Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics/Archive 3

Portal:Linguistics

I've spent quite a bit of time revamping the portal, adding date-based rotating content, and adding a few new secitons. I have just submitted it for portal peer review, and invite everyone to participate, here: Wikipedia:Portal_peer_review/Linguistics/archive1. --Msanford (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Chinese exclamative particles

Hi, I just created Chinese exclamative particles, should this be added to WP Linguistics? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 11:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources and language articles

Hi, I asked the following question at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy), but it might be better to ask it here.

Articles about language belong to the category Linguistics. I have noticed that many editors are not aware that Linguistics is a distinct academic field. That is, they naturally assume 'Linguistics' is the domain of Literature professors, Educational bodies/Boards of Education, or published grammarians. This is understandable, since modern Linguistics doesn't hit 50 until next year.

How best to redress this in the policies and guidelines, and what is the process for getting it done?

I left out common knowledge ("I speak English, so I know what the vocabulary is/how English works" etc).

I think it's partly a matter of adding a page or section to the Reliable Sources sections of Policy and Guidelines for where to look for reliable sources for the category, and so being able to reference it. This might cut down on unnecessary discussion. I don't see it as a problem with the technical articles, naturally, but there are many more articles concerning (English, particularly) language and language use than these.

Thoughts appreciated.

Ddawkins73 (talk) 17:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you give some explicit examples of articles you've found with problematic sourcing? —Angr 17:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure.

This sort of old chestnut (authority of the grammarian):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_and_British_English_differences&diff=269043616&oldid=268914581

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_and_British_English_differences&diff=267706881&oldid=267706214

and associated talk comments like this:

In what way is a book by Dr Paul Brians, from the English Faculty at Washington State, not a reliable source?

Individual edits and some dubious sourcing on lists like these (authority of the speaker):

List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_British_and_American_English

Completely unsourced lists similar to the above (now deleted).

Did a search for dialect just now and the first article I looked at was completely unsourced:

List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language

Comments on AfDs, such as the below re The_six_traits_of_writing

Comment - it turns out that this concept is used throughout the us as a Teahcing Tool for the education of writing. For example, it smentioned here at the Edina tteaching website, here at the Center for Teaching Advancement webpage, against a Teaching That Makes Sense training website, again here at the Reynolds Institute, a prestigious institutaiton, and it even has a book atout which is avialable on this lit website. I am reviewing WP:RS to determine whether or not htise constitute reliable sources; if anyone can help me decide or adjucdicate this matter it may help to inform this debate, thank you for your consideration.

Ddawkins73 (talk) 19:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, now I see the sort of thing you're talking about. I've been having trouble too trying to keep personal observations out of Northeast Pennsylvania English and Non-native pronunciations of English. I don't know how to solve it other than on a case-by-case basis, reminding people that WP:V and WP:NOR apply to articles on linguistics too, and assuring them that academic sources are in most cases out there somewhere if they know where to look for them. —Angr 20:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been looking through the guidelines. I suggest a page on "reliable sources for language related articles"

Science and other subject areas have these pages. Linked to from WP:RS.

Mention which topics are covered by Linguistics (anything about language itself - word lists etc)

Say what aren't reliable sources.

Remind that WP:V and WP:NOR etc apply.

Suggest some places to look for sources.

Mention change (keeping sources up to date)

I'm happy to draft it, because - even to the extent it has to be dealt with case by case - having an authoritative page to link to is very handy.

Ddawkins73 (talk) 00:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea! —Angr 08:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Consternaton over Wikipedia's format for phoneme tables

I am astonished that a standard arrangement of phonemes has become institutionalized at Wikipedia. I refer to putting nasals on the top row. If I have ever seen this in the literature, I can't recall it. How did this happen, and how can it be undone? Dale Chock (talk) 05:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

See File:IPA chart 2005.png. This is the official IPA phoneme chart. Regards --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC) Oops, my mistake --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 10:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that isn't the official IPA phoneme chart. It's a phoneme chart made by User:Kwamikagami. The IPA chart in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association puts the plosives first, then the nasals. Even that strikes me as odd; it's much more intuitive to put the obstruents together (first plosives, then affricates, then fricatives) and then put the sonorants together. +Angr 10:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That was my thinking, 'cept the nasal stops are also (articulatory) obstruents, with ties to oral stops in many languages. (Okay, you get n~l a lot, but not much more than r~z, and it would break up the laterals.) So it's stops, then running down the lenition cline, then rhotics, then laterals, repeating the above. Sonorants aren't a coherent group the way obstruents are. Placing the nasals at the top isn't original with me, and when I saw it, it made a lot of sense as a more intuitive arrangement. kwami (talk) 10:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it seems quite counterintuitive to me! At any rate, it isn't really true that the nasal-first listing has become "institutionalized" at Wikipedia; lots of articles list plosives first. And there's always some wiggle room for language-dependent reasons; at Irish phonology I merged fricatives and approximants together into one row because /w/ and /j/ pattern phonologically as voiced fricatives in that language. +Angr 10:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

We should probably start laying out phoneme tables here in the same way as the IPA chart, for consistency. Irbisgreif (talk) 10:23, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Prithee

Notable? ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely WP:notable. I'll have you know it's the most notable dictionary word I've seen up for deletion today. Fortunately being notable is enough to keep it in an encyclopedia (oh... wait... it has to meet all the policies doesn't it?)- Wolfkeeper 02:41, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, since the article isn't a dicdef, it does meet all the policies. +Angr 10:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Wolfkeeper believes, and keeps trying to add to policy, the idea that "Articles are not about words and phrases". He refuses to acknowledge that this is a subjective interpretation of the WP:NAD policy, despite many editors here and at Wiktionary trying to explain the various problems he isn't understanding.

He also believes: "It's probably also the case that etymology should be minimised also in most articles."

See this edit for example, where he added a {{dicdef}} tag to Gay (word). He clearly doesn't agree with, or understand, something critical. I'm not sure how else to make clear to him that he is stating a not-widely-shared perspective.

He has stated that "the principle in WP:NAD states that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, not that it is not Wiktionary." (here). He is advocating the idea that we should remove content from Wikipedia, because it belongs at a dictionary - but seems to be claiming it is irrelevant if Wiktionary won't accept it.

He has been deleting&soft-redirecting many articles (or excising, or afding), a few of which I've reverted (eg Mad as a hatter). He has started compiling a list at User:Wolfkeeper/todo that includes thou (currently Featured) and moonies and fuck.

Perhaps if some more people from this project explain to him that he is making a mistake in reasoning/judgement/something, he might start to realize he has a subjective understanding of the policy, and should stop trying to force it on everyone? -- Quiddity (talk) 19:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

If he's been told this on numerous occasions and continues to do it, it's time to consider an RFC. +Angr 21:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Or should I be RFCing Quiddity given that he is apparently following me around the wikipedia?- Wolfkeeper 22:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, the policy is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a dictionary. The question then follows, what are they then and what's the difference? However, since both encyclopedias and dictionaries are standard types of works which have been extensively examined by scholars over centuries. I have actually looked at the literature on this, and are able to cite my justifications, whereas it seems to me, you only have your opinions, which are statistically much less likely to be correct on the differences than textbooks which have been through a peer-review process.- Wolfkeeper 22:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

He clearly won't listen to me (having banned me from his talkpage for this), and probably won't listen to anyone else that disagrees with him ("All I know is there's only two kinds of discussion I get into in the Wikipedia; one's I win, and one's I haven't won yet [...]"[1]).

However, I've placed some rough notes here, if someone else would like to start investigating and create one. Or just for diffs to help explain to him the problems. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the arrogance is a big problem, especially considering it is certainly not the case that he wins every deletion discussion he takes a side on (most recently WP:Articles for deletion/Pissing contest). And of course his crusade to rid Wikipedia of articles about words hurts not only Wikipedia, but Wiktionary as well, since he keeps trying to foist encyclopedia articles on them. +Angr 13:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I did say, eventually... Sometimes it takes more than one year. It's not really a question of win/lose either, it's a question of sorting out a problem when I find one.- Wolfkeeper 17:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

As your newest attempt to rid Wikipedia of linguistics articles at WP:Articles for deletion/Voseo shows, it's pretty obviously a question of creating a problem where none had previously existed. +Angr 22:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Linguistics Wikibooks

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'm looking for assistance in writing the Linguistics Wikibook, and I had heard that Wikipedia might be the best place to ask at. The book looks promising, but I don't feel like I have the time or knowledge to work with more than the first few chapters. Mo-Al (talk) 06:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of -ium

Input from those with expertise would be much appreciated at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Elements, where the proper respelling pronunciation of -ium is being disputed. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposed userbox

This user is a member of WikiProject Linguistics.

I see that WP Linguistics is currently without a userbox, so here's a simple one that you might like. Suggestions for improvement are most welcome. Thanks, MuffledThud (talk) 09:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice one. I've added it to my user page. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I like it. Added to userpage as well. — æk^Talk 00:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. If there are no objections, I'll make it into a template and post it to the project page. MuffledThud (talk) 01:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, done. The new userbox is {{User WikiProject Linguistics}}. I'll copy it to the project page: you're all most welcome to place this userbox on your user page: this will automatically add you to Category:WikiProject Linguistics members, which I hope will help publicize the project. MuffledThud (talk) 23:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

New page: Positive anymore

I have created the page Positive anymore, as requested on the project page. Your additions, changes, etc. are most welcome. I've also added the project banner to the talk page, if anyone would care to suggest quality and importance ratings. Cnilep (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm the one who requested the article, so thank you for starting it! +Angr 21:40, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Informant (linguistics)

I've created the stub Informant (linguistics), but it needs expansion. Please add, chop and flame as required. Thanks, MuffledThud (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Dagger

Is correct way using dagger like this "†Tyranousaurus" or "† Tyranousaurus" or both? For more infomation see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology#"Extinction dagger" guideline needed. Thanks. --Snek01 (talk) 14:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Languages world map

I have some concerns about the file 'Languages world map.svg', which was recently added to the {{Linguistics}} template. The color-coding seems to represent an odd mix of language families, sub-family groups, and ad-hoc groups containing multiple families. For example, the Western hemisphere has three colors representing "Germanic languages", "Romance languages", and "Native American languages". As contributors to this project probably know, Germanic is a branch of the Indo-European family and Romance is a major division of the Italic branch of Indo-European. Native American languages, on the other hand, do not comprise a family but encompass many families including Caddoan, Chinookan, Iroquoian, Muskogean, Na-Dine, Siouxan, Uto-Aztecan, and many others (and those are all represented in North America; the map uses the same color for South America). The map also shows "Australian Aboriginal languages" as a single color.

I realize that color-coding by family and mapping the most commonly spoken language in a region (I assume that is how the map is drawn) would make most of the world look Indo-European, which would be problematic. An alternative might be to map presumed areas of origin by family, or an estimate of (say) pre-1500 distribution, but each of these has its own controversies and problems.

I don't know what the best solution might be. But I don't think that this map is very informative as a logo for linguistics-related pages. Thoughts? Cnilep (talk) 16:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think if we use a map in the {{Linguistics}} template at all it should follow the color coordination of the language infoboxes. I think there even is such a map somewhere. +Angr 16:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This one: File:Human Language Families (wikicolors).png? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I like that one better. It shows roughly half the world as Indo-European, but that's the way of the world. It collapses Papuan and American languages into one color each, but at least it notes in the legend that these comprise several families. Cnilep (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it looks fine in the template, too; but the unreadable legend is a bit strange. What about creating a version without a legend? (It could be implemented on the description page.) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Implemented it for now. What does everybody think? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the old map. It looks essentially the same to me, just with a higher level of granularity—for example, looking in East and Central Asia, the old map splits Sinitic languages from Tibeto-Burman whereas the new map puts all Sino-Tibetan languages together, and the old map splits Turkic, Mongol, and Tungusic languages whereas the new one puts all those Altaic languages together. Neither map is "wrong" (at least, not in that part of the world), one is just more fine-grained. (The only possible source of contention I can see is that, in the legend for the first map, Korean and Japanese are categorized under Altaic languages—although they do have their own special colors. The second map just classifies them as isolates. Either way, the first map is fine on the map itself, it's just the legend that boldly puts them under Altaic.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The old map is much more informative and should be restored. To say that the new map displays much of the world as Indo-European because "that's the way of the world" applies equally to displaying the Germanic family as the world's second largest and most wide-spread. The prior map is accurate and more informative and should only have been replaced, if at all, by a more detailed and not less detailed one.μηδείς (talk) 02:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I take your point that more information is better than less, but the problem I have with your argument is that there is no "Germanic family" — the Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European family. My problem with the old map is that it implied that Germanic, Romance, and American were comparable groupings, and I can't think of any sub-field or theory within linguistics that would grant them such status. If the Linguistics template is to represent linguistics, its icon (whether that's a map or some other image) should represent some coherent and well-accepted idea within that field, shouldn't it? Cnilep (talk) 03:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no standardized terminology for levels of classification. The word phylum is often used for largest groupings not held to be conclusively shown to be connected to another group, such as the Germanic and Slavic families within the Indo-European phylum. But any valid genetic grouping is standardly referred to as a family. And Germanic family is a very standard usage.

One huge problem with only referring to the highest demonstrated classified level is that the more we learn about language relationships the less detailed our map becomes. Also, the method of only identifying highest level groupings leads to such absurdities as comparing the very old and diverse Afroasiatic family with families of much less diversity and time depth such as Uralic, Eskimo-Aleut, or even Basque.

Ultimately, what is of interest is the detailed information about real groups, not the current level of detail of our classification. If your concern is that groups of unequal time depth and diversity not be displayed as of equal status, the current map doesn't address that. The solution is rather simple. We use the detailed map with a caption that says major language families and phyla. μηδείς (talk) 03:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I will grant that there are many works that refer to the "Germanic family", but I can find no work that treats it as comparable to an "American Indian languages family" or anything of the kind. I did find one work that refers to "Germanic family" and "Quechua family" (Tambotsev 2007, How can typological distances between Latin and some Indo-European Language taxa improve its classification?), though. That work also refers to the "Indo-European language family" but, curiously, to the "Romance language group".

At any rate, I don't dispute your suggestion that the current state of the field is imperfect or that giving accurate and detailed information about the real world of languages and language use is ideal. I do rather doubt, though, that the answer is simple. Cnilep (talk) 04:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

One simply cannot use the term family as if it had some widely accepted and well defined meaning in regard to hierarchical level. In common usage it does not. Unless an author defines his terms otherwise, all you can tell by his using the word family is that he accepts that it is a valid genetic grouping at some level, and that a proto-language could presumably be reconstructed for it in principle, were there enough evidence. You will not find the Germanic family being referred to as anything but a family, and often in the same context where Indo-European will also be called a family, except in a very small minority of cases. If you are interested, you can read Murray Gell-Man on the issue: http://www.nostratic.ru/books/(316)gell-starostin-jlr1.pdf He defines families, stocks and phyla. But he is not a linguist except by interest, and his definitions, while they would be understood by linguists with little confusion, are a matter of convenience, and certainly not a formally established and recognized terminology.

The bottom line is that the new map simply does not treat families of equal time depth on an equal basis. It has no superiority over the more detailed map on that basis. And both maps identify groupings which many linguists would find controversial. I intend to restore the old map as much more informative and in no way more flawed. A caption saying that it identifies major families, phyla, and groupings (to cover such things as the controversial Amerind hypothesis) will address the underlying concern.

Going forward, an even more detailed map which shows the linguistic situation at 1492 in the New World would be my preference. Unfortunately I do not have the ability to produce such a map myself.μηδείς (talk) 04:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Granting that there may be no reason in principle to prefer the groupings on either File:Languages world map.svg or File:Human Language Families (wikicolors).png, can I ask you to clarify which map you are calling "the more detailed map"? I think you mean 'Languages world map', which names many more groups in its legend (though I actually only see about 20 regions marked on each map), right? Also, note that a major reason for using the latter map on the template was that it uses the same colors for language groupings as Wikipedia infoboxes, etc.

By the way, I'm also not sure I understand what you mean by "the controversial Amerind hypothesis". My assumption is that those languages are grouped as they are on those maps because (a) they exist in the same general geographic region and (b) most of the languages have relatively small numbers of speakers. I'm not aware of any particular hypothesis on the relative time-depth at which the various groupings diverged. Cnilep (talk) 07:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

By "old" and "better" map I mean 'Languages world map.svg'this one.

Those who accept the hypothesis that Amerind is actually a family, rather than just a convenient typological and geological term look at a time depth of about 13,000 years as plausible. Whether or not one accepts it as genetic, there's no way one can treat it as if it were on the same level of diversity or time depth as Indo-European or Eskimo-Aleut, if one wants a map where only exact like is compared with exact like. μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Cantonese/Yue renaming

Cantonese (Yue) (iso3=yue) is being polled again for renaming, because with Standard Cantonese (Canton dialect) now at Cantonese, some feel the article names are too similar. Input welcome. kwami (talk) 12:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Template for making diacritics more legible

When you need to illustrate, and especially distinguish between similar, diacritics in an article, you can now do this really easily with {{Huge}}. It even compensates for the increased font size's line height also increasing. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Fine, but in IE8, the diacritics shown in the example display about a line below the text line. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Article alerts

Any reason why this project isn't subscribed to WP:AALERTS? (See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics/Archive 2#Article alerts). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, no one was BOLD enough to subscribe for us. Now I have. Obviously if anyone objects, they can revert, though I can't imagine why anyone would object. +Angr 11:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Cool. See also User:JL-Bot/Project content if you want to have something like WP:WikiProject Physics/Recognized content. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I set up a temporary page at User:Cnilep/WikiProject Linguistics project content using JL-Bot/Project content with all project parameters. If other members of this project like the look of it, it might be moved to a subpage of the project page. Cnilep (talk) 22:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Mutual intelligibility

Because of a lot of problems with original resource and factual disputes, I've pretty much eviscerated this article; it used to have a long list of mutually intelligible languages, and I removed everything without a source (essentially the whole list) and added notes saying not to add anything to the list without a source. Further explanation is here. If anyone knows of languages that can be re-added to the list, you are welcome to make sourced additions; hopefully this way we can gradually get the article built back up, and at a higher quality than before. Thanks, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Euphemisms

I've been populating Category:Euphemisms and started Category:Dysphemisms recently. I'm wondering if we have any editors who are knowledgeable about such things that can bring their perspective to Enhanced interrogation techniques. I'd like to resolve a disagreement on the talk page over placing that article in the euphemisms category. Thanks, Gobonobo ^{T C} 23:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Interactional sociolinguistics

I've just noticed that the page Interactional sociolinguistics was deleted last November as copyright infringement. Rather than getting an admin to review the old page, I've created new content based on Gumperz (1982) and description of the subfield by Deborah Tannen in an intro textbook. The page is quite short now, so (well-sourced, non-copy-vio) additions are requested. Cnilep (talk) 16:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

"Finnish numerals" on AfD

The article titled Finnish numerals has been nominated for deletion. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Finnish numerals and don't just say Keep or Delete; give your arguments. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:46, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Borean languages

An editor is questioning notability as well as altering presentation in ways I feel are unhelpful. Would appreciate your input at Talk:Borean languages. --JWB (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of German cognates with English

Members of this WikiProject may like to contribute at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of German cognates with English.

Knepflerle (talk) 09:52, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Thou's FAR

I have nominated Thou for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets 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 "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Sanity check please

I have "prod'ed" Classifiers with Number Morphology. A sanity check from a member of this project would be most welcome.

--Cje (talk) 17:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Portmanteau in Spanish

Hi there,

The term Portmanteau is attached to the Spanish term Parasíntesis in Wikipedia. This link is not correct since they refer to different things (both are word formation processes, however parasíntesis does nos imply the shotening of two words - as in a+el=al - but, roughly speaking, the union of a lexeme and a prefix and a suffix in which the group prefix-lexeme and lexeme-suffix separately have no meaning as in a-naranj-ado). Portmanteau is though correctly attached to the term "Contracción".

Could this link be eliminated, please?

Thanks,

Margaritas a los cerdos —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.121.231.182 (talk) 17:29, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question. The page Portmanteau includes reciprocal interlanguage links with es:Contracción (gramática). If there is a problem with es:Parasíntesis, that issue should be raised at es:Discusión:Parasíntesis. This WikiProject is dedicated to maintaining linguistics-related pages on the English Wikipedia. Cnilep (talk) 18:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Missing linguistics topics

I've updated my list of missing topics related to languages and linguistics - Skysmith (talk) 12:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for maintaining that list! I found several red links that I made into redirects. +Angr 13:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Italoamerican Italian a dialect or a creole?

The Italian language in the United States page does not talk about the differences with standard Italian, but it is often called a dialect I saw by Googling, but it is a mix of some bastardized English words (non basic words) and all the basic Italian words, which would make it a creole, but only a single google book calls it as such though. Is it? And could someone who knows add it there? Thanks --Squidonius (talk) 02:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Having a few English loanwords tossed in doesn't make it a creole. To be a creole, it would have to have developed out of a pidgin, and to be a pidgin, it would have had to be spoken for restricted purposes by people who had a wide variety of different, non-mutually-intelligent, native languages. +Angr 07:25, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European root for GA

I nominated Proto-Indo-European root for GA. Comments welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:46, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Abuse of language

The page Abuse of language was apparently created as a translation of the French stub fr:Abus de langage in March 2009, substituting English examples for French ones. An anonymous user attempted to add some sources, but they consist only of surnames and dates; I don't know how to access the supposed sources. I'm not even sure I understand what points these sources are meant to support.

I don't quite know what to make of the page. It seems to be so much linguistic peeving, veiled as a discussion of the preferences of unnamed people or groups (e.g. "Abuse of language is using a word in an... often criticized sense"). The French page is clearly a collection of judgments:

• Appeler un manchot un « pingouin » est un abus de langage très répandu, bien que les deux termes désignent en principe des espèces différentes d'oiseaux. Ou "Une vidéo" pour un magnétoscope.

Calling a manchot a "penguin" is a common abuse of language, since in principal the two terms designate different bird species. Or "a video" for a video cassette recorder. (Mon dieu!)

(Note that manchot is the French word for penguin, while pingouin is, at least according to my French-English dictionary, used for either penguins or auks.)

I'm almost inclined to propose deleting the page, but wonder if it can be somehow cleaned up and saved. Does anyone know of work under this heading? Or can anyone suggest a proper target for a redirect? Thanks, Cnilep (talk) 21:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Would a redirect, perhaps with selective merge, to Linguistic purism or maybe Linguistic prescription make sense? Cnilep (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I redirected the page to Linguistic purism, but was then informed of a specialized usage in mathematics that I was not aware of (and that was not described on the page). User:Sławomir Biały changed the page to a DAB linking to Linguistic purism, Misnomer, and Abuse of notation. I agree that this is better, but it's still not quite satisfactory. Cnilep (talk) 21:14, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge of Word and Word (language)

Word (language) is an import of the Citizendium article, and needs merging into Word, as they are the same subject. I thought someone with knowledge of linguistics could give it a go. Fences&Windows 15:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Philology

I can't edit the Linguistics page, under the subject Philology. An online dictionary is quoted, to the effect that the term "Philology" is first attested in the eighteenth century. This is inaccurate. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first English occurrence of "Philology" ("Philologie") is in Chaucer's "Merchant's Tale" from the Canterbury Tales. And of course the word has a Classical background, e.g. Martianus Capella (5th c.) and his "Marriage of Mercury and Philology". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garciala1 (talk • contribs) 13:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Japanese diphthongs

There is was a very juvenile argument going on at Japanese phonology, but one which raises an important point, whether Japanese has diphthongs. Various sources hint at what they might be, and how they differ from vowel sequences, but nowhere can I find a clear account laying them all out. And of course there's the traditional description of Japanese having no diphthongs. I don't know how well supported these approaches are in the community. This also ties into what exactly is a diphthong, and how one determines whether s.t. is one. — kwami (talk)

Aspect templates

An editor has suggested (at Talk:Grammatical aspect#Intuitive Description of Aspect) to explain aspects and tenses with something like a ball-and-stick model. I went ahead and created two templates ({{Aspect line}}, the "ball and stick", and {{Infobox aspect}}, an infobox for use in articles about aspects/tenses). A usage example is at the mentioned discussion. The templates certainly need to be expanded (e. g. a colour scheme could be installed to distinguish between action and result, the present moment could be marked etc.) Suggestions welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Rosetta Stone

The rosetta Stone article, a FA candidate, has a fairly long section on languages and decipherment. If anyone would like to read and comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rosetta Stone/archive1, all such comments would be welcome! Thanks -- Andrew Dalby 14:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Reflexive verb

The talk page for the above article has a lot of interesting unanswered questions. I managed to answer two, but added one. :) Can anyone from the project help there? I'm particularly interested about sections 4 and 9. Also, it would be nice if someone could add Lithuanian uniformly to all the examples. Balabiot (talk) 18:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Admiralty Island languages

RfM based on the claim that there is a field of Admiralty Island linguistics with its own terminology, that's independent of the Loyalty Islands or Solomons or any other subgroup of Oceanists. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Kwami has made a rather biased statement of the issue reflecting his own POV. A request has been made to move the Admiralty Island languages article to Admiralty Islands languages. The arguments for and against are placed there. --Taivo (talk) 00:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Loyalty Islands languages

A move request has been made to move Loyalty Island languages to Loyalty Islands languages. --Taivo (talk) 15:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Expression (language)

We need an expression (language)/expression (linguistics) article, and it looks like Sentence (linguistics) should be its basis. Propose a move. Talk:Sentence_(linguistics)#Move_to_"expression_(language)" - -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 01:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Requested move: Manners of articulation to Manner of articulation

Manner of articulation was recently moved to Manners of articulation. I have requested that it be moved back. Comments and suggestions are welcome at Talk:Manners of articulation#Requested move. Cnilep (talk) 18:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Aorist

A discussion on Aorist has taken place on whether the article should remain essentially as-is, or should be rewritten the replace Greek-related grammatical terms like "aorist" by other terms. Input would be greatly appreciated at Talk:Aorist#RfC. -- Radagast3 (talk) 00:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I never suggested we eliminate the term "aorist", only that we explain it in non-provincial terms, either as perfective or past perfective. (There is some debate as to which it is, and it may have changed over time.) Also that we eliminate the terms "aorist tense" and "perfect tense", since they are not tenses. If those phrases really are ubiquitous in the lit as something distinct from the aorist and perfect (and from my reading it appears they are not), they can be mentioned in a footnote, or we should at least make it clear that they are not tenses. — kwami (talk) 05:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is ongoing and could use some fresh voices. The issue (to me, at least) seems to be how to balance the technical accuracy required by linguistics with WP:UCN, that is, explaining the aorist in a manner most helpful to the likely readers of the article. Thanks for any help members of the project can give. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Linking to Wiktionary Swadesh lists — a "WikiVocab" project

I'd like to link all Wikipedia language articles with lists in Wiktionary's Swadesh lists appendix to their respective lists. Wiktionary currently has lists for around 200 languages, many of them in language-family rather than individual lists — see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Swadesh_lists. I have personally created and finished around 20 different Swadesh lists, with more coming on their way. I'm wondering if it's possible to do so in the {{Infobox Language}} template, or to create a separate template for this purpose.

My dream is for there to be a 'big database' on the Internet where anyone can access the basic vocabulary words (in standardized topical lists) of all the world's languages. Wikipedia has information on the grammar and demographics of languages, but does not often include vocabulary, which is the core and essence of language. The closest things we have to a massive comparative database on world languages are the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, Intercontinental Dictionary Series, and of course, Wiktionary's Swadesh lists. As a side note, even though this is basically the Rosetta Project's goal, the website is still quite unwieldy for ordinary users, has a very low Alexa site ranking, and does not allow wiki-style contributions. The Rosetta Project has also pulled off Swadesh lists that used to be on there, and does not have any searchable vocabulary databases as of now. And why do this? To help in language preservation, comparative linguistic studies, language learning, and more.

Or perhaps we can even create a separate "WikiVocab" website, similar in style to WikiSpecies! If we do create a big, unified, and searchable database for all the world's languages — all in one place — I believe it will be one of the greatest human achievements in modern times.

Thanks for your considerations! — Stevey7788 (talk) 10:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiVocab

See the same message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages. It may be best to keep the discussion in one place. Cnilep (talk) 13:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Azerbaijan Linguistic School

I notice that at least three articles (Pronoun, Adverb and Origin of language) make a specific point of mentioning the opinion of the Azerbaijan Linguistic School. I do not wish to cast any aspersions on what may well be a fine institution, but in the broader scheme of things is the opinion of this school important and distinctive enough to be singled out for mention? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.161.119 (talk) 13:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Linguistics articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Linguistics articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Croatian

There is a request for comment at Talk:Croatian language. --Taivo (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

List of English words containing Q not followed by U

The article List of English words containing Q not followed by U was just nominated for Featured list removal candidates. It just needs a bit of work, and there are some potential references at the bottom of the article's talkpage.

The article is not currently tagged with this project's banner, but from the other entries in Category:List-Class Linguistics articles, it seems to fit here. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:44, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albanian exonyms

Readers of this page may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albanian exonyms, relating to one of a number of similar lists that were previously discussed in 2007 at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of European exonyms.--Arxiloxos (talk) 18:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

help needed w diacritics for pharyngealization

WP articles indiscriminately use two Unicode modifier letters for pharyngealization, U+02E4 'small reversed glottal stop' ‹ˤ› and U+02C1 'reversed glottal stop' ‹ˁ›. It would seem that the former is the IPA letter, but then what is the other one for? Both are encoded as superscript forms of ‹ʕ›! Is the 2nd supposed to be used in Semitic transliterations, maybe? (In Gentium, e4 looks like a small cap, and is serifed, while c1 looks like a diacritic.) — kwami (talk) 11:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Folk etymology

The article Folk etymology on the technical term from historical linguistics needs attention from editors with a knowledge of the subject. There is a current dispute as to whether the term "folk etymology" is properly regards change caused by the reanalysis of borrowings and old compounds or whether it refers without distinction to backronyms and urban legends. Comment would be appreciated.μηδείς (talk) 17:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I was tempted to simply revert or protect for disruption, but I've found one instance in the ELL that supports the editor's POV. I'll post on the talk page. — kwami (talk) 17:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The saga continues, for anyone who is interested. — kwami (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jacob L. Mey

Members of this project may be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jacob L. Mey. Favonian (talk) 00:15, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

SemEval ad nauseum. Please help with new articles.

Hello. I patrol new pages. Recently, an editor has created lots of new articles that are apparently related to your project. Most of these appear to be written poorly; I really have no idea what to do with these articles as far as nominating for CSD, AfD, or just fixing them up. Please have a look at these and do what's appropriate. Really need a subject matter exert. — Timneu22 · talk 17:05, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

These articles are about some workshop. They're all unsourced with no indication of importance, so there's an AFD that includes most of the articles. — Timneu22 · talk 18:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Animals' use of language

I would appreciate comments from editors knowledgeable about linguistics at Talk:Sign language#Animals' use of LANGUAGE, where an editor is trying to make an argument that animals such as apes, dogs, and horses use language. Thanks. Cresix (talk) 17:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Agent noun

Hello, my friends: A group of us are working on clearing the backlog at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources_from_October_2006. The article in the above header has been without sources for the past four years and may be removed if none are added. I wonder if you can help do so. Sincerely, and all the best to you, GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:43, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Toponymy

A new WikiProject Toponymy was suggested here, and it was recommended that instead it would be made a part of WikiProject Linguistics. Comments from this project's members would thus be much appreciated. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 29, 2010; 19:02 (UTC)

Idioms

Is there an idioms taskforce?Smallman12q (talk) 01:56, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

No, but you might find some other Wikipedians interested in the task force by following up Talk:Idiom and List of idioms in the English language. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:15, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Tahash

Tahash (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I'm hoping to get some additional eyes on the Tahash article. While primarily a biblical topic, there is a great deal of unreferenced and possibly original linguistic material in the article, particularly in the extensive discussion of its etymology and discussions of language change. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:40, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Books Ngram Viewer

I added a request at Village pump (technical)[2] to bring in the Books Ngram Viewer dataset to Wikipedia and to create a template to make use of it. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Angaur: spurious language?

This keeps bothering me. I know there are lots of unconfirmed and perhaps spurious languages, but Angaur language is allegedly the official language of Angaur State in Palau, which makes our coverage embarrassing. We shouldn't be in doubt as to whether official languages exist or not. There's a passing mention of it in the ELL, but not in the article on Palau, and so it might have simply been copied from the CIA, which might be the source. Is it spurious? Is it a local dialect of Palauan? Should we delete the article? — kwami (talk) 08:36, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

hyphenation of family names

I think we should clarify how we want to handle hyphenation of family names per WP:ENDASH, since there have been sporadic disputes over it.

By almost any style guide, en dashes are used to join compound names together, or to prefix a compound name. That is, if one of the elements contains a hyphen or a space, then an en dash is used. This isn't always reflected in Google books, because OCR often doesn't recognize it, and also of course many sources are set with unprofessional systems such as typewriters or MS Word.

One objection is that we need to follow our sources. However, we're talking about orthography here, and it's clear from our sources that different authors and editors have different takes on this, and that that has nothing to do with the name itself. Many sources use hyphens, simply because they're easier, but that does not mean that only hyphens are official or standard.

So, a case like Trans–New Guinea is straightforward. Every style guide from the Atlantic Monthly back in 1921 (and probably further back than that) up to the most recent I've found for 2010 specify that en dashes should be used in such cases; the InDesign typography guide for example states that a hyphen is an error. Hyphens are common of course, but Ruhlen uses an en dash, "Trans–New Guinea", where Ross uses a space, "Trans New Guinea". The latter is idiosyncratic, but in any case it's clear that "Trans-New Guinea", "Trans–New Guinea", and "Trans New Guinea" are merely orthographic variants and not distinct names. Such usage is disambiguating: in "Trans-Fly–Bulaka River", for example, the trans- applies only to Fly, and so takes a hyphen, and this Trans-Fly is secondarily joined to Bulaka River with an en dash. "South-Central Papuan" with a hyphen are a south-central branch of Papuan languages, whereas *South–Central Papuan with an en dash would mean the southern branch of *Central Papuan. This is sometimes a crucial distinction.

However, while all typographers agree that en dashes should be used when joining compounds (including open compounds such as "New Guinea"), it's less common to specify them for junction of equal attributive elements. The Atlantic Monthly does, as does Webster's New World punctuation (2005), but most guides (generally more elementary) fail to address them. This would be a major issue for us, since it would affect families such as Niger-Congo. (Note that Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, and Sino-Tibetan would not be affected, since the en dash is only use for joining two attributive nouns, not for prefixes.) "Niger–Congo" is found with an en dash in professional publications such as CUP and Nature, again without any indication that this is anything more than a stylistic/typographic choice, but it does seem to be minority usage. This would generally not be disambiguating, since AFAIK no family is named after a hyphenated entity. (In the case where the attributive elements are people's names, en dashes are required, to dab attributive hyphenated names: Michelson–Morley experiment (named after two people) vs. Lennard-Jones potential (named after one person).) The argument then, as I see it, would be that en dashes reflect a more professional standard, as befitting an encyclopedia; the argument for hyphens would be that they are easier to type and are more common. — kwami (talk) 00:01, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I suppose I don't care either way, though it is nice being able to search for a term by just typing the hyphen. The two aren't interchangeable in indexes, are they? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Many search engines, including Google and AWB, fail to distinguish them. There will of course always need to be a redirect, and that will come up in the search window. But yeah, a text search within the article won't pick up on it. IMO, the solution to that problem (which involves all WP, not just our linguistics project) would be to modify the search engine so that en dashes count as hyphens, just as it currently ignores case distinctions, but that's probably completely browser dependent. I've asked at the tech pump. — kwami (talk) 01:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Since there is no need to dab, and in any case it makes little difference whether readers can correctly ID the components of the name, since they often won't be familiar, I don't think there's much reason to rename any of the latter articles unless there's some support for it. — kwami (talk) 14:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments wanted on disambiguation of Maori at Talk:Māori

As per common practice, shown by example of the links English, Welsh, French, German, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Navajo, etc., all of which are disambiguation pages, the link Māori (which was the name of the article on the Maori people) was recently moved to Māori people and the title Māori was reused as a disambiguation page just as with the above ethnonyms. This was reverted with various objections. The question as to whether the move should proceed is now open, and your comments here would be appreciated. μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Gerund

A claim in the article Gerund (that the subject of "Eating this cake is easy" is "cake") has been tagged with {{fact}}. I'd say that the subject is "eating this cake", but I haven't got an English grammar book I could use for verification and as a source. Could somebody clarify this? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course the subject is "eating this cake", and that shouldn't need sourcing any more than the claim that the sky is blue. —Angr (talk) 10:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that it's "eating this cake." If someone challenges that, then we can worry about sources. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 13:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Kwamikagami has edited the page to read, "the subject of the sentence is the non-finite clause, specifically eating." At User talk:Kwamikagami I suggested (in apparent agreement with the three opinions above) that the standard analysis would see the entire clause as the NP subject, while Kwami says that we can call the head of that clause the subject. I don't think either Kwami's analysis or mine is beyond the pale. The question is which way of stating it will make the most sense to Wikipedia users. Cnilep (talk) 00:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The clause is the subject, but that can be illustrated by simplifying it to its head. — kwami (talk) 00:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

It might be easier if we don't simplify it to its head... or pick a different example that is head-only. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

ASL article

The ASL article was embarrassingly bad. I've copy edited everything but the history section, but I'm sure someone here must know it better than I do. This is an article that IMO we should try to get to GA. — kwami (talk) 03:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

"let's" vs "let us"

Jussive mood oddly states that "let's" is a jussive (addressing the 2nd person plural) but "let us" is an imperative (addressing the 3rd). I've always thought that the former is just a contraction of the latter. Could someone clarify? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Boy, that whole paragraph is a train wreck, isn't it, not to mention the fact that it cites no sources and has more than a whiff of original research. I suppose one could argue that Let us go in the sense of "release us" or "allow us to attend [an event]" is imperative while Let us go, you and I is jussive. I suppose one could argue that, but I think the more typical argument is simply that English does not have jussive mood per se. I don't think one could argue that Eliot is "ungrammatical" in the sense of not acceptable as English, though. And I know of no reliable sources arguing that Wikipedian Aldoëse, who added the bit about Eliot and called him "almost illiterate", is a superior poet. Cnilep (talk) 12:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian all over again, this time in sign languages

I asked some time ago if Croatian Sign Language were distinct from Yugoslav Sign Language. Turns out that it isn't (apart from normal regional variation dependent on local schools). I therefore moved the article to YSL; I don't know if that's the best name, but it's the only one I've seen that isn't specific to Croatia, Slovenia, or Serbia. (I suspect that Macedonian Sign Language is also a variant of YSL, but my source had no info on it.)

Anyway, this being Croatia, there was of course an immediate argument about it. So, does anyone have a ref that CSL is a distinct language? And is there a better name than YSL? — kwami (talk) 22:57, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

• {{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Please review seriousness v. proposed deletion as parody of new article Names of small numbers at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers

Linguistics WikiProject members, this is being discussed at:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Names_of_small_numbers#Names_of_small_numbers

Please also consider what additional sections from binary and other numbering systems and from educationally, historically, linguistically and epistemologically significant concepts and works, including fractions and parts of wholes other than simple number-base exponential systems, including terms from currencies, agriculture, art media, and pre-modern English language names of small portions should be made to this topic as a kept article, especially subtopics which may not be generally known by Wikipedian editors in other particular fields. Etymology for some SI and Metric terms is included in their respective articles to which this one is linked; please consider what portions and extents of etymological information from those sources and what other sources are appropriate to add to this article as well.

Thank you. Pandelver (talk) 04:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Mahalo (linguistics)

The article Mahalo (linguistics) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

WP:NAD, and while the lead-section text hints at conditions that might make an article notable (as an example of a socially recognized concept lacking a corresponding word), that source of notability, if explicitly stated would be OR and supported, in the spirit of the quack-Hopi-linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf, only by inadmissible references, apparently attributable to amateur anthropologists & amateur linguists. In the other section, the uncategorized dump job list of "Pop culture" refs is useless trivia, not even distinguishing use in a setting-specific cultural context from idiosyncratic or show-off mannerisms, and probably should be completely removed even it the lead section managed to be improved to the point of establishing notability.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jerzy•t 07:57, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Singular or plural of parts of speech articles

Proto-Indo-European verb has been moved to Proto-Indo-European verbs by User:CJMiller. I think this doesn't fall under any of the exceptions listed in WP:PLURAL, but seeing that some pages like English verbs or German nouns are pl as well, I want to ask before moving any of these pages. Verb and Noun are sg, by the way. I asked at User talk:CJMiller#Move of PIE verb, but this user isn't very active. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 14:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that in this case the verbs of a language are a class of things, comparable to polynomials in a set or languages in a family – two of the exceptions at PLURAL. Cnilep (talk) 23:26, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Semantics

FYI, I have split the mess formerly at formal semantics, so there's now a formal semantics (linguistics). Get busy adding to it. (I realize that there may be no competent Wikipedians in the area, because the theoretical linguistics sub-WikiProject is practically dead.) Tijfo098 (talk) 18:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, I'm of the opinion that the article on semantics should be only about natural languages, because the other ones have separate articles, and because that's what I get when I type "semantics" in google books. You may want to weight in on that on talk page there. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Also there is a turd of template {{semantics}} that has the same problem: needs splitting. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)