User talk:Cervus nippon

Oromo language

Dear @Cervus nippon, before our interaction about the Oromo language turns into an edit war, I bring this matter to your talk page. I have pointed you to the already lengthy discussions on the talk page of the Oromo language arcticle, and explained to you that the old name (with the appropriate disclaimer that it is nowadays seen as pejorative) needs to be included in the lead section for encyclopedic reasons. You addressed this now by moving the reference to the end of the lead section, which is certainly much better than entirely deleting it, but it still fails to serve the purpose it serves right after the name at the beginning of the lead.

As for me, nobody needs to know that Oromo was previously referred to by a different name, and the fewer people know about this, the better. But it is a fact that for a long time in the linguistic literature the language was referred to by the other name. Several academic resources that are still available in university libraries only use the other name, so if someone picks up such a resource and then attempts to find the language in Wikipedia to get more up-to-date information, they will be redirected to the Oromo language page. They need to know right away that this is not a mistake, but that the language they are trying to look up is indeed the one they've been directed to. This is why in such situations it is common practice on Wikipedia to have the alternative names that are used in redirects to show up right at the beginning of the lead, ideally in the first line.

I know about the pejorative status of the old name, and this status needs to be explained right then and there in order to explain why the old name has been abandoned. This, by the way, was the point of the Ethnologue reference that you deemed to be irrelevant. It isn't, as it clearly states the current status of the old name as being pejorative.

I hope that this helps you to understand why in the past I reverted attempts to get the reference to the old name removed from the article. This is not because I think the language should be called this way (by no means it should), but because stating the old name right at that point is an encyclopedic necessity that will hopefully help users to avoid the old name and use the proper one instead. Therefore I think it is best if you revert your own edit, but if for some reason you will be prevented from doing this over the next three days, I will do so myself.

Warm greetings, LandLing 09:23, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Landroving Linguist.

Just to be clear, my edits always remained within the lead. My edits were done after careful reading of Wikipedia's guidelines, the article's edit history and the relevant talk pages. I had actually already read the talk page before you linked it to me. Furthermore, my contributions are guided by a desire to collectively build an accessible, high-quality encyclopedia.

You mention at the end of your response that you expect I revert my edit or else you plan on changing it yourself. I ask you not to do this. I ask that instead we discuss the edit further before any change is made. Then perhaps a final edit may be proposed. My reasoning for this is based on the Wikipedia guidelines and the many issues with the original edit (as shown in the edit history and talk pages).

The guideline you linked to does not appear to invalidate my edit, nor does it necessitate the inclusion of ‘the old name’ in the first line.

The ‘old name’ is archaic, as you appear to understand. Its usage is relegated to historical documents. I also explicitly mentioned its archaic nature in my first edit. The guideline you linked to states that archaic names “should not be placed in the first sentence”. The section suggests alternative names be mentioned in the article, but it does not state that they need to be mentioned in the first line or even first paragraph.

The section also suggests a separate section for the ‘Names’ may be appropriate. I think this could be useful in the case of Oromo language given that it is a macrolanguage with many dialects. Each of these dialects have been referred to by several alternative names.

In regards to the previous Ethnologue reference, it did not show the ‘old name’ nor reference its pejorative nature. I’m not opposed to reinstating an Ethnologue reference. However, the previous Ethnlogue reference was for the West-Central dialect of Oromo, rather than the macro-language Oromo. I believe the macro-language Ethnologue reference would be more relevant.

I am willing to discuss this further with you.

Sincerely, Cervus nippon (talk) 20:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Cervus,

Thanks for your well-worded response, and it is indeed good to continue the discussion. The problem I have with your position is that you misapply the term "archaic" in this situation. The page links to Archaism, where it is defined as "a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a historical epoch beyond living memory." This is clearly not the case with the term "Galla", which didn't phase out of use in a time beyond living memory, but was still the name applied in the academic literature about the Oromo people and language until the 1970s (when I at least was already alive), as this bibliography placed on the Glottolog page illustrates. This is not like calling Ghana 'Gold Coast' or Namibia "Deutsch-Südwest Afrika".

These sources are still being used by the academic community and therefore the policies of Wikipedia that I quoted apply: for encyclopedic reasons, we need to mention this name, with the appropriate disclaimer, right in the naming section of the lead, so that the "principle of least astonishment" is adhered to. I will therefore restore the old version of the page, according to Wikipedia policies that I have again quoted to you, if you don't do it yourself.

The West-Central Oromo Ethnologue clearly says under alternate names "“Galla” (pej.)". So why do you say there is no reference to its pejorative nature? Macro-languge entries of the Ethnologue have no alternative-names section, so that page won't help us in any way. LandLing 06:39, 30 November 2023 (UTC)