't seen this discussion and inadvertently started a parallel one at WP:LANGUAGES. I think that we should deprecate the use of Ethnologue data, both because they will probably eventually grow tired that we provide a substantial part of their product for free, and also because when it is not free, it actually makes more sense to use high quality paper sources in all the cases where it is available. I don't think we should remove all links to Ethnologue at one, but that we should aim to gradually replace them with higher quality specialist sources. This could be done by simply making a policy saying that other sources are prefered when available.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 00:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Should there be a mention of the basic typology (SVO, VSO, etc) in the infobox? Jimw338 (talk) 17:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Nope. That particular aspect of typology is not more basic than many other aspects - and often a question of interpretation.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 01:24, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Displaying ISO code of a language for its dialects

I have started a discussion about this template at [[8]]. I started it on the WP:LANG talk page because more people read that page. I am proposing that we add a mechanism for indicating the ISO code that should be used for a dialect of a language, where the dialect does not have its own code. See discussion there. AlbertBickford (talk) 19:06, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Linguasphere comment

Urdu currently has a comment embedded in its infobox's lingua field. Unfortunately this gets formatted in typewriter face (I hacked around it by manually adding <code>...</code> tags). I note that there are "comment" fields for all the language-code entries, except Linguasphere. Could one please be added to Linguasphere so this comment doesn't look ugly? Hairy Dude (talk) 01:11, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Hairy Dude, yes, fixed here. Frietjes (talk) 14:45, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Hairy Dude (talk) 15:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Catalogue of Endangered Languages

I wanted raise the possibility of adding a link to ELCat, akin to the way the infobox now links to Ethnologue and Glottolog. ELCat makes use of ISO codes, so it would be easy to pass code tcb to http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/tcb. The only catch is that ELCat does not include all languages, only those considered endangered, so we'd need to create behavior to not pass codes which are not in ELCat (or else ask ELCat to more robustly handle nonexistent codes -- right now they give 404's). I think a link in the Infobox could generate lots of useful cross-fertilization between ELCat and Wikipedia. ELCat users are often Native speakers uploading content, and they could contribute productively to Wikipedia as well. Gholton (talk) 23:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Rename "Altaic" in familycolor

It's been six years since I mentioned this would happen, but the fact that the familycolor attribute for a number of mainly Asian languages is "Altaic", a very heavily dismissed and refuted language family in modern linguistics with almost no proponents, is causing large edit wars on Japanese-related and Korean-related articles even if it's just supposed to be "areal". Please consider renaming this colour to anything else. Even a literal value of "arealaltaic" would be much better than "altaic" alone. But given that you have "American", "Australian", "Caucasian" and "Papuan" as values, then "Asian" or "Eurasian" would be good, geographically equivalent descriptors. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 06:13, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

It would be maybe good to create a unique Koreanic-Japonic-Ainu family colour/areal-family. Because Korean and Japanese may be no related, but in term of areal location and historicall connections it would make sense. This would also end the dispute/edit-war.

So the areal-Altaic family would be Turkic-Mongolian-Tungusic. And the new Koreo-Japonic(suggested name) family would be Koreanic-Japonic-Ainu. Ovilava (talk) 07:58, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Except that Ainu has nothing to do with Altaic, which would mean that we'd be coding Korean as Japanese, which given the colonial history would be a disaster.
Whether or not the Altaic languages are actually related, they are typologically very similar. What we call the color is irrelevant to he reader, because they don't see it, but the term in the lit is "Altaic". If we call it Asian or Eurasian, then we'll get edit wars over people adding e.g. English because it's a Eurasian language because they don't understand that we're censoring ourselves to placate idiots.
I'd say leave it as is, or break it up and create three or four new family colors. The problem with the latter is that we've gotten to the point where it's difficult to distinguish the family colors that we have.
No matter what we do, we're going to get occasional IP edit wars. That's the nature of Wikipedia. My advise is to do what we always do in such situations: revert them, block them, or protect the articles. — kwami (talk) 02:55, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually the altaic theory is obsolete. Typologicall similarities are no proove for a relationship. And mostly all modern linguists agree that macro-altaic is debunked and core-altaic is only a areal family. A koreanic-japonic-ainu areal family do not support imperial agendas. Koreanic would not be under japonic. They would be two independent members. Wikipedia should be actuall.

If you say typologicall similar, korean must also be a dravidian language. 213.162.68.217 (talk) 07:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

In the infobox, how to say the ISO code is retired?

I have asked a question at Talk:Moldovan language#In the infobox, how to say it's retired?, please leave your opinions there. Thank you. --Gikü (talk) 11:14, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Speech area

The template appears to be ambiguous on speech areas in countries with autonomous enclaves. Consequently, there is no consistency/double standards on the language pages for the nation and state parameters (e.g. only Israel is linked on Hebrew language and not Palestine as well whereas Cantonese juxtaposes China and Hong Kong). I therefore propose the following amendment to the parameters: states - UN-recognized countries in which it is mainly spoken // nation - list of UN-recognized countries in which it is an official language // minority - list of UN-recognized countries in which it is a recognised/protected minority language. Soupforone (talk) 04:55, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Ethnologue edition as references for speakers number

Hi,

It looks like there are shortcuts for the ref parameter, such as "e18" or "ne", but there are several issues with that:

  • It's not clearly documented at the main template page, Template:Infobox_language. E.g., e18 is a valid parameter, but it doesn't appear there, although e17 does.
  • It's not mentioned in TemplateData at all, even though it's quite important.
  • It's outdated, because the 20th Ethnologue edition is already out, but the template doesn't quite seem to support it.

Diving into this template's code is a bit intimidating for me... can anybody help? Thank you! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:44, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Family: Linguistic and Utilitaristic

Please note Talk:Latino_sine_flexione#Family:_Linguistic_and_Utilitaristic --217.224.132.211 (talk) 12:54, 21 July 2017 C1MM (talk) 06:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)(UTC)

Add new color for Ainu languages

Many of the articles on Wikipedia refer to the Ainu language not as one language with multiple dialects, but as a language family with multiple languages. Linguists have tried (and failed) to find connections to other language families, but have so far been unsuccessful. Should we add a color to mark the Ainu languages as a different language family?C1MM (talk) 03:48, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

No. Ainu is included in the areal color of Altaic. We don't have separate colors for every separate language family in the world. That would make the colors meaningless as a general identifier. --Taivo (talk) 07:07, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
What about editing the language quilt so that all the possible colors for language families are shown? This one omits Andamanese, Algic, and Uto-Aztecan, as well as Hmong-Mien. C1MM (talk) 06:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

We need the ability to do something like |iso3=none|iso3comment=Encompassed within [http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=nan nan] ([[Southern Min]]), such that the comment will display, without the template trying to generate a link to something at SIL.org. Right now, if you leave |iso3= (or |iso2=, whatever) empty, it will not display the corresponding |iso3comment=. If you put anything, even a Unicode zero-width space, in for |iso3=, it results in the generation of <code>...</code> markup something there, shifting the comment to the right, as can be seen at Hokkien in this revision.

We need this for the ability to indicate suitable ISO codes that are supersets of dialects that do not have their own separate codes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  20:50, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

This seems redundant, as the box already has |isoexception=dialect, and the parent is in |fam5=Southern Min. Kanguole 21:22, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Except that markup does nothing at all useful for the reader, as seen here. The ISO 639-3 entry just shows up as "-", and there is no indication that any ISO code of any kind applies to this language/dialect. The average reader has no reason to auto-intuit that Southern Min, somewhere in the language family tree, does have an ISO code, what it is, or that it can be used for Hokkien.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  21:32, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

UNESCO status

I came here to see if others thought that UNESCO status should be added to the template. I see two people supporting the idea with no opposition in the archive. Would someone please make that change? I'm not familiar with adding things to templates. Here's a link to the UNESCO website[9], FWIW. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:35, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

There was also a discussion last year about categorising languages based on status (There is to be found also some useful discussion about the choice of vitality scale). Although that proposal didn't get much traction, the alternative suggested here of adding an infobox field is likely to draw more support. – Uanfala (talk) 18:16, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Pushpin maps

What do people think about adding the capability of displaying pushpin maps, the way that infoboxes for places do (see a random example)? Granted, these maps are only for points (or collections of points) and will obviously not work for languages spread over a decent territory. But still, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of languages that are confined to an individual village (or a cluster of villages) and for many of them such a pin-point location is probably the best we could ever offer. – Uanfala (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Use of template in Dialect page

How should this template be used in a dialect Wiki page, like Jeseri?
Anish Viswa 08:58, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

  • In the same way as it would be used for any language. The only difference I can think of is with respect to the |iso3= parameter. Assuming that the dialect in question doesn't have an ISO 639 code (Jeseri at least doesn't), then you should leave |iso3= blank and add |isoexception=dialect. – Uanfala (talk) 23:19, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Add new parameters?

Hello, I think this template need new parameters.

Maybe we add the “Basic words” section which displays common words in that language if known?

The parameters should be for example: thank_you_lang-trans (translation of “Thank you” into the language). Repeat please with the words

  • Thank you
  • Hello
  • Goodbye

and *Please?

Thx Glorium (talk) 10:43, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

  • It's arguable whether lists of common words or phrases should be included in an article at all, but even if they are included, they aren't encyclopedic enough to warrant being placed in the infobox. – Uanfala (talk) 11:00, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Lint errors: Miscellaneous Tidy replacement issues: div-span-flip

This template is causing one or more Lint errors: Miscellaneous Tidy replacement issues: div-span-flip errors every time it is used, which is on 8,573 pages. The problem is four occurrences of {{allow wrap|{{longitem|...}}}}. {{allow wrap}} is basically <span class="wrap">{{{1}}}</span>; {{longitem}} is basically <div style="padding:0.1em 0;line-height:1.2em;{{{style|}}}">{{{1}}}</div>, and <span>...</span> isn't supposed to wrap <div....</div>. It would be good to fix this. —Anomalocaris (talk) 07:40, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Anomalocaris,  Fixed by swapping around {{longitem}} and {{allow wrap}}, though considering {{longitem}} says it is a "inline formatting template" maybe it should use spans.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:26, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Family Colour Scheme

How was the colour scheme for the family colour chosen?

I am not asking how the colours were adapted, to have more contrast and be more aestheticly pleasing and fit better into Infobox, no I am asking how were they chosen?

  • Who said (Africa) Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger–Congo, Khoisan should all be various shades of brown to yellow?
  • Who said (Eurasia) Indo-European, Caucasian, Uralic, Dravidian, Altaic, Paleosiberian should be various shades of green?
  • Who said Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien, Kra–Dai, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Papuan, Australian should be a shade of orange to purple?
  • Who said Eskimo–Aleut, Na-Dené, American should be shades of blue?

and why?? Why colour code Afro-Asiatic with Niger–Congo in brown/yellow and not together with Indo-European which is linguistically closer to Afro-Asiatic? Why is Dravidian coloured a shade of green like Indo-European instead of the closer to the Afro-Asiatic shade of yellow or Isolate grey?

What is the systematic behind the shade grouping? Did someone want to imply that all those green shades are more closer related to each other? Was the intention to show Eurasia, Fareast, Africa, Americas as different language groups on a map? The general colour scheme I assume was taken from a map that showed the different language families, this map shows an early version of the family colour which was used in the debate about the colours in 2005.

But which colour fits best for which language was not discussed. What the general idea behind the colour scheme was, was not discussed. Having a colour scheme that puts Mongolic, Altai, Indo-European, Caucasian, and Paleosiberian in various shades of green and then drawing them on to a map of central Eurasia is frustrating and is not a good colour set for a map. A cartographer would like a qualitative colour set, with clear distinctions between neighbouring families so that one can easily see where one language is present and where another is present. A linguist will disagree with the groupings the diverging colour set seems to imply. If the intention of the family colours scheme was to create a corporate identity for each language family, then why not put the effort into choosing a colour already associated with a language family?

What is the purpose of the colours?

  • To provide a colour pallet for linguistic maps or charts?
  • To create a corporate identity for a language family?
  • To group language families into theoretical super groups?

--Alternative Transport (talk) 21:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

  • The colour scheme does seem like one of those things everyone has learned to take for granted without paying much attention to. There most likely are ways to make it better, but it doesn't seem like anyone of the people watching this page would be interested enough in that. You could try posting to a larger venue, like WT:LANGUAGES? – Uanfala (talk) 21:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Pushpin maps

I've been thinking of adding support for pushpin maps, you know, the ones commonly found in the infoboxes of settlements (random example). Though obviously not appropriate for major languages that are spread across large(ish) territories, they could certainly be helpful in giving the location of languages that are spoken in small areas. Anyone's got any objections? Any alternative ideas? Any suggestions? – Uanfala (talk) 21:01, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, I've now added basic support for pushpin maps (I've mostly taken them from Template:Infobox body of water as it was simple and readable). You can see an example at Abun language. Now is the perfect time to come up with suggestions. Any parameters need adding? Any display behaviour needs changing?

I've also changed the bahaviour of coordinates: before that, coordinates would get displayed right below the name of the region very near the top of the infobox. I've moved them almost at the end, right after any maps. The reasons for this are: 1) bare coordinates aren't particularly meaningful on their own so there's no need to display them so prominently; 2) now that the template supports pushpin maps, the coordinates will be displayed right after the map, as happens at geographic infoboxes. I'll update the template's documentation in a few days, in case anything breaks in the meantime.

Also, now that it's become so easy to add pushpin maps, I'm tempted by the idea of adding them to a large number of articles using the coordinates from glottolog. Could this be a bad idea? – Uanfala (talk) 04:17, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

EGIDS

What do people think about adding an EGIDS parameter? Julia ☺ 22:23, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Does Not Display Correctly when viewed on Tablets (Ipads)

This Infobox only displays the leftmost 60% or so when viewed on an ipad. I have no idea how to make this sort of correction, so I was hoping someone else would. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:643:C100:657E:29A8:41E3:2826:550C (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia entry

I have reverted the addition of a Wikipedia entry, pointing at the Wikipedia in the particular language. The function of the infobox is to provide overview information about the language itself, whereas such a link is a Wikipedia self-reference. Kanguole 10:34, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Native name when not different from name

The infobox has a parameter |name= for the English name of the language, as well as |nativename= for the name in the language in question. What do we do if they're the same? Do we duplicate them as here, or do we omit the native name as here? – Uanfala (talk) 12:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Speakers: "speakers2=" parameter needs its own bold title

It is very odd to have

Native speakers: x million
L2: y million

because the y million are not native speakers – and by the way, "L2" is not at all reader friendly. So this 'as a second language' figure should have its own title. Ideally we would have "speakers2"/"speakers-title2", "speakers3"/"speakers-title3" so that, where they data is available, we could have "fluent second language" and "intermediate second language". (I'm not suggesting the full language ladder as in Common European Framework of Reference for Languages as there can't be any reliable data).

Can this be done? --Red King (talk) 18:10, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Outdated Glottolog references

I was updating Azerbaijani language Glottolog codes and names to the latest Glottolog version 4.1 since there have been some large changes in their classification. However, the reference it generates is still for the old version 3, from 2017. I ended up adding "glottofoot = no" and manual citations, e.g.: 

glottoname = Modern Azeric<ref name="Glottolog">{{cite web|editor-last1=Hammarström |editor-first1=Harald |editor-last2=Forkel |editor-first2=Robert |editor-last3=Haspelmath |editor-first3=Martin |accessdate=2020-02-05|title=Modern Azeric|url=https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/mode1262|date=2019 ||doi=10.5281/zenodo.3554959 |website=[[Glottolog 4.1]]}}</ref>}}

Maybe there's a way to improve the template? It's tricky because they have changed the meaning of some codes. For example, in Glottolog 3.0, azer1255 was "Subfamily: Azerbaijani" which included North Azerbaijani and Salchuq, but not South Azerbaijani [10]. But now azer1255 is "Family: Central Oghuz", which includes a new mode1262: "Family: Modern Azeric" (with languages North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani), plus Salchuq.

So maybe it's not a good idea to just update the generated citation to show the latest version, if an article is actually referencing the information in the older one. On the other hand, the generated link goes to the newer version on the Glottolog website. It should maybe go to an archived older one, e.g. https://glottolog.org/files/glottolog-3.0/azer1255.html? But then we'd probably need a new parameter to be able to link to the new version, like "glotto4.1= ", "glottoname4.1=" etc., or somthing like that... --IamNotU (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Andamanese color

i've noticed the Andamanese languages of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India have their own color which isn't shown in the color template, could anyone fix this? edit: Algic and Uto-Aztecan also have their own colors, pls fix — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.36.45.18 (talk) 14:13, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Duplicate references with multiple invocations

This template is invoked several times in the Varieties of American Sign Language article. It ends up causing duplicate reference definition errors because the reference names the template generates aren't configurable. The "glottorefname" parameter implies they are, but this parameter really sets the title of the referenced language, not the reference anchor name generated by this template. Is it possible to solve the duplicate reference name error on the "Varieties" page? -- Mikeblas (talk) 16:40, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Some change is definitely necessary here. To begin with, is there any need for the glottolog reference to be automatic rather than optional? My own pet peeve is how on articles with a consistent use of short {{sfn}} citations, the glottolog reference generated by the infobox is the only one that breaks the style. – Uanfala (talk) 20:18, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
You can turn off the glottolog reference with |glottofoot=no. However, the reference is quite unnecessary, as the glottolog identifier already links to the Glottolog page, and, as noted above, it interferes with the citation style of the rest of the article. Kanguole 21:21, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Sorry Kanguole, I'm kind of confused by your note. Is your suggestion that the Varieties article should just use glottofoot=no and forego the references? -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:55, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
As Uanfala said, some change is needed. My preference would be for the infobox not to generate Glottolog citations (for redundancy and CITEVAR reasons). The ad-hoc way of doing that is |glottofoot=no. Kanguole 15:55, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Papuan-language templates

Papuan languages have all their classifications messed up. What the hell? Fix this. It's urgent. 37.47.194.199 (talk) 11:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

A bit more specific, maybe? –Austronesier (talk) 11:43, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Just look at any Papuan language. The classifications have been missing for a few days now. Huh? 37.47.194.199 (talk) 16:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
It always helps to provide links to specific articles where you have observed a problem. Also, describe what is wrong, and what it should look like instead. Otherwise, we have to guess. I just went to Amto language, and it looks fine to me, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. We are not dumb; we just don't have the specialized knowledge that you have.
Based on the text at Papuan languages, it looks like there are multiple classification systems for those languages. If that is what you are concerned about, Talk:Papuan languages might be a better forum for your comments. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:29, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
I think I may understand now. I made a change to this template to fix another problem a couple of days ago, and it appears to have fixed one problem and introduced another, despite my testing. See this test case, where the "sandbox" template contains the previous version of the template and renders a couple of additional lines. I'll try to fix it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
It only seems to go wrong for areal groups, for which |fam1= is set. Kanguole 16:48, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, that's the problem. Sorry, I assumed it was obvious. I'm surprised that nobody else has raised this issue before, but then I guess there's little readership for Papuan languages. 83.21.4.209 (talk) 16:50, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Also "Altaic", American, Australian, and several more. Kanguole 16:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, the glitch also shows with Tzeltal in the sandbox. And I've opened Sahaptin language yesterday, but haven't noticed it... –Austronesier (talk) 17:15, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
I have reverted my changes from June 9 and will continue to experiment in the sandbox. Sorry for breaking the template; there is not nearly enough variety on the testcases page to ensure that changes like mine will not break anything. If there are additional test cases that will demonstrate the variety of parameter combinations that exist in articles, please add them to the testcases page. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:26, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

era/extinct

The parameters era and extinct seem to be mutually exclusive, but this is not stated in the documentation. --Pfold (talk) 09:42, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Parameter "nation": "country" is a more precise term

  • Not every nation has sovereign state or country to represent it.
  • Many sovereign states represent many nations.

Hectormgerardo (talk) 05:02, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I have added "official" as an alternative parameter for "nation". --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 09:11, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikibook

I have only become aware of this parameter because of User:Soumya-8974's recent tweaks. My question: Do we really want lead our readers from the Infobox (which otherwise is supposed to present hard facts based on best sources) to user-generated content? –Austronesier (talk) 09:00, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

When I was about to add the "development_body" parameter in the infobox to include Bord na Gaidhlig in the Scottish Gaelic article, I found the "wikibook" parameter in the infobox. I don't know who added it, but I thought that someone added this parameter in order to encourage WP readers to be polyglots, and personally I like polyglots. I tweaked the parameter to better fit with the infobox. You can remove the parameter if you want. --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 09:05, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
We have the nice {{Wikibooks}} template for that purpose, so yes, I suggest to deprecate |wikibook= here. –Austronesier (talk) 09:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
I also hadn't noticed this parameter, though it was added in 2018 with this edit. I agree that it does not belong in the infobox, which should summarize key facts (MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Links to sister projects, like wikibooks, wikiVoyage phrasebooks, materials on wikisource or commons, or the wiki in that language, all belong in the "External links" section (WP:MOSSIS).
I have reverted the "Learning materials" header as giving undue prominence to this non-infobox purpose, and believe that we should also eliminate |wikibook=. Kanguole 09:52, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
I agree with removal. --Izno (talk) 13:11, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
There are only 9 non-empty uses, so moving this to the external links section could be hand-done. --Izno (talk) 13:14, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
I count only 8, all added today. Kanguole 13:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
I was having trouble with regex this morning I think. Either way, the number is small, even if you count all the ones we didn't (user sandboxes, drafts, template doc, etc.). --Izno (talk) 16:14, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
Of these 8 articles, six already had a sister link to Wikibooks in External links, one did not (but now has), and one was in the wrong article. So I've gone ahead and removed |wikibook= and those uses. Kanguole 09:52, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
Great, thanks! –Austronesier (talk) 10:26, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Image captions: ungainly appearance; edit request

Hello, I'd like to request the following small edits, to improve the appearance of image captions:

  • Text should be centered
  • A few pixels of padding should be added to either the caption top or the image bottom. Right now, "26th cemtury BC" connects with the image, visually.

ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 20:40, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Captions that run over multiple lines would be more difficult to read if centred. MOS:CENTURY says not to use superscripts in century names. Kanguole 08:02, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
We live and learn. Thanks for your feedback. ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
But still, I think it might be possible to script something like:IF multiple lines THEN align text left ELSE center text ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 14:07, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
It's difficult to count lines when we don't know what device the caption will be displayed on, or with which font. Kanguole 15:42, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Novel formatting idea

In the infobox at the Japanese language article (version), I spotted a novel idea that I think would look nice if implemented here. In the "official status" section, an editor inserted ∟ (U+221F: RIGHT ANGLE) to denote that Angaur is a subset of Palau. Maybe something similar could be implemented for the display of the "Language family" and "Early forms" parameters of this infobox? I think the case is stronger for the "Early forms" symbol's meaning of "descendant item" instead of the family's use of "subset item" like above, however.

For example on the version I linked, "Old Japanese" through "Early Modern Japanese" could be linked with ∟ instead of bullet points, as it is currently done. Just wanted to throw this idea out there. — Goszei (talk) 05:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Ethnologue 20

I wanted to reference Ethnologue 20 at Dutch language but this template only accepts references up to Etnologue 19. Please update it accordingly. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:33, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Ethnologue 23

Please update to the most recent edition. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 03:19, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Linglist removed?

@Kwamikagami: Any reason you removed linglist as an option? It seems to break this page, for example. Getsnoopy (talk) 02:21, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I tried something that didn't work and didn't fully revert myself. BTW, the LingList link doesn't work, but that's the site, not AFAICT our template. (The ISO links to MultiTree don't work any more either.) — kwami (talk) 02:39, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Extinct or dead?

The infobox does not make a distinction between the two even though they are not exactly the same when refering to languages. In common usage though they are generally used interchangeably. Some definitions elsewhere [11] can add to the confusion. The term 'native' language is also open to interpretation. An example is Cornish, that can be described in several ways. Should we amend the infobox parameters? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:12, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

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