Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages/Archive 17

common term for Japanese and Chinese?

Is there a common term that can apply to both Japanese language and Chinese language? {{Nihongo}} has been forked to {{Hanyu}}. Forking is considered bad. The only differences that I have found are:

Nihongo → Hanyu

Japanese → Chinese

romaji → pinyin

ja → zh

Hepburn → Pinyin

I want to unfork this template by creating common code. To do that it would be nice to have a term to serve as a variable name that can mean either Japanese or Chinese. I can use romanized to replace both of romaji and pinyin. I'm pretty sure that I can hack some sort of term chijap or japchi that will serve, but if there is already an existing term, I'd prefer to use that.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

CJK? – Uanfala (talk) 18:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I thought about that but so far there is no 'K'...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:34, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

CJK would show we support the inclusion of K, just no need so far. — kwami (talk) 09:35, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Aye, it would. But really, if we need to add more languages (in this discussion Greek has been mentioned) then a more universal solution (discuss that elsewhere) is needed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Whatever you settle on, just never abbreviate Japan(ese) to "jap". Nardog (talk) 10:26, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that. For the nonce, jpnchi, a portmanteau of the ISO 639-2 tags for Japanese and Chinese languages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

How are the trio Chinese, Japanese, Korean special in this regard? Comparable to

Tokyo Tower (東京タワー, Tōkyō tawā)

for a Greek topic we are no less likely to want to display

Colossus of Rhodes (Κολοσσὸς Ῥόδιος, Kolossòs Ródios)

So why a template just for Japanese and why a template just for CJ or just for CJK? Largoplazo (talk) 11:51, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

My interest in this discussion is to find a common term for Japanese and Chinese because those are the only two languages that have {{nihongo}}-like templates. If there is interest in creating a more universal template that mimics {{nihongo}}, we can talk about that elsewhere.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to be so specific in what you're looking for. If someone does fork off a Greek template like the Japanese and Chinese ones, will you seek a common name that specifically refers to the trio Chinese, Japanese, Greek but expressly not a general term applicable to all scripts/languages? You won't find one, and even if you did, it would fall apart the instant somebody else forked off an Armenian variant. So forget creating a template that needlessly boxes its use into a very specific pair of languages and go with a generic term that has the potential to cover any language/script combination. And I'm discussing this here because this is in response to you. Largoplazo (talk) 14:41, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Why are you so angry? Did I kick your puppy? Until your post, as far as I know, no one had ever voiced a desire for a {{nihongo}}-like template for another language. As far as I know, the forking of Module:Nihongo to Module:Hanyu was not discussed, it just happened. As I said before, if there is a desire for a more generic solution, we can talk about that. But this discussion is not the right place because a discussion about a generic solution is likely to be long and rambling.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:06, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I said nothing angry, so I don't know what you're going on about now. Now, can you explain why it's an appropriate place to artificially choose two languages to merge together into one template based solely on the circumstances of the moment but not a place to respond to that by saying it isn't a good idea to lock ourselves in by the very specific happenstance and that it would be better to create a generic solution? This isn't WikiProject Japanese and Chinese, it's WikiProject Languages, so I can't imagine in what sense you believe this isn't the right place. Largoplazo (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

To me, everything that you have written in this discussion has overtones of anger, of combativeness. I came here to ask one question. The answer is, apparently, there is no common term for those two languages.

I have never said that WT:LANG is not the proper place to discuss a generic solution to the {{nihongo-for-all}} template if such is desired. I have said that this discussion is not the right place (emphasis added).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

You didn't simply ask "I wonder, is there a single term that comprises Chinese and Japanese?" You wrote I want to unfork this template by creating common code. To do that it would be nice to have a term to serve as a variable name that can mean either Japanese or Chinese. I wrote in direct response to that because I disagreed that it would be nice to have a term to use as the name of a template only for those two arbitrary languages. It flatly addressed what you'd written, so of course it was relevant to this section. I don't know why you read anger into that. Since you feel free to read emotions into me, I'm going to return the favor and suggest that you seem to be in an extremely defensive mood today, so sensitive that you can't tolerate any questioning of your proposition or any broadening of the scope of the discussion from your very narrow initial goal. If I'm wrong, well, now you know how it is to have somebody mysteriously attribute emotions and attitudes to you that you aren't having. Largoplazo (talk) 16:12, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

You didn't simply ask "I wonder, is there a single term that comprises Chinese and Japanese?" I did not use exactly those words, but the first sentence in the OP is: Is there a common term that can apply to both Japanese language and Chinese language? That was the question, everything else was an explanation of why I wanted to know the answer.

We all read emotion in every discussion, it is inherent in us to do so, that is why this medium is such a poor way to communicate. Clearly, we are not getting anywhere with this discussion so perhaps it would be best to abandon it?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

FWIW I don't understand why {{Nihongo}} and similar templates have persisted for so long. Its name and syntax are unclear and it makes the lead a hassle to edit. Any more forking (or merging) is a nightmare if you ask me. Nardog (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree. {{Nihongo}} and its relatives try to do too much, and are confusing. They generate both part of the text of a sentence (often the opening sentence of an article) and the parenthesized native script form. At least lang templates or {{zh}} are clearly inside the parentheses in the opening sentence. They've probably persisted so long because Japanese articles are largely in their own world, but now an editor accustomed to them wants to do the same for Chinese. Kanguole 11:22, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

JIPA would like to send us a list of their Illustrations of the IPA for us to link from our language articles -- feedback requested

Presumably in our "External links" section. I think they'd at least need to extract the ISO code, so a wiki bot could follow our existing ISO links to the proper articles. (Though those haven't been updated for years.) The information they supply would be something like the following:

Baima | Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, China | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100321000219 | https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/JIPArecordings/Baima.zip

Chukchansi Yokuts | San Joaquin valley, California, USA | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100321000268 | https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/JIPArecordings/Chukchansi-Yokuts.zip

Qaqet | Raunsepna, Papua New Guinea | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100321000359 | https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/JIPArecordings/Qaqet.zip

Markina Basque | Markina-Xemein, Spain | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100322000032 | https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/JIPArecordings/Markina-Basque.zip

For these recent examples, the sound files are freely available but the articles are behind a paywall and for sale (@ US$25). However, JIPA has an agreement with CUP that the articles become freely available after 3 years. I don't know if it would normally be a problem for WP to link to a bunch of pay articles, but we could make a "JIPA" link template that calculates the date and warns the reader it's behind a pay wall if more recent than 3 years, and then disappear.

Can we automatically extract the citation info from the DOI, or would JIPA need to include it explicitly? (We could always post a link without the date or issue, of course, it just wouldn't look very professional.)

What I'd like to be able to tell them is: (a) whether we'd be willing to links to JIPA articles while they're still commercial, and (b) what information JIPA needs to provide to us for us to program a bot to automate those links and to format them appropriately. Right now they're trying to figure out how they can even extract the ISO codes within a reasonable amount of effort.

@Nohat, Lingzhi.Random, M. Dingemanse, Peter Isotalo, Mahagaja, Austronesier, Maunus, WilliamThweatt, N-true, Landroving Linguist, TaivoLinguist, Anypodetos, Erutuon, Nardog, Erinius, and Uanfala: Pinging some people I happen to be familiar with; pardon for leaving anyone out. — kwami (talk) 06:53, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how automatic indiscriminate addition of links to illustrations would be justifiable in view of WP:ELNO. Sounds like they're effectively asking us to not only allow spam but do it for them, which is absurd. If an illustration is a source we want to cite, we cite it, but not in External links. Nardog (talk) 07:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking of this as a general resource, much like our links to Glottolog or the ELP. — kwami (talk) 08:43, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't personally have a problem with incorporating automatic links to the Illustrations of the IPA articles from JIPA. They are good reliable sources that are of consistent quality and academic rigor. The paywall is a problem for me, but as a group we (WP linguist editors) don't seem to mind based on our treatment of Ethnologue, which is behind a paywall as well. We link fairly automatically to Ethnologue. I'm not a fan of the hyperlegality of WP editing and I often run afoul of some subsubsubsubsubsection of some rule that was written to prevent two particular words from occurring together consecutively, so I'll leave that issue to those with a WP law degree. But as far as good sources go, the JIPA illustrations of the IPA are as good as it gets when it comes to focused, topical high-quality sources. Incorporating their list automatically would make their citation consistent. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 08:54, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

There is no problem with linking to sources that are behind a paywall, although we should indicate that status by using the "subscription" code in the url-access field in the citation. - Donald Albury 15:17, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

These are regularly citable scholarly works with supplementary material. If they're not used in the relevant article, they can be added to "Further reading", but then of course with full bibliographical data. I don't this it's commercial ref-spamming since JIPA comes close to being a general resource (paywalled or not). –Austronesier (talk) 20:34, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Taivo, Donald and Austronesier on this. I don't see a problem with JIPA as such, as it is a respectable source. For many languages this may be one of very few reliable sources, so we would include this anyway. And for other languages to include it under further reading has nothing to do with spam. LandLing 02:25, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I concur it's acceptable so long as it's to add {{cite journal}} (or {{citation}} if the article uses CS2) in the Further reading section (created if absent, following WP:SECTIONORDER) only if the article doesn't already cite it (or one from Handbook). Other than that, no. Nardog (talk) 02:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

How would we link to the supplementary material? I don't see any such parameter in the cite journal template. Would we need to add params to the template, or am I just overlooking them? — kwami (talk) 04:34, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

We don't need to. The material is linked from the webpage for each paper. Nardog (talk) 05:30, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that should work fine. We might want to mention in the citation that there's a supplement, but I don't know where to put it.

What of extracting date, volume and page numbers? Can that be extracted from the DOI somehow, or will JIPA need to supply it?

I started a practice citation at Qaqet language, so we can work out exactly how it should be formatted and what info we need. Tomorrow I'll see if doi-access will accept some script to automatically display 'free' after 3 yrs. — kwami (talk) 06:20, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Looks like that will need to be in the template, so maybe best to create a dedicated citation template for JIPA. — kwami (talk) 03:21, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I've created {{Cite JIPA}} to handle this. Qaqet language is the test page. If I enter 2019-08 as the print date, it shows free access through the DOI, and if I enter 2019-09 as the date, it doesn't. That can be manually overridden with doi-access=free if need be, though I haven't added an option for manual 'not free'. Journal etc. are automatically filled in, but can be manually overridden.

I'm waiting for JIPA to get the ISO codes sorted out (needed for the bot to know which articles to edit), then will request a bot to add the citation in a 'further reading' section as recommended above. So there's plenty of time to modify things; please comment if you have issues. — kwami (talk) 06:06, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Umm, your example from Qaqet language with |printdate=2019-08 and |printdate=2019-09:

{{cite JIPA |authors= Tabain, Marija and Hellwig, Birgit |onlinedate= 2022 |title= Qaqet |volume= |issue= |pages= 1-22 |doi= 10.1017/S0025100321000359 |doi-access= |printdate=2019-08}}

"Qaqet". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 1–22. 2019. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000359 {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help), with supplementary sound recordings.

{{cite JIPA |authors= Tabain, Marija and Hellwig, Birgit |onlinedate= 2022 |title= Qaqet |volume= |issue= |pages= 1-22 |doi= 10.1017/S0025100321000359 |doi-access= |printdate=2019-09}}

"Qaqet". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 1–22. 2019. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000359 {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help), with supplementary sound recordings.

but:

{{cite JIPA |authors= Tabain, Marija and Hellwig, Birgit |onlinedate= 2022 |title= Qaqet |volume= |issue= |pages= 1-22 |doi= 10.1017/S0025100321000359 |doi-access= |printdate=2019}}

"Qaqet". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 1–22. 2019. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000359 {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help), with supplementary sound recordings.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:57, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

That error message is a wee bit misleading; the actual error message returned from {{time interval}} is: <strong class="error">Error: Invalid start date in first parameter</strong>. This occurs because {{time interval}} does not support YYYY-MM dates but |printdate=2019-08-01:

{{cite JIPA |authors= Tabain, Marija and Hellwig, Birgit |onlinedate= 2022 |title= Qaqet |volume= |issue= |pages= 1-22 |doi= 10.1017/S0025100321000359 |doi-access= |printdate=2019-08-01}}

"Qaqet". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 1–22. 2019. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000359 {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help), with supplementary sound recordings.

or |printdate=August 2019:

{{cite JIPA |authors= Tabain, Marija and Hellwig, Birgit |onlinedate= 2022 |title= Qaqet |volume= |issue= |pages= 1-22 |doi= 10.1017/S0025100321000359 |doi-access= |printdate=August 2019}}

"Qaqet". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 1–22. 2019. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000359 {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help), with supplementary sound recordings.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:19, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Thanks. Yes, I originally customized {{cite JIPA}} to handle that JIPA date format. But the code was rather clunky, and I was given advice on streamlining it; the reduced code does not support the JIPA format because it now relies on what {{time interval}} recognizes. I wonder if it would be worth making a request for {{time interval}} and other date templates to support JIPA format, since it's unambiguous (ISO format with / instead of hyphen, or year-month without a day). — kwami (talk) 20:37, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The WP coders would rather not add more date formats, and JIPA says it's easy enough for them to use a different format. — kwami (talk) 20:56, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Update: CUP has modified their release agreement with IPA; it now makes no difference whether an illustration is first published online on in print, it will be released as free access 3 years from that date. Supposedly they'll release a new batch every Jan 01. However, I don't know if they'll actually do that consistently after 2023, so we may want to manually edit the date in the Cite JIPA template until we know. Might depend on who's in charge of that bit of CUP. — kwami (talk) 19:34, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Rongorongo 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. A455bcd9 (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Does this proposed article violate WP:DICTIONARY?

The Japanese language is known for its wealth of mimetic expressions, as it appears in the media, including manga and anime. I know no other major language with a comparable vocabulary. I thought that a list of Japanese onomatopoeias and the sounds they imitate would be appropriate for inclusion. The list I started more than a month ago is in its early stages. I am considering expanding the prose and obviously the list itself, and I am debating whether to axe the column for English approximations. Then, there is WP:DICTIONARY, which stipulates that Wiktionary is better suited for articles that read like dictionaries. It is worth noting that I am listing words and the sounds they represent, not so much their definitions. For example, the famous mimetic doki doki is listed with the meaning "the sound of a heart beating rapidly". It does not include a definition saying "the state of being excited or startled". So why am I worried about WP:DICTIONARY? Sometimes, you think you are doing the right thing when in fact you missed an important detail. In my case, the meanings in my list could simply be added to the etymologies of the words on Wiktionary, or so I think. FreeMediaKid$ 22:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Swahili (and indeed AFAIK all Bantu languages) do something quite similar, if not perhaps so exuberantly. Supposedly so do the Dravidian languages, though that isn't something I know anything about.

But the critical point here I think is that Japanese ideophones are an open word class. You could list all grammatical suffixes in an article on Japanese grammar, or for a Bantu language list all true adjectives (there are usually only a handful), but once you get to an open-ended list, you are indeed in Wiktionary territory. A WP article should cover the concepts, the sound symbolism (e.g. voiced sounds indicating something large, heavy or round and unvoiced sounds something small, light or sharp) and similar general details, along with sufficient examples to make the point, and perhaps list some ideophones that are notable for some reason, but a full list should be moved to Wiktionary. You could make it into an appendix there, and link to that from the WP article, or create individual articles and cross-link them through the same category. — kwami (talk) 00:53, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I fully agree with Kwami's response. LandLing 11:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

We have a good and decently sourced article about the topic (Japanese sound symbolism), and this should be it for WP. So indeed, Wiktionary is the place. Before building an Appendix in Wiktionary, you should probably consult the Wiktionary community first about the best format to choose: wikt:Wiktionary:Information_desk. –Austronesier (talk) 19:32, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

What I am gathering is that a list like mine would be suitable if it were made into an appendix on Wiktionary. That makes sense. There is already an article about Japanese sound symbolism, and a list would come off as being dictionary-like. I am already preparing the list for inclusion on that site. (I will not comment on my recent copyright affair on that page, though.) The link to the site's information desk will be useful since it is the first time I am creating an appendix, which I will need guidance on how to format. Certainly I would not want even one that has a decent explanation of how the sound symbolism works, but still lists the words in a categorical manner. That is this page's job. As for the draft's title, would it be a good idea if I took it to create a soft redirect to the appendix once the appendix is done? FreeMediaKid$ 21:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Consider the difference you want between your intended appendix and the existing category wikt:Category:Japanese onomatopoeias. E.g. the appendix can have red links for words that don't yet have articles.

If you take a look at wikt:Category:Appendices, that should give you some ideas. There should probably be very short definitions, as in many of those appendices, but that's difficult to do with these words. — kwami (talk) 22:55, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Is Ethnologue a reliable source?

The topic regularly comes back, so I started a discussion here, to assess Ethnologue in WP:RSP. Feedback welcome! A455bcd9 (talk) 07:36, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Content dispute at Sino-Uralic languages

Wider input sought for Talk:Sino-Uralic_languages#Recent_edits_by_Vulpes_tartuensis. Thanks. Austronesier (talk) 09:21, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Improving the "Bulgarian language" article

Hi,

The Bulgarian language article is currently rated C-class on the quality scale, and "high" on the importance scale. I'd appreciate your opinion and guidance on what it would take for it to graduate to B-class quality. I'm a native Bulgarian speaker with some helpful background in linguistics, and I'd like to contribute to improving the article.

Thanks,

Chernorizets (talk) 07:18, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Hitchiti

User:Donald Albury is cleaning up the Hitchiti article, which currently covers both the historic tribal town and the Hitchiti language. We were curious if the Hitchiti language is the same as the Mikasuki language or if it's a related dialect. Omniglot appears to say they are the same. Native-Languages.org suggests Hitchiti is an extinct dialect of Mikasuki-Hitchiti. Thank you for any insights! Yuchitown (talk) 18:36, 18 December 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown

Ethnologue, under 'dialects', has: "Hitchiti, Mikasuki. Hitchiti dialect is extinct." That's what I've generally seen, though I'd need to dig a bit to see if the claim is well-supported. Could be that the "dialects" are merely defined by who speaks them, and are not actually distinct. That's not an uncommon situation in the US. — kwami (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Should the Hitchiti language material simply be added to the Mikasuki language page as is, or should we propose that Mikasuki language be moved to Mikasuki-Hitchiti language? Yuchitown (talk) 03:41, 19 December 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown

FAR for Nafanan Language

I have nominated Nafanan language 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. Hog Farm _Talk 17:24, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Update maintenance categories

Category:ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue only seems to cover "e11–e19". And Category:Articles with citation needed in ref field needs to be repopulated manually.

How can we include recent editions of Ethnologue in the former category and update the latter? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:29, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Another question: {{e18}} doesn't generate links while {{e25}} does: why? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 10:18, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I think my first question is related to {{infobox language}}: see Template_talk:Infobox_language#Edit_request_27_December_2022. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 11:56, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, folks! Isn't List of Indo-European languages an ideal place to greet 2023 with a WP:TNT-firework? Austronesier (talk) 20:33, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Sure! Erinius (talk) 01:46, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely! Anyone wants to light the fuse? – Uanfala (talk) 12:43, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

How to mark 'citation needed' in the infobox

Please comment on Template_talk:Infobox_language#'cn'_on_speaker_ref for how to work this out. Simply taking on 'cn' messes up our tracking category for unreferenced figures. — kwami (talk) 21:19, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Default image and map sizes in our info boxes

Does anyone have their default image size set to something other than 220px? Perhaps you could advise on whether we should define images in absolute pixels or with a relative scaling factor. Please comment at Template_talk:Infobox_language#Absolute or relative default image size?. — kwami (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Unreviewed Featured articles year-end summary

Restoring older Featured articles to standard:

year-end 2022 summary

Unreviewed featured articles/2020 (URFA/2020) is a systematic approach to reviewing older Featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. A January 2022 Signpost article called "Forgotten Featured" explored the effort.

Progress is recorded at the monthly stats page. Through 2022, with 4,526 very old (from the 2004–2009 period) and old (2010–2015) FAs initially needing review:

• 357 FAs were delisted at Featured article review (FAR).
• 222 FAs were kept at FAR or deemed "satisfactory" by three URFA reviewers, with hundreds more being marked as "satisfactory", but awaiting three reviews.
• FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs at the end of 2020 to 64% at the end of 2022.

Of the FAs kept, deemed satisfactory by three reviewers, or delisted, about 60% had prior review between 2004 and 2007; another 20% dated to the period from 2008–2009; and another 20% to 2010–2015. Roughly two-thirds of the old FAs reviewed have retained FA status or been marked "satisfactory", while two-thirds of the very old FAs have been defeatured.

Entering its third year, URFA is working to help maintain FA standards; FAs are being restored not only via FAR, but also via improvements initiated after articles are reviewed and talk pages are noticed. Since the Featured Article Save Award (FASA) was added to the FAR process a year ago, 38 FAs were restored to FA status by editors other than the original FAC nominator. Ten FAs restored to status have been listed at WP:MILLION, recognizing articles with annual readership over a million pageviews, and many have been rerun as Today's featured article, helping increase mainpage diversity.

Examples of 2022 "FAR saves" of very old featured articles

Solar System 2007 FA J. K. Rowling 2007 FA June 26, 2022 TFA Antarctica 2006 FA Joan of Arc 2006 FA Speed of light 2010 FA

All received a Million Award

But there remain almost 4,000 old and very old FAs to be reviewed. Some topic areas and WikiProjects have been more proactive than others in restoring or maintaining their old FAs. As seen in the chart below, the following have very high ratios of FAs kept to those delisted (ordered from highest ratio):

• Biology
• Physics and astronomy
• Warfare
• Video gaming

and others have a good ratio of kept to delisted FAs:

• Literature and theatre
• Engineering and technology
• Religion, mysticism and mythology
• Media
• Geology and geophysics

... so kudos to those editors who pitched in to help maintain older FAs !

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 through 2022 by content area

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 from November 21, 2020 to December 31, 2022 (VO, O) Topic area Delisted Kept Total Reviewed Ratio Kept to Delisted (overall 0.62) Remaining to review for 2004–7 promotions Art, architecture and archaeology 10 6 16 0.60 19 Biology 13 41 54 3.15 67 Business, economics and finance 6 1 7 0.17 2 Chemistry and mineralogy 2 1 3 0.50 7 Computing 4 1 5 0.25 0 Culture and society 9 1 10 0.11 8 Education 22 1 23 0.05 3 Engineering and technology 3 3 6 1.00 5 Food and drink 2 0 2 0.00 3 Geography and places 40 6 46 0.15 22 Geology and geophysics 3 2 5 0.67 1 Health and medicine 8 3 11 0.38 5 Heraldry, honors, and vexillology 11 1 12 0.09 6 History 27 14 41 0.52 38 Language and linguistics 3 0 3 0.00 3 Law 11 1 12 0.09 3 Literature and theatre 13 14 27 1.08 24 Mathematics 1 2 3 2.00 3 Media 14 10 24 0.71 40 Meteorology 15 6 21 0.40 31 Music 27 8 35 0.30 55 Philosophy and psychology 0 1 1 – 2 Physics and astronomy 3 7 10 2.33 24 Politics and government 19 4 23 0.21 9 Religion, mysticism and mythology 14 14 28 1.00 8 Royalty and nobility 10 6 16 0.60 44 Sport and recreation 32 12 44 0.38 39 Transport 8 2 10 0.25 11 Video gaming 3 5 8 1.67 23 Warfare 26 49 75 1.88 31 Total 359 Note A 222 Note B 581 0.62 536 Noting some minor differences in tallies: A URFA/2020 archives show 357, which does not include those delisted which were featured after 2015; FAR archives show 358, so tally is off by at least one, not worth looking for. B FAR archives show 63 kept at FAR since URFA started at end of Nov 2020. URFA/2020 shows 61 Kept at FAR, meaning two kept were outside of scope of URFA/2020. Total URFA/2020 Keeps (Kept at FAR plus those with three Satisfactory marks) is 150 + 72 = 222.

But looking only at the oldest FAs (from the 2004–2007 period), there are 12 content areas with more than 20 FAs still needing review: Biology, Music, Royalty and nobility, Media, Sport and recreation, History, Warfare, Meteorology, Physics and astronomy, Literature and theatre, Video gaming, and Geography and places. In the coming weeks, URFA/2020 editors will be posting lists to individual WikiProjects with the goal of getting these oldest-of-the-old FAs reviewed during 2023.

Ideas for how you can help are listed below and at the Signpost article.

• Review a 2004 to 2007 FA. With three "Satisfactory" marks, article can be moved to the FAR not needed section.
• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. A continuously maintained FA is a good predictor that standards are still met, and with two more "Satisfactory" marks, "your" articles can be listed as "FAR not needed". If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
• Review articles that already have one "Satisfactory" mark: more FAs can be indicated as "FAR not needed" if other reviewers will have a look at those already indicated as maintained by the original nominator. If you find issues, you can enter them at the talk page.
• Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
• Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

More regular URFA and FAR reviewers will help assure that FAs continue to represent examples of Wikipedia's best work. If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/4Q2022.

FAs last reviewed from 2004 to 2007 of interest to this WikiProject

If you review an article on this list, please add commentary at the article talk page, with a section heading == [[URFA/2020]] review== and also add either Notes or Noticed to WP:URFA/2020A, per the instructions at WP:URFA/2020. If comments are not entered on the article talk page, they may be swept up in archives here and lost. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:39, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

1. Bengali language movement
2. Gwoyeu Romatzyh
3. Mayan languages

Two articles for the same ISO 639 language code (qwm)

While fixing technical errors, I noticed that there are two language articles claiming the ISO 639 code "qwm": Fergana Kipchak language (the redirect target for Kuman (Russia) language) and Cuman language. I was unable to tell at a glance whether these two articles should be merged or whether there is a better resolution to this problem. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion on these two, but I saw this situation several times, could we list all ISO codes that are claimed by at least two different articles? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 18:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

qwm is the ISO 639-2 code for Kuman (Russia) [1]. "Kuman" is just another way of spelling "Cuman", the two are completely synonymous in the Turkic literature (some sources spell it "Kuman" and some "Cuman"). Since the article Cuman language exists, then Kuman (Russia) should be a redirect THERE instead of to Fergana Kipchak language. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

As far as what the Fergana Kipchak language refers to, all the sources are in Russian so it may be a Russian term for "Cuman". I have been unable to find any such language reference in the major English language sources on the Turkic languages. If it is exclusively a Russian term (which I suspect), then it has no place in the English Wikipedia. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

We have two Wikidata items, so if this is a synonym for another language, the WD items should be merged as well. — kwami (talk) 09:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I have been able to glean hints that a Russian linguist claims that Cuman, which went extinct in Hungary centuries ago, somehow survived in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan until the 19th or 20th centuries. His claims are not echoed in any English language sources. So the Fergana Kipchak language article, while its history of Cuman repeats what is found at Cuman language, other information apparently summarizes the Russian claims. It's hard to check because I don't know Russian and all the sources at Fergana Kipchak language are in that language. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Dubious and unsourced dialect and sociolect classifications on List of Indo-European languages

Basically most of the sections on that page between "List of Indo-European protolanguages" and "Hypothetical Indo-European languages (all extinct)" are barely sourced. At least the Italic and Germanic sections include listings of dialects of the major languages, which are generally unsourced and many classifications of English and Spanish dialects are highly dubious. In brief, what should we do about that page? Erinius (talk) 22:49, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Discussion about adding links to DoReCo

Please take a look at this discussion regarding the addition of external links to articles about different languages. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 13:44, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the name of a book in Arabic

The whole question wasn't supposed to be raised here, and is transferred to where it should be - HD language. Sorry. בנצי (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Update language name on Wikipedia

South Levantine Arabic (ajp) and North Levantine Arabic (apc) have just been merged into Levantine Arabic (apc) in the ISO 639-3 standard (see Request 2022-006, please note that I was the primary proposer). How can we take that change into account across Wikipedia so that for instance {{lang}} adds Category:Articles containing Levantine Arabic-language text instead of Category:Articles containing North Levantine Arabic-language text? I assume there are many other templates and modules that need to be updated. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:59, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Correct form to write a proper noun in English

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language

 – Nardog (talk) 09:20, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Arakanese language#Requested move 27 January 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Arakanese language#Requested move 27 January 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vpab15 (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Text in Mongolian script

See also: fr:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Oracle/semaine_6_2023 § Texte_en_mongol_manuscrit, and fr:Projet:Langues/Caf%C3%A9_des_linguistes § Texte_en_mongol_manuscrit

Hello

I have a handwritten text in Mongol script that I would like to translate, but I don't read that language. It is about a Toli and I would like to improve the article from this text.

Any ideas will be welcomed.

Regards,  Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 07:22, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Kusasi language#Requested move 1 February 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Kusasi language#Requested move 1 February 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 18:09, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

AfD notice

Got a deletion discussion about the English term "city slicker" going which I'd rather not see end in no consensus. Any more eyes on it would be appreciated. QuietHere (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Berber Languages: Population Sources

There's a disagreement regarding the inclusion of a source for population numbers in the Berber languages page. The overall discussion is here. The disagreement has been simplified into a Third Opinion template here. I posted the disagreement on the Third Opinion page, but as 6 days have passed without any reply, I thought I'd bring it to people's attention here. I think people involved in the Languages project might be familiar with the kind of issues in discussion here and be helpful in resolving the disagreement; any third party input would be greatly appreciated! Blueshiftofdeath (talk) 18:15, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request regarding languages associated with Chin/Zomi/Kuki/Mizo peoples

The article Chin people is in quite a mess after years of POV edits, and there's a discussion at the Talk page about this. As a side effect of the Pov warring, the languages section of the Infobox at Chin people has had numerous edits resulting from global changes to the article, such as, for example changing all occurrences of "Chin" to "Zomi" (or vice versa), as well as wiping out languages of certain ethnic groups, and adding others. There's also a § Language section in the article which is completely unsourced, and could use your help or feedback as well.

If you have an interest in or knowledge about languages in the Indo-Burmese area, your feedback would be appreciated at this discussion. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@Lingnanhua: This is in your area of interest/expertise, maybe you can help out. –Austronesier (talk) 18:59, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Thanks for the ping. I agree that it's a big mess, as with most articles about ethnic groups in South Asia. Definitely do something like semi-protection. Chin and Zomi should be separate because they're used by completely different groups of people. Zomi is a neologism that some speakers of certain northern Kuki-Chin languages promote, particularly in Churachandpur District, Manipur. Chin is a generic exonym primarily used in Myanmar (kind of like Zhuang, Miao, or Yi in China), but Kuki-Chin speakers in India don't really have a Chin identity. Rather, they're just Mizo, Kuki, Hmar, or whatever ethnic group they are, and their overarching identity is just "Northeast Indian" as opposed to "mainland Indian." In Myanmar, Mizo, Kuki, and even Anu-Hkongso speakers are all grouped as "Chin." In Manipur, the Zomi Literature Society there is even trying to promote a standardized "Zomi" language that is essentially a tweaked version of Paite that no one really uses apart from the people running the society. In short, "Zomi" is the result of a novel pan-ethnic movement and should not be replacing "Chin" in the Chin people article. It's almost like barging into the Yi people article to change everything to "Ngwi." Lingnanhua (talk) 20:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Link to previous editions of Ethnologue

Looks like links generated by templates such as {{e25}} don't work anymore, e.g.: Bulgarian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) . It seems that Ethnologue doesn't support adding /n_edition at the end of the URL. Older editions that use another URL format still work: Bulgarian at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009) . I'll contact them... a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:16, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

All but the current edition are offline, presumably temporarily. — kwami (talk) 12:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I hope so... (Editions before 18 are still online though) a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 12:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Ethnologue's Product Manager answered: "Thanks for letting me know. The 25th edition archive is still in the process of being created, so that is why that link does not work. 24th and back should all work now. Give us a couple of days and if you're still experiencing difficulties with links, let me know and I'll see what I can do." a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 16:40, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Updated answer:

"Unfortunately, because of the new platform we moved to, our webmaster informs me that we had to modify our path structure for archived editions. Here is the new format for archive links:

https://www.ethnologue.com/24/language/bul/"

So I'll update the templates accordingly. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 18:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Done, the problem should be fixed now (however, the 25th edition is still being re-created). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 19:00, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Bilakura language#Requested move 1 March 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Bilakura language#Requested move 1 March 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:38, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Chitral Kalasha language#Requested move 16 March 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chitral Kalasha language#Requested move 16 March 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 14:27, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposed template for Chao tones

@Kwamikagami: @Austronesier: @Kanguole: Back in 2021, a template for explaining numerical Chao tones was proposed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages/Archive 16#IPA tones, but it was never created. Kwamikagami would really like to see IPA tone sticks used, but the majority Sinologists and MSEA (Mainland Southeast Asian) linguists consider them to be extremely unsightly, like how converting IAST to IPA would render Sanskrit/Indic transcriptions illegible to many Indologists. Therefore, instead of global replacements, we need a template that would do something like explaining Chao tones and automatically providing tone stick equivalents while maintaining the original transcription with Chao tones. Lingnanhua (talk) 07:57, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I also find the Chao tone letters unsightly. In a language like Songlin, where we'd only need 2 diacritics for tone, they seem pointless. But the digits are also unsightly, and in addition are confusing if you're constantly going back and forth between transcriptions where "1" is high and where "1" is low. Better unsightly than misleading. — kwami (talk) 08:05, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: For non-Sinitic languages, tone sticks were used by Chinese linguists in from the 1950s to 1980s, but since the 1990s, the consensus has been to use superscript numerals for them. Very few people in the MSEA field use tone sticks anymore, and they really do not want to see tone sticks used. The reasons are not only aesthetic, but also due to many practical and historical reasons. Only some old-fashioned Sinologists dealing with Chinese dialects/Sinitic varieties still use tone sticks. Numerical tones are much easier for MSEA linguists to analyze. It's not just unsightly, but also difficult to read and deal with for contemporary MSEA linguists, since not every reader out there can zoom in or use global search and replace for complex contour tones like 423, 213, or 453. Lingnanhua (talk) 08:17, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

For example, some of us mainstream linguists might find ṭ, ḍ, ṇ in Indology to be annoying and unsightly and want to see ʈ, ɖ, ɳ used instead. They correspond 1-1 with IPA, so might as convert them all to IPA, right? Not so fast. Maybe ṭ could mean something else in another field, but in IAST transcriptions, we all know that those are retroflexes. ṭ, ḍ, ṇ in Indology is conventional and widely understood, even though you could argue that ṭ might be confused for ts, tʂ, tʃ, or whatever for people not familiar with IAST (for example, <ṭ> is pronounced as [tʂ] in the Hakha language). Converting ṭ to ʈ in all Indology articles would be a travesty for aesthetical, practical, and historical reasons. Similarly, we can't do this for numerical Chao tones used to transcribe the languages of China and MSEA. Lingnanhua (talk) 08:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

But there's no equivalent difficulty with tone. 53 always means [˥˧]. Chao tone letters and Chao tone numbers have an exact correspondence; the difference is only that Chao letters are universal but Chao numbers are regional. A difficulty would only occur if an author used, say, 3 for high, but AFAIK such exceptions are rare in the China/MSEA area. And in any case, Sinologists would find that more confusing than if we converted to IPA. So, unless we need to dumb things down for Sinologists because they're illiterate in their own phonetic conventions, it would be better to stick to IPA. The only drawback is that it's ugly, but then so are the digits. — kwami (talk) 09:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Sinologists and MSEA linguists all know what tone sticks/letters are, but many of them absolutely do not want to use tone sticks. One reason is that readers can't always distinguish tone sticks immediately, since /53/ vs. /54/ or even /53/ vs. /42/ can be confused with each other if you're not zooming in enough. Many languages in southern China have incredibly complex tones (something like /43/ vs. /32/ for example), and the tone letters can look really similar to each other. It gets very cumbersome trying to distinguish tone sticks/letters by sight when you're going through texts and lexicons, whereas numerals are easily distinguishable by sight. Of course, some people can use global replacements, but that's then that's also impractical and time-consuming for a variety of reasons.

I get howls of protests from other linguists whenever numerals are converted into tone sticks. I would absolutely expect similar howls of protests if I were to do this to Semitic, Indic, and other types of non-standard transcriptions, and they would be even less happy about it than Sinologists. Since neither audience can reach a consensus on this matter, we must use templates where both types of transcriptions can be presented to both audiences. Lingnanhua (talk) 09:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

So that is why we need a template automatically giving IPA tone stick equivalents while also maintaining the original numerical Chao tones. We absolutely can't do away with the original numerical transcriptions. Try doing the equivalent to IAST transcriptions, and you'll be met with unanimous opposition and a large audience that would find the converted transcriptions to be useless. Also, another thing is that numerical Chao tones must be written as superscripts. We still need to convert non-superscript tones to superscripts on Wikipedia. Lingnanhua (talk) 08:32, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

If we use digits for the underlying data, we can't have automatic transcription because the template could convert it wrong. We would need parameters that specify which digit is high and which is low. We could probably abbreviate that with a single letter for 1 (low) to 5 (high) and similarly for other common conventions, but simply entering digits needs to generate an error so we can ensure that the editor intends the results that the template generates. Or else we could have separate templates for different conventions, say an MSEA tone converter, a Kru tone converter, etc. — kwami (talk) 09:07, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Of course, it has to be an MSEA-specific converter. It's universally consistent in Sinology: 55 is high, 33 is mid, 11 is low. No one ever uses 11 or 33 to denote a high level tone in Sinology. Single digits or 10 (numbers 1-10; sometimes you also see ^1a or ^1’) are for tonal categories, often to denote historical origins from codas such as *-ʔ rather than pitch values, so the converter can't include any single digits. I've seen Kru and Oto-Manguean and other tonal transcription conventions and know what you are talking about, and we can create separate templates for those. Lingnanhua (talk) 09:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking a universal converter with a param for which system we're using: if we entered 'high = 5' it would know to convert as per MSEA, 'low = 5' like Liberia, and similarly 'low = 3', 'high = 2', etc. I wouldn't think that should be too difficult. If the template only handled one convention, we might have people using it for the wrong one. By making them specify which convention they're using, hopefully we wouldn't have that problem.

High or low = 4 would be more complicated, as the template wouldn't automatically know which pitch level to omit, but that should be manageable. Worse would be 1-6 and 0-5 scales, but those are relatively uncommon. — kwami (talk) 09:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The template will also need to be able to treat 33, ³³ (Unicode superscript), and ³³ equally. I strongly prefer ³³, but not all editors input that. I would recommend an MSEA-specific template, not a global template where you have to specify the region in a parameter, or else we could end up with unintentional errors if someone forgets to specify parameters. Something like Template:Chao tone, with Template:Chao redirecting to it, would work. Lingnanhua (talk) 09:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Categories

Could someone create a category grade for this WikiProject please? Thanks, greyzxq ^talk 20:37, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

User making unsourced changes to multiple language articles

@Nestofbirdnests: has been editing and edit warring on multiple articles about language, removing mention of the languages being isolates and/or adding the languages to language groups without providing any sources. Donald Albury 02:31, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Nevermin, editor has been blocked. Donald Albury 13:01, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Category talk:Regions of Europe with multiple official languages

Please see my comments in the talk page. Thanks Titus Gold (talk) 13:59, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Small Flowery Miao#Requested move 12 April 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Small Flowery Miao#Requested move 12 April 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 14:19, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Kajkavian § IP's proposed changes from May 2023

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Kajkavian § IP's proposed changes from May 2023. –Vipz (talk) 07:17, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Celtiberian

Been doing a project relating to the celtiberian language. but i have been unable to read the pronunciations, could someone who's familiar with PIE letters translate them to IPA? i can do all the necessary edits i just need to know what to write. WashingtonPeopleAppreciator (talk) 22:13, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Dutch language

Wider input sought in Talk:Dutch_language#Official_language_of_the_Netherlands. The discussion revolves around the question of whether Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands. Austronesier (talk) 18:00, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Wave model

I've noticed that Template:Infobox language and Template:Infobox language family don't seem to have an easy way to represent the Wave model when a variety's classification is better represented using that model rather than the Tree model. I'm not sure how to fix this, what do y'all think? ~Strawberry of Arctic Circle System (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

@Arctic Circle System: Do you have a concrete example? The wave model in its most basic form is not so much about classificion, but about the distribution of innovations among related languages or subgroups. A non-congruent and overlapping distribution of innovations means that the relation between these languages or subgroups cannot be captured in a tree structure. The only way is to present them in a flat rake model for quick overview purposes as e.g. in infoboxes (or also navigation templates). Going into details of non-congruently distributed innovations goes beyond the purpose of an infobox.

An exception to this would be language groupings that have been described in the framework of the linkage model in reliable sources. We can include such linkages in a classificatory hierarchy in the infobox, and probably explicitly tag them with "(linkage)". –Austronesier (talk) 18:10, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Adding the Philippines to isoglosses of Spanish

Hi, folks. I'd like to seek wider input from this WikiProject on a discussion I started on the talk page for the Spanish language article: Talk:Spanish language#Adding the Philippines to isoglosses of Spanish. While there is a recognized dialect of Spanish in the Philippines (Philippine Spanish), the dialect doesn't appear in a number of linguistic maps that are used on Wikipedia, and your input on whether or not the Philippines should or shouldn't be included on those maps will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 21:36, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Category:Languages with ISO 639-3 code

Hi. Category:Languages with ISO 639-3 code is almost empty. Should it be deleted? --TadejM ^{my talk} 06:20, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Official languages lists WP:REDUNDANTFORKs

Input sought at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists#List of official languages and List of official languages by country and territory.

Nobody is responding. What should I do? Should I move the whole discussion here? Should I make this an RfC? See also (where some people actually are responding):

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of largest languages without official status
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of languages by the number of countries in which they are recognized as an official language

Of course WP:Deletion is not cleanup, but how else can I get people's attention to this structural problem of countless redundant WP:OVERLAPping lists of official languages that are mostly WP:UNSOURCED? Any tips are welcome, thanks! Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:38, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Low Saxon#Requested move 1 July 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Low Saxon#Requested move 1 July 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:43, 10 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)

"Formerly" Sarcee.

At Tsuutʼina language, an editor has claimed that the language is "formerly" known as Sarcee/Sarsi. However, that's still the ISO name, used at Glottolog as well, so it seems premature to say it's the former name. They did find one source that says it's the former name (or rather, two sources by the same author, Cox), but that doesn't trump the reality that it is still being used. Editor is of the opinion that ISO/Ethnologue/Glottolog have no value and can be discounted; on the other hand, Cox's paper are conference presentations and proceedings, which aren't terribly high on the RS scale either. Rather than continuing to argue there, I thought people might have an opinion here. — kwami (talk) 02:48, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Looking at the literature list, I notice that all secondary sources that use the old name were written before 1985. ISO 639-c codes and names get changed when relevant people apply for such a change and provide documentation. Maybe this hasn't happened yet. Based on that, I would take the claim that Sarcee is a "former name" at face value, since it is not unsourced, and let it stand. Most likely, the language community decided to go with their own name, and it may take quite a while before this is accepted/reflected by the wider linguistic/academic community. The other editor does not insist on getting the old name purged out of the article, and the wish to state that it is not the current currency anymore appears reasonable to me. LandLing 08:49, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Input Desired at Plains Indian Sign Language

I'd like to make some changes at Plains Indian Sign Language, and I would appreciate some input before going forward. I've linked to the relevant talk page section. Thanks! Aamri2 (talk) 22:36, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Swedish IPA transcription

Where can I ask for an IPA Swedish transcription for Lasse Lönndahl?-- Carnby (talk) 06:49, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Zok language

Is this actually a language or is this more of a dialect 122.59.56.121 (talk) 21:53, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

From the description, it sounds like a marginally distinct language. Of course, 'unintelligible' might just be until you get an ear for it, in which case it's usually counted as a dialect, but one of the refs claims the unintelligibility is due to a different path of sound change in the vowels, which could mean more is needed than just acquiring an ear. — kwami (talk) 22:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

It appears to be distinct from East Armenian. But that doesn't mean it's distinct from West Armenian. It's traditionally listed as a dialect of E Armenian. But if that's an error, it could simply be another variety of W Armenian and not a distinct language. — kwami (talk) 05:16, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

The actual quote from the prinicipal cited source (Vaux 2008) says: "Though closely related to it linguistically, Zok is completely unintelligible to speakers of Standard Eastern Armenian, and is therefore properly considered a separate language." However, this is simplistic. Dialects that are completely unintelligible to speakers of the standard language are often quite intelligible to neighboring dialects or intelligible after a period of acclimatization. This is not clarified in the source since it tends to be focused on the "Standard" language and not a complete dialect survey. I can't understand anyone from Tangier Island, yet we both speak English. In essence, classifying Zok as a separate language has been suggested, and may be an accurate assessment, but has not been proven with thorough dialect and intelligibility surveys. Glottolog, of course, still lists the Agulis-Meghri dialect as part of the Eastern Armenian language. It has not been recognized as a separate language by Ethnologue either (whose language versus dialect decisions are often based on sociolinguistic factors and community demands). --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 03:59, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Simple past

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Simple past#Merger discussion, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. A user has proposed merging Simple past to Preterite. Cnilep (talk) 07:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Input needed at Talk:Ukrainian language#Little Russian language

There is currently a dispute about whether verifiable references to Ivan Kotliarevsky, Ivan Vahylevych, Pylyp Morachevskyi (and possibly others) calling the language Little Russian before the 1860s should be included in the article, or excluded. Crash48 (talk) 16:52, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Need help transliterating Arabic

Greetings everyone. I am looking for help correctly transliterating an Arabic name. Please see this discussion and reply there if you can find the time. I previously posted to three Arab/Arabic-related WikiProjects, which unfortunately appear inactive. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 17:13, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Soyot–Tsaatan language#Requested move 22 September 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Soyot–Tsaatan language#Requested move 22 September 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 00:37, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Input requested at Saharan Spanish

In talk:Saharan Spanish#Language family tree, I'm trying to explain why the infobox in the page shouldn't include a language family tree, however the other editors seem unconvinced, and the discussion is stalled. My point is that the tree implies that Saharan Spanish (the one spoken in the Western Sahara territory) is a particular variety of Spanish, i.e. a dialect, but in fact it has no native speakers among Saharawis, they just speak Spanish as a second language, with different levels of competence, and no specific dialect. All comments are welcome. Jotamar (talk) 22:30, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

After one month, a third opinion is still dearly needed in the same discussion (talk:Saharan Spanish#Language family tree). --Jotamar (talk) 21:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Push for GA status for Chinese characters

I've started a talk page discussion at Talk:Chinese characters#GA push, and I would appreciate any input anyone may have! — Remsense聊 13:31, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Southern Min

Template:Southern Min has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Arctic Circle System (talk) 06:59, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Lurs#Requested move 31 October 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Lurs#Requested move 31 October 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Nardog (talk) 18:30, 7 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)

Requested move at Talk:Halmahera Sea languages#Requested move 11 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Halmahera Sea languages#Requested move 11 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 21:12, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Maden language#Requested move 11 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Maden language#Requested move 11 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 21:12, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Wagiman language

Wagiman language has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:22, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Is Beary a language or dialect?

Please join the discussion at Talk:Beary language#Language or dialect?. The Doom Patrol (talk) 14:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Kurdish languages#Requested move 15 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Kurdish languages#Requested move 15 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:45, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Tholo language#Requested move 15 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Tholo language#Requested move 15 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – Hilst [talk] 12:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)