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In the source cited, the Languages of Japan, Shibatani makes no mention of anything other than dialects of Ainu.
Hattori and various contributors, whom Shibatani cites in talking about dialects, only speak of dialects in Ainugo Hōgen Jiten ("Ainu Dialect Dictionary"). Vovin, in Proto-Ainu also speaks only of dialects.
As a linguistics student interested in the language, nothing I have ever read nor anyone I have ever spoken with have even mentioned "Ainu languages".
This is a very serious error, and I would say, calls into question the need for this page. -- Limetom 08:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Basically, my problem here is that really the only good source for this is from Piłsudski. I can find no sources in Japanese, no sources in Russian, and basically only Piłsudski in English who ever mention Ainu as a family of languages. It seems the scholarly consensus is that Ainu is a language isolate, with three dialect groups: Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kuril. This is the view on both the Russian and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as in Ethnologue and various other composite sources.
And in terms of mutual intelligibility, at least based off of Vovin's work (1993), all I have easy access to at the moment, most dialects seem to be fairly intelligible with one another, both in terms of lexicon and grammar. -- Limetom 00:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The singular dominates in the lit, but it seems to me that's because most of the lit deals exclusively with Hokkaido Ainu. "Dialects" then generally refers to the dialects of Hokkaido.
Pilsudski, Material for the Study of the Ainu Languages (plural) is also cited in Buchli, in Yotte (French), and in Rocznik Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Krakowie, vol 46. Are all of these errors? Mauss cites him with the plural in 1954 (The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies), and still uses the plural when citing him in 2010 (Soziologie und Anthropologie 2). In The East vol 19, speak of the value of his recordings for "comparative studies of the Sakhalin and the Hokkaido Ainu languages". Pilsudski was one of the few to document something other than Hokkaido.
Sidney Cheung, Japanese Anthropology and Depictions of the Ainu, "it prohibited the use of the Ainu languages and Ainu folk customs"
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (1968) A northwest coast Sakhalin Ainu world view: "Perhaps, then, the place names in Hokkaido reflect a time when the Sakhalin Ainu and the Hokkaido Ainu languages were not yet differentiated." Another rare case of s.t. other than Hokkaido.
Northwest anthropological research notes 2004:38-39, p 179, "Their work is very valuable and appreciated today because linguists studying the Ainu languages have been working hard to preserve and revitalize a variety of Ainu dialects"
— kwami ( talk) 21:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I realize the above debate is 4 years old, but…
I think the argument comes down to this: kwami thinks Ainu is a family of languages, like Japanese; Limetom thinks Ainu is a single language, like Japanese. While kwami refers to Japonic, he's really arguing that Japanese itself, Japonic minus the Ryukyuans, is a family. For example: "The problem with Japanese sources is that many of them treat Japanese as a language isolate, or at most split off Luchuan."
Well, western sources often agree that Japanese is a single language, split off (within the Japonic family) from the Ryukyuan languages. Sure, some sources instead split off Hachijō as a separate language, or even subfamily, instead of treating it as a top-level or eastern dialect, and some people even split off Satsugū. But most treat it all as one language. And English Wikipedia agrees.
So, if Ainu is like Japanese (including Kagoshimaben and Hachijōjima, but not including the Ryukyuan languages), then it's a single language according to the way Wikipedia orders things.
Personally, I strongly disagree with Limetom that this is a "serious error", because I think the whole distinction between a language isolate (or single-language branch in a family) and a language family (or subfamily) is meaningless, and it gets even sillier when you start arguing about languages that clearly had multiple branches in the past but only have one surviving language. Whether, say, Ainu and Emishi are related, that's interesting; whether Ainu was 1 language or 3 a century ago (when it's clearly 1 now, and presumably a lot more than 3 more than a century ago) is hard to get excited about. But if you're going to argue about it, I think Limetom's argument wins. -- 50.0.128.185 ( talk) 02:47, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
No, I was arguing that Ryukyuan is not a dialect of Japanese. Glottolog examined the lit and concluded Ainu was a small family, now reduced to a single language. And there's also the question of Koreanic, which is arguable a single language but Jeju is now treated as a distinct language by Unesco. — kwami ( talk) 20:04, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
I propose to merge this article into Ainu language. Ainu languages is original research and not universal. Ainu language and Ainu languages articles have a lot of overlap.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 05:47, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Merger is completed.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 23:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Reverted. No language family is universally accepted, not even Indo-European. By this standard, we need to delete our articles on Japonic, Koreanic, Altaic and Balto-Slavic as well, and Chinese should be a single article. Even if you consider Ainu varieties to be dialects of a single language, just as many people consider Okinawan to be a dialect of Japanese, or Hakka to be a dialect of Chinese, WP has lots of articles on individual dialects. But Glottolog reviewed the evidence and concluded that Ainu was a small language family. — kwami ( talk) 20:06, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
Hokkaido Ainu language is redirected to Ainu language now, so I think it's reasonable for Kuril Ainu language and Sakhalin Ainu language to redirect to Ainu language.
But I think the two options below are ideal.
1
2
-- ABCEdit ( talk) 15:34, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
I personally don't oppose to rename Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu language. But in my past proposal, plural persons opposed it ( Talk:Ainu language#Requested move 16 February 2018). If you want to rename Ainu language⇒Hokkaido Ainu language(that is, adopt option 2), please propose it on Talk:Ainu language again. I won't oppose it.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 14:14, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
discussing whether Ainu is a language isolate or a language family, the article name should be Ainu language, Ainu languages or Ainic languages, and Ainu language should be renamed Hokkaido Ainu language.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 21:07, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
(I think ABCEdit meant Ainuic. That's the spelling found by William T. in the previous thread. Another option for the Hokkaido language is simply "Hokkaido Ainu". — kwami ( talk) 21:45, 5 April 2019 (UTC))
I oppose the coexistence of Ainu languages and Ainu language. That is very confusing. If you wish Ainu languages to exist, we have to rename Ainu language to "Hokkaido Ainu language".-- ABCEdit ( talk) 22:52, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Based on the discussion above, first, I will rename Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu language (submit to Wikipedia: Requested moves) in one week. Let me know if you have other opinions.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 23:05, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
Except that Campbell doesn't know Ainu, whereas several of the other authors do. There is often going to be some disagreement as to whether varieties should best be considered dialects or languages, and often people won't address the issue at all. It wasn't so long ago that Japanese was a language isolate, after all, and Greek is still often presented as the only language of its branch of IE. — kwami ( talk) 05:04, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
I may be a bit late, but first I don't want to leave the statement by Limetom uncommented: "the "Ainuic" term seems to be borderline WP:OR; it really doesn't show up even in the English language literature". Well, it is clearly not the majority term, but it is consistently used by Juha Janhunen and a small number of colleagues who have adapted his coinage.
Apart from this, I think the current solution ("Ainu language" and "Hokkaido Ainu language" redirected to this article) is more than awkward. What about restoring Hokkaido Ainu language as a full article, and turning "Ainu language" into a full dab page? Like this:
And, before another arrogant "Has anyone bothered to consult the literature on this subject"-style question pops up: yes I have, too (like all other editors who have contributed to this discussion). – Austronesier ( talk) 00:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
The Russian version of the article contains the following snippets regarding the study of the Ainu language by Russians (my translation):
The first records of the Ainu language on record were made by Russian travellers (in Cyrillic), the systematic publication of these [records] began in the second half of the 18th century in Saint Petersburg, at The Imperial Academy of Sciences. [1] [2]
Early studies of the Ainu language (then called "Kuril") by Russian linguists were performed in 18th century. S.P. Krasheninnikov has assembled a list of words used by natives of Kamchatka (inhabiting Lopatka) and Kurils, which was then published by The Imperial Academy of Sciences under the editorship of P.S. Pallas. In the 19th century the language was studied by Russian physician M.M. Dobrotvorskiy, who created the first Ainu–Russian dictionary (1875), [3] and English missionary J. Batchelor, and at the beginning of the 20th century by famous Russian orientalist N.A. Nevskiy, as well as Bronisław Piłsudski.
I don't know if it's true that the Russians were the first on record to make the records of the Ainu language. Did the Japanese make any before the end of the 18th century? In any case, the "Comparative dictionaries…" and "Ainu–Russian dictionary" are important enough to warrant a mention in the article. (Ainu words are listed in "Comparative dictionaries…" under the "162—Курильски" key, meaning "in Kuril". Also, according to the preface, the Kamchatka Lopatka dialect of the "Kuril" language is included as well, however, it is not explained in what way, exactly, it is included.) -- 46.242.12.2 ( talk) 03:50, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
References
The result of the move request was: Move. A few things are clear: this is article is presently about the wider spectrum of the Ainu language(s), not simply the Hokkaido dialect/language. Additionally, the evidence presented suggests that this subject is usually treated as one "Ainu language" with dialects, rather than a family comprising distinct languages. Given these facts, I see no reason not to follow the consensus here to move the article to the singular form. Another RM will have to determine the names of the sub-articles. Cúchullain t/ c 18:44, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Ainu languages →
Ainu language – per
WP:COMMONNAME; see
this ngram for a comparison of usage. Following
a recent merge discussion,
Ainu language and
Ainu languages were merged, in this case the former into the latter. However, the singular form is far more common in sources. If the move is agreed to, an admin should
histmerge the old
Ainu language history as it is much longer and more substantive. —
AjaxSmack 03:29, 18 August 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.
Steel1943 (
talk) 20:31, 3 September 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.
Steel1943 (
talk) 15:32, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
[[Ainu language#Sakhalin dialect]]
). Other sections of the article should only contain the information pertaining to the language as a whole. The article's introduction should explain that the Hokkaido dialect is the best studied and the only one surviving to this day. IMO, it doesn't make sense having separate articles for the three dialects, as the Sakhalin dialect and Kuril dialect articles are tiny (and unlikely to grow due to these dialects having become extinct). So the resulting structure would be as follows: introduction, general sections (origin, history, etc.), big Hokkaido section with detailed language examples, two small Sakhalin and Kuril sections highlighting the differences from Hokkaido, references section, and "see more" section. --
46.242.12.78 (
talk) 00:38, 27 August 2019 (UTC)Endangeredlanguages.com's page on Ainu (citation 2 in the article) states that only two people anymore speak Ainu as their first language. However, a Disqus comment on the page says that there are more people who speak it but are shy to show it because of racism against ethnic Ainu in Japan. The article also says that UNESCO says that 15 people speak Ainu in their daily lives. Can there be any clarification on this? Thanks in advance. TreeNamedUser ( talk) 04:53, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
I think the article would benefit from some samples of the language(s). Without some examples of basic vocabulary I have little idea what the language(s) would sound like. Eoghan ( talk) 20:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
@ Kwamikagami: thanks for your message on my talk page, but I'm sorry - your change to the article structure at Ainu language cannot be made without a fresh RM or split discussion. This was discussed in considerable detail last year - the first move request was closed with no action, but the closer noted that the term "Hokkaido Ainu language" has significant opposition. There was then the merge discussion, which didn't attract any direct opposition although there was actually a worry expressed that someone might eventually try to get around the previous RM by forking off a Hokkaido Ainu language article. Finally, at the 18 August 2019 RM further up on this talk page (which I supported and you opposed) the merge was again acknowledged, the closer specifically noted the consensus that "the evidence presented suggests that this subject is usually treated as one "Ainu language" with dialects, rather than a family comprising distinct languages" and the RM was close with a move. That was all more than a year ago, and the situation has been stable since then. There is simply no way you can claim some other consensus was formed, and any a change to any other situation requires further discussion. I'm therefore reverting your changes once more and I'd suggest that you please WP:DROPTHESTICK on this one. Cheers — Amakuru ( talk) 21:47, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
You're the one who reverted that decision! The result was not to merge, but to move the Hokkaido language to "Ainu language" and the family to something else. The closer moved it to "Anuic languages", but you reverted as that was "close to OR". So it's you who are edit-warring to disrupt a closure that you do not agree with. As I said, I'm happy to have the Hokkaido language at "Ainu language". You object to "Ainuic", so I'll restore the family at "Ainu languages". Please don't disrupt further. — kwami ( talk) 21:56, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
NB that a lot of previous discussion of this issue is stranded at the Talk:Hokkaidō Ainu starting here. I agree that any changes to the article name and/or structure should undergo discussion. — AjaxSmack 00:36, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
– Austronesier ( talk) 14:13, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Per AjaxSmack, I agree that the best solution is to combine them all into one. We don't yet have specialized enough sources to delineate the differences between each dialect / language in a detailed way. Right now, all the important information could easily fit into a single article. Naomi.piquette ( talk) 04:47, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Since people are still commenting, I'll sum up what I see above, that there is general consensus that the family and language should have separate articles. The dispute is on what to call the language article: either "Ainu" or "Hokkaido Ainu". If the latter, the question is whether "Ainu" should be a rd or a dab. Per TWODABS we would customarily handle this with a hatnote at the language article. Personally, I think "Ainu language" (i.e., Hokkaido) and "Ainu languages" works just fine, but don't care very much either way. (Though, for the reader's convenience, if the lang article is not under "Ainu", I would prefer a rd and a hatnote to a dab page.) However, several editors have in the past gotten seriously upset about the lang being called "Hokkaido Ainu", and that seems to have driven much of the dispute. With it currently under "Ainu language", no-one seems to be upset, even if they might prefer something else. So maybe this is something we can all live with? — kwami ( talk) 06:59, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Yesterday I removed "Aynu=itak" from the Ainu languages article, thinking to myself, oh, that's an error; the editor clearly meant to put "Aynu-itak" instead.
However, today I see "Aynu=itak" at the top of this article; is it not meant to be a dash? I have to say I've never seen '=' used to transcribe languages into English.-- Ineffablebookkeeper ( talk) 11:05, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
The most recent native speaker count for the language was fourteen years ago at ten people, if not a more recent count then maybe a question mark or acknowledgment of outdated information since such a low number means it could be very different by now. Paigejaru ( talk) 05:51, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect
Hokkaido Ainu langauge. The discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 16#Hokkaido Ainu langauge until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –
LaundryPizza03 (
d
c̄) 23:06, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
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In the source cited, the Languages of Japan, Shibatani makes no mention of anything other than dialects of Ainu.
Hattori and various contributors, whom Shibatani cites in talking about dialects, only speak of dialects in Ainugo Hōgen Jiten ("Ainu Dialect Dictionary"). Vovin, in Proto-Ainu also speaks only of dialects.
As a linguistics student interested in the language, nothing I have ever read nor anyone I have ever spoken with have even mentioned "Ainu languages".
This is a very serious error, and I would say, calls into question the need for this page. -- Limetom 08:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Basically, my problem here is that really the only good source for this is from Piłsudski. I can find no sources in Japanese, no sources in Russian, and basically only Piłsudski in English who ever mention Ainu as a family of languages. It seems the scholarly consensus is that Ainu is a language isolate, with three dialect groups: Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kuril. This is the view on both the Russian and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as in Ethnologue and various other composite sources.
And in terms of mutual intelligibility, at least based off of Vovin's work (1993), all I have easy access to at the moment, most dialects seem to be fairly intelligible with one another, both in terms of lexicon and grammar. -- Limetom 00:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The singular dominates in the lit, but it seems to me that's because most of the lit deals exclusively with Hokkaido Ainu. "Dialects" then generally refers to the dialects of Hokkaido.
Pilsudski, Material for the Study of the Ainu Languages (plural) is also cited in Buchli, in Yotte (French), and in Rocznik Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Krakowie, vol 46. Are all of these errors? Mauss cites him with the plural in 1954 (The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies), and still uses the plural when citing him in 2010 (Soziologie und Anthropologie 2). In The East vol 19, speak of the value of his recordings for "comparative studies of the Sakhalin and the Hokkaido Ainu languages". Pilsudski was one of the few to document something other than Hokkaido.
Sidney Cheung, Japanese Anthropology and Depictions of the Ainu, "it prohibited the use of the Ainu languages and Ainu folk customs"
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (1968) A northwest coast Sakhalin Ainu world view: "Perhaps, then, the place names in Hokkaido reflect a time when the Sakhalin Ainu and the Hokkaido Ainu languages were not yet differentiated." Another rare case of s.t. other than Hokkaido.
Northwest anthropological research notes 2004:38-39, p 179, "Their work is very valuable and appreciated today because linguists studying the Ainu languages have been working hard to preserve and revitalize a variety of Ainu dialects"
— kwami ( talk) 21:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I realize the above debate is 4 years old, but…
I think the argument comes down to this: kwami thinks Ainu is a family of languages, like Japanese; Limetom thinks Ainu is a single language, like Japanese. While kwami refers to Japonic, he's really arguing that Japanese itself, Japonic minus the Ryukyuans, is a family. For example: "The problem with Japanese sources is that many of them treat Japanese as a language isolate, or at most split off Luchuan."
Well, western sources often agree that Japanese is a single language, split off (within the Japonic family) from the Ryukyuan languages. Sure, some sources instead split off Hachijō as a separate language, or even subfamily, instead of treating it as a top-level or eastern dialect, and some people even split off Satsugū. But most treat it all as one language. And English Wikipedia agrees.
So, if Ainu is like Japanese (including Kagoshimaben and Hachijōjima, but not including the Ryukyuan languages), then it's a single language according to the way Wikipedia orders things.
Personally, I strongly disagree with Limetom that this is a "serious error", because I think the whole distinction between a language isolate (or single-language branch in a family) and a language family (or subfamily) is meaningless, and it gets even sillier when you start arguing about languages that clearly had multiple branches in the past but only have one surviving language. Whether, say, Ainu and Emishi are related, that's interesting; whether Ainu was 1 language or 3 a century ago (when it's clearly 1 now, and presumably a lot more than 3 more than a century ago) is hard to get excited about. But if you're going to argue about it, I think Limetom's argument wins. -- 50.0.128.185 ( talk) 02:47, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
No, I was arguing that Ryukyuan is not a dialect of Japanese. Glottolog examined the lit and concluded Ainu was a small family, now reduced to a single language. And there's also the question of Koreanic, which is arguable a single language but Jeju is now treated as a distinct language by Unesco. — kwami ( talk) 20:04, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
I propose to merge this article into Ainu language. Ainu languages is original research and not universal. Ainu language and Ainu languages articles have a lot of overlap.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 05:47, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Merger is completed.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 23:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Reverted. No language family is universally accepted, not even Indo-European. By this standard, we need to delete our articles on Japonic, Koreanic, Altaic and Balto-Slavic as well, and Chinese should be a single article. Even if you consider Ainu varieties to be dialects of a single language, just as many people consider Okinawan to be a dialect of Japanese, or Hakka to be a dialect of Chinese, WP has lots of articles on individual dialects. But Glottolog reviewed the evidence and concluded that Ainu was a small language family. — kwami ( talk) 20:06, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
Hokkaido Ainu language is redirected to Ainu language now, so I think it's reasonable for Kuril Ainu language and Sakhalin Ainu language to redirect to Ainu language.
But I think the two options below are ideal.
1
2
-- ABCEdit ( talk) 15:34, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
I personally don't oppose to rename Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu language. But in my past proposal, plural persons opposed it ( Talk:Ainu language#Requested move 16 February 2018). If you want to rename Ainu language⇒Hokkaido Ainu language(that is, adopt option 2), please propose it on Talk:Ainu language again. I won't oppose it.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 14:14, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
discussing whether Ainu is a language isolate or a language family, the article name should be Ainu language, Ainu languages or Ainic languages, and Ainu language should be renamed Hokkaido Ainu language.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 21:07, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
(I think ABCEdit meant Ainuic. That's the spelling found by William T. in the previous thread. Another option for the Hokkaido language is simply "Hokkaido Ainu". — kwami ( talk) 21:45, 5 April 2019 (UTC))
I oppose the coexistence of Ainu languages and Ainu language. That is very confusing. If you wish Ainu languages to exist, we have to rename Ainu language to "Hokkaido Ainu language".-- ABCEdit ( talk) 22:52, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Based on the discussion above, first, I will rename Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu language (submit to Wikipedia: Requested moves) in one week. Let me know if you have other opinions.-- ABCEdit ( talk) 23:05, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
Except that Campbell doesn't know Ainu, whereas several of the other authors do. There is often going to be some disagreement as to whether varieties should best be considered dialects or languages, and often people won't address the issue at all. It wasn't so long ago that Japanese was a language isolate, after all, and Greek is still often presented as the only language of its branch of IE. — kwami ( talk) 05:04, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
I may be a bit late, but first I don't want to leave the statement by Limetom uncommented: "the "Ainuic" term seems to be borderline WP:OR; it really doesn't show up even in the English language literature". Well, it is clearly not the majority term, but it is consistently used by Juha Janhunen and a small number of colleagues who have adapted his coinage.
Apart from this, I think the current solution ("Ainu language" and "Hokkaido Ainu language" redirected to this article) is more than awkward. What about restoring Hokkaido Ainu language as a full article, and turning "Ainu language" into a full dab page? Like this:
And, before another arrogant "Has anyone bothered to consult the literature on this subject"-style question pops up: yes I have, too (like all other editors who have contributed to this discussion). – Austronesier ( talk) 00:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
The Russian version of the article contains the following snippets regarding the study of the Ainu language by Russians (my translation):
The first records of the Ainu language on record were made by Russian travellers (in Cyrillic), the systematic publication of these [records] began in the second half of the 18th century in Saint Petersburg, at The Imperial Academy of Sciences. [1] [2]
Early studies of the Ainu language (then called "Kuril") by Russian linguists were performed in 18th century. S.P. Krasheninnikov has assembled a list of words used by natives of Kamchatka (inhabiting Lopatka) and Kurils, which was then published by The Imperial Academy of Sciences under the editorship of P.S. Pallas. In the 19th century the language was studied by Russian physician M.M. Dobrotvorskiy, who created the first Ainu–Russian dictionary (1875), [3] and English missionary J. Batchelor, and at the beginning of the 20th century by famous Russian orientalist N.A. Nevskiy, as well as Bronisław Piłsudski.
I don't know if it's true that the Russians were the first on record to make the records of the Ainu language. Did the Japanese make any before the end of the 18th century? In any case, the "Comparative dictionaries…" and "Ainu–Russian dictionary" are important enough to warrant a mention in the article. (Ainu words are listed in "Comparative dictionaries…" under the "162—Курильски" key, meaning "in Kuril". Also, according to the preface, the Kamchatka Lopatka dialect of the "Kuril" language is included as well, however, it is not explained in what way, exactly, it is included.) -- 46.242.12.2 ( talk) 03:50, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
References
The result of the move request was: Move. A few things are clear: this is article is presently about the wider spectrum of the Ainu language(s), not simply the Hokkaido dialect/language. Additionally, the evidence presented suggests that this subject is usually treated as one "Ainu language" with dialects, rather than a family comprising distinct languages. Given these facts, I see no reason not to follow the consensus here to move the article to the singular form. Another RM will have to determine the names of the sub-articles. Cúchullain t/ c 18:44, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Ainu languages →
Ainu language – per
WP:COMMONNAME; see
this ngram for a comparison of usage. Following
a recent merge discussion,
Ainu language and
Ainu languages were merged, in this case the former into the latter. However, the singular form is far more common in sources. If the move is agreed to, an admin should
histmerge the old
Ainu language history as it is much longer and more substantive. —
AjaxSmack 03:29, 18 August 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.
Steel1943 (
talk) 20:31, 3 September 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.
Steel1943 (
talk) 15:32, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
[[Ainu language#Sakhalin dialect]]
). Other sections of the article should only contain the information pertaining to the language as a whole. The article's introduction should explain that the Hokkaido dialect is the best studied and the only one surviving to this day. IMO, it doesn't make sense having separate articles for the three dialects, as the Sakhalin dialect and Kuril dialect articles are tiny (and unlikely to grow due to these dialects having become extinct). So the resulting structure would be as follows: introduction, general sections (origin, history, etc.), big Hokkaido section with detailed language examples, two small Sakhalin and Kuril sections highlighting the differences from Hokkaido, references section, and "see more" section. --
46.242.12.78 (
talk) 00:38, 27 August 2019 (UTC)Endangeredlanguages.com's page on Ainu (citation 2 in the article) states that only two people anymore speak Ainu as their first language. However, a Disqus comment on the page says that there are more people who speak it but are shy to show it because of racism against ethnic Ainu in Japan. The article also says that UNESCO says that 15 people speak Ainu in their daily lives. Can there be any clarification on this? Thanks in advance. TreeNamedUser ( talk) 04:53, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
I think the article would benefit from some samples of the language(s). Without some examples of basic vocabulary I have little idea what the language(s) would sound like. Eoghan ( talk) 20:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
@ Kwamikagami: thanks for your message on my talk page, but I'm sorry - your change to the article structure at Ainu language cannot be made without a fresh RM or split discussion. This was discussed in considerable detail last year - the first move request was closed with no action, but the closer noted that the term "Hokkaido Ainu language" has significant opposition. There was then the merge discussion, which didn't attract any direct opposition although there was actually a worry expressed that someone might eventually try to get around the previous RM by forking off a Hokkaido Ainu language article. Finally, at the 18 August 2019 RM further up on this talk page (which I supported and you opposed) the merge was again acknowledged, the closer specifically noted the consensus that "the evidence presented suggests that this subject is usually treated as one "Ainu language" with dialects, rather than a family comprising distinct languages" and the RM was close with a move. That was all more than a year ago, and the situation has been stable since then. There is simply no way you can claim some other consensus was formed, and any a change to any other situation requires further discussion. I'm therefore reverting your changes once more and I'd suggest that you please WP:DROPTHESTICK on this one. Cheers — Amakuru ( talk) 21:47, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
You're the one who reverted that decision! The result was not to merge, but to move the Hokkaido language to "Ainu language" and the family to something else. The closer moved it to "Anuic languages", but you reverted as that was "close to OR". So it's you who are edit-warring to disrupt a closure that you do not agree with. As I said, I'm happy to have the Hokkaido language at "Ainu language". You object to "Ainuic", so I'll restore the family at "Ainu languages". Please don't disrupt further. — kwami ( talk) 21:56, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
NB that a lot of previous discussion of this issue is stranded at the Talk:Hokkaidō Ainu starting here. I agree that any changes to the article name and/or structure should undergo discussion. — AjaxSmack 00:36, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
– Austronesier ( talk) 14:13, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Per AjaxSmack, I agree that the best solution is to combine them all into one. We don't yet have specialized enough sources to delineate the differences between each dialect / language in a detailed way. Right now, all the important information could easily fit into a single article. Naomi.piquette ( talk) 04:47, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Since people are still commenting, I'll sum up what I see above, that there is general consensus that the family and language should have separate articles. The dispute is on what to call the language article: either "Ainu" or "Hokkaido Ainu". If the latter, the question is whether "Ainu" should be a rd or a dab. Per TWODABS we would customarily handle this with a hatnote at the language article. Personally, I think "Ainu language" (i.e., Hokkaido) and "Ainu languages" works just fine, but don't care very much either way. (Though, for the reader's convenience, if the lang article is not under "Ainu", I would prefer a rd and a hatnote to a dab page.) However, several editors have in the past gotten seriously upset about the lang being called "Hokkaido Ainu", and that seems to have driven much of the dispute. With it currently under "Ainu language", no-one seems to be upset, even if they might prefer something else. So maybe this is something we can all live with? — kwami ( talk) 06:59, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Yesterday I removed "Aynu=itak" from the Ainu languages article, thinking to myself, oh, that's an error; the editor clearly meant to put "Aynu-itak" instead.
However, today I see "Aynu=itak" at the top of this article; is it not meant to be a dash? I have to say I've never seen '=' used to transcribe languages into English.-- Ineffablebookkeeper ( talk) 11:05, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
The most recent native speaker count for the language was fourteen years ago at ten people, if not a more recent count then maybe a question mark or acknowledgment of outdated information since such a low number means it could be very different by now. Paigejaru ( talk) 05:51, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect
Hokkaido Ainu langauge. The discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 16#Hokkaido Ainu langauge until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –
LaundryPizza03 (
d
c̄) 23:06, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
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There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ainu languages which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 20:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ainu languages which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 08:04, 16 April 2023 (UTC)