Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics

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Welcome to the talk page for WikiProject Linguistics. This is the hub of the Wikipedian linguist community; like the coffee machine in the office, this page is where people get together, share news, and discuss what they are doing. Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, and keep everyone updated on your progress. New talk goes at the bottom, and remember to sign and date your comments by typing four tildes (~~~~). Thanks!

Discussion of interest

There is a discussion about whether the article Vowel breaking is at the right location/about the scope of the article at Talk:Vowel breaking#Page at right location?.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Bengali-Assamese languages

Hello, I reverted a recent edit [1]. The edit claimed that Noakhailla language is not listed in Glottolog and therefore it should not be listed in Bengali-Assamese languages. It seems to me that this issue is better addressed in Noakhailla language first. Also that Dhakaiyya Kutti is a dialect of Bengali language. Since Dhaka Bengali is yet another standard of the Bengali language, I wonder how this can be best represented. Could some linguists please provide some inputs here. Thanks. Chaipau (talk) 16:47, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I just joined the wiki project

Can you just walk in and join or there are requirements OSC221 (talk) 02:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

You just walk in and add your userid here. Mathglot (talk) 06:43, 16 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) 16:40, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

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

Categorising Women Linguists

Most of the pages listed in Category:Women Linguists are not listed in Category:Linguists. Also some of the Linguists are women and are not listed in that category. There are 679 women linguists and only 146 linguists total! What's the quickest way to fix this? ImSirLaserOwl (talk) 02:54, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

First, it's Category:Women linguists (second word uncapitalized). Also, any item in the subcategory "Category:Women linguists" will automatically fall under the umbrella of "Category:Linguists". Also, separating women out into their own category while leaving men "unmarked" is not really encouraged on Wikipedia, and has given rise to acrimonious controversies in the past... AnonMoos (talk) 15:54, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I expect Category:Linguists to be a diffusing category: with articles included not directly in it, but in its subcategories based on time period, language of study, etc. Having separate categories for women academics appears to be quite common (see for example all the subcategories of Category:Women by occupation); the general guidelines for that are at WP:CATGENDER. – Uanfala (talk) 10:32, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

The "CATGENDER" page does not refer to the whole tortured "Women novelists" category saga of ten years ago, except in a very oblique and limited way at the end. It should definitely address it in a fuller and more direct manner... AnonMoos (talk) 19:23, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Determinans and Determinatum

• Determinans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Determinatum (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The above two stub articles have been proposed for deletion following a discussion here. Johnuniq (talk) 02:39, 18 February 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) 13:27, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Feedback at Deverbal noun

I've made a series of edits at Deverbal noun cutting out unsourced content (which was almost everything) and reorganizing it as a stub. I've proposed a couple of ways forward at Talk:Deverbal noun#Merge or rewrite, and your feedback would be welcome. Mathglot (talk) 06:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

SOV SVO VSO VOS OVS OSV

Word order	English equivalent	Proportion of languages		Example languages
SOV	"Cows grass eat."	45%	45	Ancient Greek, Bengali, Burmese, Hindi/Urdu, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Turkish, etc
SVO	"Cows eat grass."	42%	42	Chinese, English, French, Hausa, Italian, Malay, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese, etc
VSO	"Eat cows grass."	9%	9	Biblical Hebrew, Classical Arabic, Filipino, Irish, Māori, Tuareg-Berber, Welsh
VOS	"Eat grass cows."	3%	3	Car, Fijian, Malagasy, Qʼeqchiʼ, Terêna
OVS	"Grass eat cows."	1%	1	Hixkaryana, Urarina
OSV	"Grass cows eat."	0%		Tobati, Warao
Frequency distribution of word order in languages surveyed by Russell S. Tomlin in the 1980s ()

Each of the six articles on specific orders (but not the umbrella article Word order!) has this pair of huge boxes, squeezing the main text into an awkwardly narrow column. Talk me out of removing Template:Language word order frequency from the six and replacing it with a paraphrase of the relevant row of the table. —Tamfang (talk) 17:39, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I think the table provides valuable information and context to the layperson about the possible word orderings and the relative prevalence of the specific ordering that is the topic of the article, but I agree it's rather unwieldy and intrusive in its current form. Perhaps we could make the table collapsible and collapse it by default? Alternatively, we could also put it in a separate section as in Verb–object–subject word order. Or some combination of both solutions.

Additionally, I noticed that most of the excess bulk/intrusion in the template is coming from the example languages column, so perhaps the information in that column could be moved to the respective article and a link to the appropriate section provided instead. Indigopari (talk) 04:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, the other five are listed in "See also". —Tamfang (talk) 23:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Meanwhile, in the table itself, how about replacing "French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish" with "most Romance languages"? unless of course that's inaccurate —Tamfang (talk) 23:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

References

Help class for Template proposal

I proposed a new class for the WPLING template to group Help articles over at Template talk:WikiProject Linguistics. If I don't get any objections, I'll move forward with the changes in a few days to a week. Indigopari (talk) 04:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze#Requested move 26 April 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze#Requested move 26 April 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. SkyWarrior 19:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Edit warrior in the area of Serbo-Croatian

Kajkavian is currently being attacked by a nationalist edit warrior who keeps changing the classification of Shtokavian and Chakavian as Serbo-Croatian to an unscientific classification of them as "Croatian", which makes no sense and is clearly against the consensus. Sol505000 (talk) 23:23, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

This is not a question for consensus, but what is written in the source, and in the source it is written in Croatian, not Serbo-Croatian, as you would change what is written in the source, and that is against editing Wikipedia because it is based on sources. And stop attacking me on a personal level. Here is a source [[2]]that the user Sol505000 does not respect. I just fixed what the vandal ip changed what is written in the source here added and invented [[3]], but unfortunately it is supported by user Sol505000.93.143.79.158 (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

It does not matter what is written in the source. There's plenty of books written by authors confused by nationalist propaganda ex-Yugoslavians are bombarded with from cradle to grave that says that Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian are separate, distinct languages which they are not. They have extremely similar grammar, pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary (when you're dealing with their standard varieties) and hard scientific research cited in Serbo-Croatian has proven again and again that these are merely varieties of the same language. If you're looking for truly separate languages check Slovene or Macedonian. Those are genuinely distinct languages. Wikipedia is not a place for nationalist propaganda. Sol505000 (talk) 00:01, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place for your propaganda, which is based on adding and inventing something that is not written in the books. I won't comment on the rest of what you insult me, it all says about you.93.143.79.158 (talk) 00:26, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

As I explained to you before, the name Serbo-Croatian language was a form because we lived in the same country from 1918-1990 in Yugoslavia, that's why it had that name when that country fell apart, the Serbo-Croatian language no longer exists, something like Britain today has English-Scottish, for example. Today it has the Croatian language, which is also recognized in the EU, as will be the Serbian language and the Bosnian language when they enter the EU. The name Serbo-Croatian language no longer exists, it went with Yugoslavia. And the languages are very different, there are a lot of different words, and in addition, the Serbian language has "Ekavica" and Croatia has "Ijekavica" in the Štokavian dialect. Don't let me explain the difference between Croatian and Serbian, Croats write in Latin and Serbs in Cyrillic, etc. 93.143.79.158 (talk) 00:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

No, the standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian are not "very different" and the research cited in Serbo-Croatian proves that. What you're describing are mere regional differences in vocabulary and pronunciation (and orthography, every standard apart from Croatian uses Cyrillic to a bigger or lesser extent) that do not match national borders and there's variation within the countries themselves (I'm talking about the standard language alone), exactly as in the case of English, German and Spanish. If you asked a native Spanish speaker from outside Argentina and Uruguay if they consider Rioplatense Spanish a separate language in the same sense that Portuguese and French are foreign to them they would think you're crazy. The same applies here. You will not convince me otherwise. Sol505000 (talk) 00:53, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

You think what you want, I wanted to explain to you about that Serbian-Croatian name, that's how people in Serbia and Croatia think about that name, as I wrote here. They are very different languages, there are many different words, if they weren't, one wouldn't be called Croatian and the other Serbian, but they have nothing to do with each other.93.143.79.158 (talk) 01:05, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

"But they have nothing to do with each other" - Right, I forgot that they are language isolates. I'm sorry for my confusion. Sol505000 (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I only returned what was written correctly in the source, I did not say that Štokavian is only a Croatian dialect, it is Serbian as well as Bosnian. And now it is written correctly as it says in the source that it is a Croatian dialect, someone can use that source and write on the Serbian page that Shtokavian is a Serbian dialect or on the Bosnian page that Shtokavian is a Bosnian dialect, I have nothing against that. That's what it says in the source, and don't add something that isn't written.I hope you understand what I'm talking about. Goodbye93.143.79.158 (talk) 01:18, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

RFC on usage of First Nations placenames on Wikipedia

There is an ongoing request for discussion concerning whether First Nations placenames can be used in the infobox on Wikipedia. Please provide your feedback here. Poketama (talk) 02:29, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Names of wars

As the naming of anything seems a matter perhaps relevant to this project, members may be interested in an AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of wars named for their duration. There is also perhaps a missing article to be written on the subject of Naming of wars or Names of wars. PamD 15:38, 25 May 2023 (UTC)