Wikipedia:Peer review/Sanskrit/archive1

Sanskrit edit

I think this article is good enough to go for FA. But still, I request any suggestions/comments to bring this article up to FA status. Mostly, I think the references need to be worked on. What do you think? ^Babub→Talk 16:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh boy, there are some problems here before this can go to FA. First off, an article this size needs many more citations than it currently has. I mean A TON more. On that same point, there are some fact tags in the article. Those have to go, or else no one will consider this for FA. Similarly, get rid of the stub sections, either by transforming the sections themselves or eliminating the tags if you don't think they apply. There may be other problems, but those stood out to me the most. Try and ask an editor who is more familiar with language articles than the average Wikipedian for a review. There are a lot of lists in this article as well, but I don't know if that's standard with these types of articles.UberCryxic 19:35, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a detailed article, and is best reviewed by someone with some expertise in linguistics. But I'll make some specific suggestions anyway, which may or may not be useful:

Per WP:LEAD, the lead should provide something more than context only. I would mention that Sanskrit is not associated with any single script more prominantly -- maybe somewhere in the lead.
If the scholarship is available, go deeper into the history, if only with one paragraph. The Proto-Indo-European language is thought to have originated in Central Asia or Anatolia, so why is it spoken in India?
Under "History": "This influence of Sanskrit on these languages is recognized by the notions of Tat Sama (equivalent) and Tat Bhava (rooted in)." I don't understand this. The following sentence could also use details or an explanation.
Under "Vedic Sanskrit": after the first paragraph, the difference between the Vedic texts and the Sanskrit language becomes unclear. I understand there's a close relationship, but I think the distinction could be made less ambiguous with some rewording.
The subsection "European scholarship" could be condensed into the rest of the "History" section -- to avoid the stubby subsection, but also to make it more prominant.
Explain the jargon, including terms like "allophones" and "phonemes", where practical.
Under "Pitch": "That is, Sanskrit, like Latin, is a syllable-timed language. It is the syllable which forms the basis of Sanskrit prosody." If this were Latin, I would briefly describe some of the common poetic meters. I think a statement like that deserves some detail.
"Grammar" needs work. Many stubby sections, some marked as such.

Overall, there are too many lists. The lists of unconnected points under "Vowels" and "Phonology" seem sloppy; and the list of differences between Vedic and Classic Sanskrit should also, ideally, be rewritten as prose. The article is extremely long, so, as a result, it's kind of a mess. Definitely needs more inline citations for FAC. There's potential though. -- bcasterline • talk 19:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree with most of the above comments. This article doesn't need a lot of inline references. Its scope is to reproduce more or less the content of any Sanskrit primer. A few of them are listed in the References section, and all of these will agree entirely on all details of grammar. There is simply no need to attribute the statements on grammar to one source in particular because there is no controversy on the topic what-so-ever. I do not think that details on Proto-Indo-European, Graeco-Aryan, Indo-Aryan languages in general, the History of India etc. should burden this article! My issues with the article at present are as follows:

the "Grammatical tradition" section belongs under "history", not "grammar", and since the main article Sanskrit grammarians includes European scholarship, I suppose it should be made the "history of Sanskrit grammar" article, and as such the {{main}} article of the "history" section.
the "grammatical tradition" section also needs to get rid of its stub tag and {{fact}}.
the "Vedic Sanskrit" section should be cut down to the bare essentials! it has its {{main}} article, after all.
the over-long phonology section should be exported to a Sanskrit phonology and shortened.
"nominal inflection" is not a 'stub' as claimed, but it needs a discussion of consonant stems.
the two h3 sections on "Verbs" should be combined, and possibly also exported and summarized. a full discussion of the 10 present classes is missing, and should probably be delegated to a sub-article.
the Syntax section is a one-liner. There can be no talk of FAC before this is addressed.

dab (ᛏ) 08:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The goal of the article is not to teach Sanskrit: that's what wikibooks is for. If you look at some of the current FAs (e.g. Aramaic, Swedish), grammar does not dominate the article. And without a good number of inline citations, the article will never pass FAC. -- bcasterline • talk 13:05, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]