Talk:Quenya grammar/Archive 1

Primary, Secondary, or Both

The article has been tagged for excessive use of primary sources, and indeed Tolkien is the putative author of many of the citations to Parma Eldalamberon. He is of course the original author of Quenya, and PE has published many of his writings on the subject.

However, the situation is a bit more subtle than that. PE is written and edited by people with an interest (a passion, an extreme interest) in linguistics. They have accordingly taken Tolkien's original writings, and annotated them, thoroughly, to explain his linguistic procedures and results.

For instance, PE #17 was edited and annotated by Christopher Gilson, guided by Christopher Tolkien.

Therefore, everything in Parma Eldalamberon, and I think this goes for Vinyar Tengwar as well, is actually a combination of Tolkien (primary) and learned commentary (secondary).

It is thus not really possible in many cases to separate primary from secondary in the usual way. The best we can do is to add Gilson as an author (for the annotations) and note that the sources are mostly "Mixed". The few definitely-primary sources are for things like direct quotations of Tolkien's poetry.

Since Tolkien created the language, an article on its grammar must necessarily be based with at least one foot in Tolkien's writings; the use of Parma Eldalamberon which combines authoritative primary with scholarly secondary sourcing seems to me ideally suited to such an article, as that's about the only way we could get the required combination of correctness and objectivity. I'll therefore remove the article's tags, but I'm very happy to discuss the matter. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: Did you notice that you also removed the notability tag? I don’t see coverage in at least three independent reliable sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, haven't I been clear on that. My view is that the mixed sources contribute a large quantity of scholarly comment alongside the necessary primary facts on the language, which nobody else can supply, unless they decide to extend the language in which case I guess they become primary too. But I take your point that more sources would be desirable, even if not strictly necessary. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Independence is a key requirement along with reliability, the “mixed” sources as you call them do give reliable coverage of the subject but it is not independent coverage. We base notability on coverage by independent sources. Two more independent sources are in fact strictly necessary for it to conform to our general notability guidelines. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

How can Parma Eldalamberon not be independent? The editors and authors are quoting Tolkien, who is dead, and after 1973 have been commenting completely free of whatever he might think of what they say. We agree, of course, that the Tolkien quotations are pure primary Tolkien. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Those appear to only be annotations and Parma Eldalamberon may be too niche a publication to lend notability even if we were sourcing to full pieces. Even if I give it every benefit of the doubt thats still only two sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, I'll look out some more sources. I think each issue of PE counts as a separate source (think of having multiple articles in Nature or The New York Times written by different people) but more sources will settle the matter. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

This is wikipedia 101... Twenty articles by twenty authors in The New York Times would count as exactly one independent reliable source for notability purposes. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think so, that is simple nonsense if somebody has sneaked it into some policy somewhere, but we've agreed to add other sources here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

You are testing my patience. Lets set aside the fact that this is the guideline per WP:Notability... How can one source be multiple sources? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

(reply) There are over 500 other sources on Scholar so I'll add some of them now, as we both think a good idea. Stop here if that's all you need to know. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

(optional extra) But since you ask, for me and thousands of other editors, an article by Adam on Apples in issue 1 of Nature is a wholly different source from an article by Betty on Bananas in issue 2 of that journal – I hope everyone knows that Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar are journals – and I really can't see how anyone could argue otherwise. WP:N calls out WP:RS which uses the phrase "reliable, published sources," which calls out WP:SOURCE which says:

"The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings:

• The piece of work itself (the article, book)
• The creator of the work (the writer, journalist)
• The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press)"

The source thus consists of all three of {journal + authors + title}, though I'd agree with you that an article entirely cited to one author wouldn't be great. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for adding more sources! Based on what you just quoted do you still think that multiple pieces from the same source count as multiple sources for the purposes of satisfying WP:GNG? If not we can stop here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:08, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think more sources are more whether from one journal or many, but obviously having many, as we do, is nice as it avoids needless controversy. But I think we can both stop here and remove the Notability tag. Many thanks for encouraging me to work on this article, which was something of a neglected (and specialised) corner. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)