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There seems to be some debate associated with the issue of whether the Sylheti language is a dialect or an independent language. So how should we address it on Wikipedia in the lead of the article. There is currently two different versions:
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language,[7][8] generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language.[9]
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan variety,[7] generally considered as a part of the Vangiya dialect group of the Bengali language.[8]
Furthermore, regarding the opinion of a professional linguist (who happens to be a Wikipedian) in a [ newspaper] that "they are almost universally considered by linguists to be separate languages on their own":
We have tried to discuss these issues here: Talk:Sylheti_language#Language_vs_Dialect.
@ Za-ari-masen, UserNumber, and Abu Ayyub:
Thank you for your inputs.
Chaipau ( talk) 12:36, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, linguists classify it as a separate language.— Wug· a·po·des 18:25, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language? Chaipau ( talk) 10:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, linguists classify it as a separate language.
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan linguistic variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, some linguists classify it as a separate language.Za-ari-masen ( talk) 10:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
generally consideredin such a context to mean "generally considered in the (linguistic) literature on the subject", but this expectation is then contradicted by the latter part of the sentence (
linguistics classify it...). We need to be explicit about who consideres Sylheti a dialect. – Uanfala (talk) 12:19, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
In terms of vocabulary and structure, Sylheti is on a linguistic continuum between Assamese and Bengali, arguably more similar to the former than to Kolkata-based standard Bengali (or Bangla), yet it is often viewed politically as a dialect of Bengali.page iv So the term dialect is used not in the socialinguistics sense, as you claim, but in the political sense. Chaipau ( talk) 14:42, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
@ Chaipau: I agree with the first version. The Vangiya group classification comes from Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, a Bengali linguist from colonial period. He did consider Sylheti as a dialect of Bengali, but he also included languages which he considered as separate languages in those groups where he included his Bengali dialects. For example, he included Standard Bengali and Odia (separate language) in the Rarhi group. And he included Assamese (separate language) and KRNB lects in the Kamarupi group. So Vangiya group doesn't necessarily mean that they are dialects of Standard Bengali. He also included Chittagonian (and Rohingya), Chakma, Hajong, Bishnupriya Manipuri under the Vangiya group. We should use recent sources from linguists (especially non Bengal based because we are familiar with the status of Sylheti and Bengali based nationalism there) because they are updated and more reliable. Moreover, some earlier linguists did consider Sylheti and Chittagonian to be more distinct from standard Bengali compared to Assamese, so this brings the question whether Assamese is a dialect of Bengali or not. In colonial times, Assamese was seen as a "corrupted form of Bengali" as mentioned in some sources and that due to disagreement of its speakers, Assamese gained the separate language status. Sylheti is considered as a separate language by newer linguists and it's still politically still counted under Bengali, and has two different views among its native speakers, informal form of Bengali and separate language. Terms like "informal form" and "corrupted form" are certainly non linguistic. Therefore I support the first version. Msasag ( talk) 18:21, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Note that Chatterji’s classification of ‘Bengali dialects’ includes lects ancestral to both Asamiya and Oriya. However, Chatterji does not intend to classify these lects as dialects of Bangla. Therefore, Chatterji’s four dialects—Rāḍha, Varêndra, Vaŋga, and Kāmrupa—should not be termed ‘dialects of Bengali’ but rather, ‘dialects [in the sense of historical derivatives] of eastern Magadhan’ (cf. Chatterji 1926:92ff.)(p218). So we cannot use this classification of Sylheti under Vanga by Chatterji to mean Sylheti is a dialect of Bengali. In fact neither Ethnologue nor Glottolog follow Chatterji's classification, and we may safely consider it to be WP:DATED as Austronesier has pointed out. This issue also pertains to the discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Linguistics#RfC_on_Sylheti_language_-_Family_tree. Chaipau ( talk) 08:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. Popularly considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, linguists classify it as a separate language.Here I have taken Wugapodes's basic statement and (1) removed "variety" on the besis of the issues raised by Uanfala and Austronesier and (2) replaced "generally" by "popular" to specify who considers it a dialect as asked by u:Uanfala. The word "popular" is used following UserNumber's insistence and it also includes Abu Ayyub's point that not all native speakers may identify with the Bengali, or the West Bengali's may not accept the Sylheti as Bengali. I do not think Za-ari-masen has established that some linguists have a valid argument to call it a language, since the two works he cites have been addressed in the linguistic literature. Msasag has pointed out that Chatterji's classification is flawed, and as u:Asutronesier has pointed out, WP:DATED. Anyway, from Khan (2018) we have that linguists "almost universally" consider Sylheti to be a language. Chaipau ( talk) 09:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language variety. Popularly considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, recent linguists have begun classifying it as a separate language.. The first sentence ambigously defines it, second sentence clarifies who sees it as a dialect and who sees it as a separate language. UserNumber ( talk) 10:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, some recent linguists have begun classifying it as a separate language.Keep it "generally considered" as it is as "popularly" would be an WP:OR and add "some" before linguists. I'm not sure what I failed to establish; there are already several sources where linguists have called it a dialect, Chatterji, Rasinger, Grierson and others, while all the modern linguists have agreed that the classification is still ambiguous. When the linguists are inconclusive, we can't interpret it as "linguists classify it as separate language." Za-ari-masen ( talk) 11:31, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
"all the modern linguists have agreed that the classification is still ambiguous"does not match the lead of the SOAS project paper [7] which flatly states:
"Sylheti is a minoritised, politically unrecognised, and understudied Eastern Indo-Aryan language."At least for these linguists, the matter is quite clear. "All the modern linguists" is counterfactual. – Austronesier ( talk) 11:53, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
The papers presented in this volume highlight some of the striking structural differences between Sylheti and standard Bengali, in phonetics and phonology, lexicon, and grammatical structure, and challenge the view that Sylheti is merely a dialectal variation of Bengali.I don't think anything can be said more emphatically in academic writing. Chaipau ( talk) 13:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Again, please consult what is required to be submitted to Ethnologue for any language variety to acquire an ISO language code. Linguists who respect the work of fellow linguists, who put politics aside, accept the non-political ISO code distribution process. Sylheti's classification as a language is NOT ambiguous. And I vote that if 'dialect of Bengali' is retained on this Wiki page, the same should be indicated on the Bangla/Bengali language Wiki page, to not promote cultural supremecy of one language over another. If we're going to continue to use the term dialect on a page about language it should be used in its linguistic sense, which means saying 'Sylheti dialect', 'Nadia dialect', etc. In linguistics there is no hierachy of language variation so 'dialect of' is not an acceptable descriptor. Or we should be consistent with the Wiki pages of related languages: Rohingia: 'It is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Bengali–Assamese branch, and is related to the Chittagonian language spoken in neighbouring Bangladesh.' Chittagonian: 'is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Chittagong Division in Bangladesh. It is generally considered to be a nonstandard dialect of Bengali because its speakers identify with Bengali culture and Standard Bengali as literary language, but the two are not mutually intelligible.' Manipuri Bishnupriya: 'is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Indian states of Manipur, Assam, Tripura and others, as well as in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, Burma, and other countries.' Chakma: 'is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Chakma and Daingnet people.' etc. These are all recognised Indo-Aryan LANGUAGES. Tuahtme ( talk) 20:10, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Since this is getting derailed again—could we decide on the first sentence first: is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language.
I have dropped the word "variety" here because of the objections from Uanfala and Austronesier. UserNumber and Za-ari-masen favors retaining "variety" this, and Msasag favors removing it. Since this recommendation comes from specialists here, I think it is binding on us. If it fails here, I shall seek advice on where to go next.
Chaipau (
talk) 16:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Addition: I have parsed the comments and can say that users
Abu Ayyub and
Tuahtme too favor dropping "variety".
Chaipau (
talk) 16:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
This discussion is focusing on the terms language and dialect (of Bengali), but there's no sign of 'Bengali' being discussed and defined. Today the standard language used in formal institutions is Bangla(/Bengali), a relatively modern dialectal variation that was standardized in the 1920s (as stated above). It is clear that Sylheti is not a dialect of Bangla and even the often misinformed/politically-motivated colonial linguistic studies puts what would be today's Bangla in a 'western' branch while Sylheti is grouped in an 'eastern' branch (see above). The term Bengali used to describe the inhabitants of the historical geographical area(s) that have had various political borders over hundreds of years of rulers from very different origins, is not the same term that describes the Bangla/Bengali language - sociolinguistically, this has influenced both identifiers of ethnicity and unspecific indentifiers of language. A parallel would be calling all the specific languages spoken in the Iberian peninsula by the unspecific term 'Spanish' which would then make Castilian a 'dialect of Spanish', Catalan a 'dialect of Spanish', Aranese, Galician, Portugese, Menderico, Mirandeses, etc. all 'dialects of Spanish', 'Spanish' being some socio-political historical term to indicate present-day politics, not a linguistic term. If I can propose another parallel - a parallel example to help further the discussion, not an exact similitude, the term Bengali when referring today to languageS is like the term Romance; just as today we can linguistically call the Gaul branch of languages one branch of Romance dialects, and the Iberian branch of languages another branch of Romance dialects, all these are still languages today, as recognized by various international scientific (non-partisan/non-political) institutions such as UNESCO and Ethnologue. (Please take a look at what is required by Ethnologue to make a proposal for a language to be accorded an ISO code, which Sylheti does have, internationally recognized, syl.) Calling Parisian French a 'dialect of Castilian' is equivalent to calling Sylheti a 'dialect of Bangla' - this is not linguistically correct, as in, there in no observed data according to the scientific method that would allow a linguist to declare that Bangla and Sylheti, two languages on different evolutionary branches, are 'dialects' of each other, especially because that's not how linguists use the term dialect. These languages are on separate historical brances of language evolution. Yes, recognizing the political influence of historical and present-day government policy on how certain speakers identify the language they speak is significant, but it does not change linguistic science. To continue to highlight that Sylheti is a 'dialect of Bengali' in any way other than to reflect present-day political policy and mis-informed/biased education policy is perpetuating an unscientific political bias. Linguistically, if 'dialect of Bengali' is to be used on this page, with Bengali defined either geographically or as a larger historical grouping of languages similar to Romance, then we should change the Bangla language page to reflect that fact too, that today's standard Bangla is also a dialect of Bengali. There is of course a term already used similar to Romance in reference to all these related language, that is Bengali-Assamese. Can we think that when people say 'dialect of Bengali' they actually mean 'dialect of Bengali-Assamese'? In summary, if we include that some people call Sylheti a 'dialect of Bengali', we need to define what they're referring to by Bengali, a term with different historical meanings, not all linguistic, in different languages, exonyms and endonyms, etc. which is a social study, not a study of language and does not change scientific observation of linguistic conlusions. However, if Bengali here is used to mean the Bangla language, it is recognized as incorrect by ALL linguists - Sylheti on the eastern branch is not a dialect of standard Bangla that is merely one language variety/dialectal variation on the western branch. (I've worked with Sylheti speakers who say that Sylheti can't be a language because it's not written. Their politically biased education denied them access to learning about the hundreds of years of the Sylheti/Syloti Nagri script and writing tradition in the Sylheti language. I won't call them wrong because that is what they learned, but if I repeat that declaration as fact, that Sylheti isn't a language because some people say that Sylheti isn't a language because it's not written, it would be irresponsible of me, with my knowledge of the written Sylheti Nagri history and that the majority of the world's ~7000 languages aren't written, writing is not a basis for analyzing a spoken or signed communication system as a lnaguage or not, and I, and for example, this Wiki page, would be wrong.) Tuahtme ( talk) 11:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Sylheti is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. In sociolinguistic terms, it is generally viewed as a dialect of Bengali....If it needs sharpening up or corrections, suggestions are most welcome. Or you can attack this suggestion, just be pleasant when doing so. Abu Ayyub ( talk) 16:03, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
halt a 'Bengali' cultural imperialism in the region that is moving toward erasing linguistic diversity to fit", "
Linguicism and linguicide are real" — Tuahtme, your posts don't look civil and you need to see WP:NPA, WP:AGF to know how to interact with other editors. Sylheti is still called a dialect by many linguists and no, they are not Bangladeshi linguists. Dialect is a linguistic term and many languages do have regional variations. Very few Bengalis are native speakers of the standard version and most speak the regional variations. There is nothing about ethnic pride here. Za-ari-masen ( talk) 09:14, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
dialect is a linguistic termand yet you are ignoring the objections to your claim that "Sylheti is a dialect of Bengali" that linguists in this group have put forward. Uanfala deconstructs Rasinger 2007 here. Here is an objection to Chung 2019 [9] which deals with Sylhet in the same manner as Rasinger 2007. You are cherry picking "dialect" mentioned in linguistic sources to support your POV without paying heed to the linguistic worth of these mentions. Chaipau ( talk) 11:00, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
More importantly though, it's clear from this quote that he uses the term "dialect" in a way that's closer to the everyday meaning ("low-prestige variety") than to the meaning usually employed in linguistics texts, including Wikipedia articles ("a sufficiently distinct variety"). Since Rasinger is not using a linguistic definition of dialect you cannot use Rasinger to define Sylheti is a dialect in the linguistic sense. Chaipau ( talk) 12:24, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
If you need a source supporting the dialect view, this definitely is one" in his words. He mainly objected to the criteria used by Rasinger to claim the dialect view. Za-ari-masen ( talk) 12:35, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
@ UserNumber: I hope you agree with Abu Ayyub and Uanfala above that the linguistic definition of the Sylheti language does not impact the identity of the Sylheti people. If you agree with this, then we would have taken a major step towards agreement. Chaipau ( talk) 15:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
considered a distinct language by many and also as a dialect of Bengali or Bangla by some others.
generally considered to be a dialect of Bengali), but bizarrely, it claims the very opposite of what is stated in the only relevant one of the sources cited. – Uanfala (talk) 19:55, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
because of significant morpho-phonological differences and a lack of mutual intelligibility, a strong argument can be made in favour of Sylheti claiming the status of a language in its own right.Surprisingly Sen says Sylheti is also considered as a dialect of Assamese—though people have been talking about the similarity with Assamese, no one else that I know of has claimed it is a "dialect" of Assamese. Chaipau ( talk) 21:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
Please see
Talk:Internet#Request for comment: should "internet" be capitalized as a proper noun?
There's some debate there about what a proper name is, about distinguishing between a proper-noun phrase and a common-noun phrase that refer to different topics ("the Internet" vs. "an internet"), and about whether news style guides (cf.
WP:NOT#NEWS policy) should be considered reliable for how to write about technical topics. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 14:34, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
TERF has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Loki ( talk) 08:37, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
There are two vowels with missing sounds at IPA vowel chart with audio: ø̞ and ɤ̞. Perhaps someone involved in this WikiProject could attend to this. Thanks. Mgasparin ( talk) 07:21, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Urheimat (now moved to "linguistic homeland") was recently nominated for deletion and, while it was obviously kept, the article is in a bit of a state. Only a small portion of the text is about the concept itself. The rest is a very long list of sections, of varying quality, about the homelands of particular language families, turning it into a doomed attempt to summarise the language history of the entire world. Any assistance in cleaning up these sections and splitting them off to standalone articles where appropriate would be appreciated. – Joe ( talk) 13:16, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
My fellow Wikipedians --
Our coverage of Indo-European and Proto-Indo-European topics is in disrepair. We've got a great deal of content and a great deal of articles. But they overlap, conflict, contradict confuse and muddle.
To say nothing of the PIE template(s), just look at this list of articles. You can figure out just by the titles that there's a great deal of redundancy:
(I am aware that some of these articles don't belong exclusively or even at all to linguistics.)
To take one example of where we see issues, let's look at " Proto-Indo-European homeland". This article generally sloppy (eg it can't decide between "urheimat" and "homeland"), but let's look at its structure specifically. You'd expect this article to look something like this:
Instead, the article is structured so:
At any rate -- problems like these are abound when it comes to PIE topics. That's why I propose an Indo-European Topics taskforce to fix this madness. Let me know if there's any interest. CampWood ( talk) 18:28, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
For details, please see:
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 02:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Preferred gender pronoun § Requested move 3 December 2020. GreenComputer ( talk) 04:53, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello, the article on the lexeme chickenhawk concluded with a well-sourced sentence (The Atlantic, Newsweek, etc.) on its contemporary attestation/usage in English. However, a single-purpose account has repeatedly removed the information as an "irrelevant personal opinion." Looking for commentary and/or involvement regarding the linguistic neutrality of presenting the attestation ("has been used as") and the reliability of the sources. Thanks. Doremo ( talk) 03:48, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
In plaint English, this article is in such a poor state that it needs to be fixed or it risks deletion. Bearian ( talk) 23:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Hi everyone,
I've discovered a number of Fringe etymologies at the page Slavicism (see [11], [12], and this talk page thread and I was hoping anyone who knows more about Slavic etymologies could help pick out some more (I'm limited to my knowledge of Germanic). Thanks!-- Ermenrich ( talk) 19:36, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Additional input by editors more familiar with the topic is requested here: Talk:The Language Instinct#Reception, rejection. Crossroads -talk- 21:43, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
What would you suggest be the best reliable resources to take into consideration when editing articles? Besides mainstream websites such as google. Reinhearted ( talk) 14:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi all, the Linguistic Society of America's annual meeting is coming up and---as is becoming the norm---there will be a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in conjunction. This year, it looks to be 11 January 2021, from 20:00 UTC to 23:00 UTC (noon to 3 pacific). I wanted to make you all aware for a few reasons, a big one being that we'd like you to join us in building the encyclopedia. If you can't commit the whole time, there are lots of ways you can still be involved and helpful. After edit-a-thons, many people never come back especially since most ling articles are lonely places. If you see new faces on your watchlist, meatball:WelcomeNewcomers by leaving a message on their user talk or thanking them with the thanks button. If you can, lead by example and try to fix the newbie errors instead of reverting. If you need to revert, try to leave them a message or ping them to the article talk page. I'll be on the zoom call to wrangle them, so if you're really having problems during the event get in touch. Suggestions on what articles could use expert attention or that you've been wanting a collaborator on are also incredibly appreciated and you can feel free to let me know and I'll compile them as a handout for participants. Thanks everyone and hopefully we get some new editors and new content! WugapodesOutreach ( talk) 02:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
We have a long-running minority practice of color-coding phonology tables to indicate things like dialectal variation (e.g. Hmong language#Phonology) or phonotactic limitations (e.g. Selkup language#Phonology). This in principle risks problems in accessibility or printability, though; see MOS:COLORCODING. Should we consider having particular recommendations on how to use contrast in tables, for starters e.g. table cell color vs. text color (and perhaps specific color guidelines)? I know I've also seen bolding-for-emphasis and italics-for-emphasis which could be debatable as well.
This comment inspired by running into Dargwa language#Phonology whose hot pink and gold text on normal light gray seems pretty straining to read even as a person with unimpaired color vision (formerly also more copiously in running text which I've fixed already); I also recall Abkhaz language#Phonology having darkish blue and darkish green which are not the easiest to tell apart immediately. ( Abkhaz phonology remedies this by adding asterisks / daggers, though.) -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 14:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
color is not the only method used to convey important information. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 06:40, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
An IP editor has recently made dozens of credible but unsourced non-English IPA changes. Please could an expert check them? If you have the CIDR gadget enabled then the edits can be seen here, otherwise there is a Latin sample here. Thanks, Certes ( talk) 12:52, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
"If you wish to participate in WikiProject Etymology, please add your name to the list below and introduce yourself on the project talk page". So hi? I'm LocalPunk :) happy to be here, I have a special interest in etymology LocalPunk ( talk) 22:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest that the article on Auditory phonetics be removed from the list of topics needing attention, as it has been considerably expanded from the single sentence mentioned. RoachPeter ( talk) 09:21, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Please see: Talk:Irrealis mood#Contemplative is missing? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Surely the criticism of the Phonetics article is no longer valid? RoachPeter ( talk) 10:02, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Members of this WikiProject may want to visit the page at https://xkcd.com/2421/ Eastmain ( talk • contribs) 04:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
Any knowledgeable folks here? I've found this paper, which calls for a re-evaluation of the evidence, as many alleged cognates between Eskimo and Aleut are highly dubious and likely the result of relatively recent language contact and borrowing. My understanding as an outsider is that while Proto-Eskimo is relatively well understood and there are decent reconstructions, Proto-Aleut is much less so, and while their relationship is not in doubt, it is distant and a good reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut is still sorely lacking. Weeding out borrowings and other false cognates between the two primary branches is vital for the progress of the reconstruction, but it also thins out the evidence, which doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly plentiful anyway, so the paper brings bad news in this sense. I wonder what the effect on PEA reconstruction really factually is, and how large the amount of remaining evidence, and reconstructible material. Also, should the paper be mentioned in Proto-Eskimo-Aleut language or other articles? Is there recent literature on Eskimo-Aleut in the form of long-form studies, monographs, textbooks? -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 16:05, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Please state your opinion in Talk:surname#Technonym. Lembit Staan ( talk) 17:54, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Hello all! I’ve just created a redlist for women in linguistics as part of WikiProject Women in Red. Would like to encourage people to jump in, edit, and create articles. Muspilli ( talk) 11:03, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Hi all, Josef Fruehwald uploaded File:Philadelphia Short-A Flow Chart.svg for use in Philadelphia English, but it needs some clean-up before it can be added. If anyone has the time and skills to work with SVG flow charts, feel free to lend a hand. — Wug· a·po·des 22:03, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi, so I'm feeling free to make a suggestion here. In the process of editing
Voiced_dental,_alveolar_and_postalveolar_lateral_approximants I've discovered that references to individual languages are given either at the left after the language name, or at the right in the notes, seemingly without rhyme or reason. It is obvious to me that they should be consistently subjoined to individual statements in the notes, and that they're both difficult to detect and out of place next to language names fight me Let this be a policy proposal if anybody wants to take this up because I'm not active very on the website - too big and scary for me. Tho I can go ahead and convert that page if y'all agree.
Brutal Russian (
talk) 19:49, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Gibberish | foo | [fʉu̯] | 'bar' | 1 |
An editor has contested a recent addition of a note about brackets and delimiters in {{ Infobox language}}. Input will be appreciated at Template talk:IPA notice#Brackets. Nardog ( talk) 09:52, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Hello, |
Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC?, for a proposal relating to optional characters/marks for indicating vocal stress, used in some foreign languages, include "ruby" characters for Japanese and Korean, and znaki udareniya marks in Ukrainian and Russian. The short version is that, based on a rule already long found in MOS:JAPAN and consonant with WP:NOTDICT policy, MoS would instruct (in MOS:FOREIGN) not to use these marks (primarily intended for pedagogical purposes) except in unusual circumstances, like direct quotation, or discussion of the marks themselves. Target date for implementation is April 21. PS: This does not relate to Vietnamese tone marks. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:41, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Rhotacism (speech impediment) needs to be looked at. An IP user 129.206.196.103 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) recently added multiple tags to this article, including one claiming that the title is inaccurate. They also made this edit, which removed unreliably sourced material and OR but was justified as ableism. In August 2019, I tagged this article for lack of medical citations and OR, and the claim of inaccuracy is backed up by the talk page, where the most recent commentor, @ Danbirchall, claimed that the term speech impediment is outdated. From the other comments, I suspect that the article has a major NPOV violation where the subject is unduly presented as a speech impediment. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 23:52, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Dear linguists and interested people, I have a question about the linguistic classification of the term " Nintendo". Can this company name be classified as a neologism of the 1980s when used instead of the term "video game" or " video game console"? Usage examples: "to play Nintendo", "I'm taking the Nintendo with me on vacation." – Gebu ( talk) 20:19, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Not really linguistics-related, but since this project's banner was on the talk page, there's an editorial dispute between myself and another editor which could use more views. Opencooper ( talk) 15:48, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Please see
Help talk:Pronunciation respelling key#Replace "moral" example.
There's a dispute (with too few participants) about what example(s) to provide and whether the current one is adequate for or confusing for most editors. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 22:13, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
WT:LINGUISTICS seems as a good a place as any for notices about English-language slang coverage. Please see: Talk:BBC (disambiguation)#BBC as a porn/sexual term – apparently the entry to for the sexual term keeps getting censored off the disambiguation page, despite there being an ideal article section to point to. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:25, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 |
There seems to be some debate associated with the issue of whether the Sylheti language is a dialect or an independent language. So how should we address it on Wikipedia in the lead of the article. There is currently two different versions:
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language,[7][8] generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language.[9]
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan variety,[7] generally considered as a part of the Vangiya dialect group of the Bengali language.[8]
Furthermore, regarding the opinion of a professional linguist (who happens to be a Wikipedian) in a [ newspaper] that "they are almost universally considered by linguists to be separate languages on their own":
We have tried to discuss these issues here: Talk:Sylheti_language#Language_vs_Dialect.
@ Za-ari-masen, UserNumber, and Abu Ayyub:
Thank you for your inputs.
Chaipau ( talk) 12:36, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, linguists classify it as a separate language.— Wug· a·po·des 18:25, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language? Chaipau ( talk) 10:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, linguists classify it as a separate language.
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan linguistic variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, some linguists classify it as a separate language.Za-ari-masen ( talk) 10:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
generally consideredin such a context to mean "generally considered in the (linguistic) literature on the subject", but this expectation is then contradicted by the latter part of the sentence (
linguistics classify it...). We need to be explicit about who consideres Sylheti a dialect. – Uanfala (talk) 12:19, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
In terms of vocabulary and structure, Sylheti is on a linguistic continuum between Assamese and Bengali, arguably more similar to the former than to Kolkata-based standard Bengali (or Bangla), yet it is often viewed politically as a dialect of Bengali.page iv So the term dialect is used not in the socialinguistics sense, as you claim, but in the political sense. Chaipau ( talk) 14:42, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
@ Chaipau: I agree with the first version. The Vangiya group classification comes from Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, a Bengali linguist from colonial period. He did consider Sylheti as a dialect of Bengali, but he also included languages which he considered as separate languages in those groups where he included his Bengali dialects. For example, he included Standard Bengali and Odia (separate language) in the Rarhi group. And he included Assamese (separate language) and KRNB lects in the Kamarupi group. So Vangiya group doesn't necessarily mean that they are dialects of Standard Bengali. He also included Chittagonian (and Rohingya), Chakma, Hajong, Bishnupriya Manipuri under the Vangiya group. We should use recent sources from linguists (especially non Bengal based because we are familiar with the status of Sylheti and Bengali based nationalism there) because they are updated and more reliable. Moreover, some earlier linguists did consider Sylheti and Chittagonian to be more distinct from standard Bengali compared to Assamese, so this brings the question whether Assamese is a dialect of Bengali or not. In colonial times, Assamese was seen as a "corrupted form of Bengali" as mentioned in some sources and that due to disagreement of its speakers, Assamese gained the separate language status. Sylheti is considered as a separate language by newer linguists and it's still politically still counted under Bengali, and has two different views among its native speakers, informal form of Bengali and separate language. Terms like "informal form" and "corrupted form" are certainly non linguistic. Therefore I support the first version. Msasag ( talk) 18:21, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Note that Chatterji’s classification of ‘Bengali dialects’ includes lects ancestral to both Asamiya and Oriya. However, Chatterji does not intend to classify these lects as dialects of Bangla. Therefore, Chatterji’s four dialects—Rāḍha, Varêndra, Vaŋga, and Kāmrupa—should not be termed ‘dialects of Bengali’ but rather, ‘dialects [in the sense of historical derivatives] of eastern Magadhan’ (cf. Chatterji 1926:92ff.)(p218). So we cannot use this classification of Sylheti under Vanga by Chatterji to mean Sylheti is a dialect of Bengali. In fact neither Ethnologue nor Glottolog follow Chatterji's classification, and we may safely consider it to be WP:DATED as Austronesier has pointed out. This issue also pertains to the discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Linguistics#RfC_on_Sylheti_language_-_Family_tree. Chaipau ( talk) 08:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. Popularly considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, linguists classify it as a separate language.Here I have taken Wugapodes's basic statement and (1) removed "variety" on the besis of the issues raised by Uanfala and Austronesier and (2) replaced "generally" by "popular" to specify who considers it a dialect as asked by u:Uanfala. The word "popular" is used following UserNumber's insistence and it also includes Abu Ayyub's point that not all native speakers may identify with the Bengali, or the West Bengali's may not accept the Sylheti as Bengali. I do not think Za-ari-masen has established that some linguists have a valid argument to call it a language, since the two works he cites have been addressed in the linguistic literature. Msasag has pointed out that Chatterji's classification is flawed, and as u:Asutronesier has pointed out, WP:DATED. Anyway, from Khan (2018) we have that linguists "almost universally" consider Sylheti to be a language. Chaipau ( talk) 09:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language variety. Popularly considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, recent linguists have begun classifying it as a separate language.. The first sentence ambigously defines it, second sentence clarifies who sees it as a dialect and who sees it as a separate language. UserNumber ( talk) 10:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language variety. Generally considered to be a dialect of the Bengali language, some recent linguists have begun classifying it as a separate language.Keep it "generally considered" as it is as "popularly" would be an WP:OR and add "some" before linguists. I'm not sure what I failed to establish; there are already several sources where linguists have called it a dialect, Chatterji, Rasinger, Grierson and others, while all the modern linguists have agreed that the classification is still ambiguous. When the linguists are inconclusive, we can't interpret it as "linguists classify it as separate language." Za-ari-masen ( talk) 11:31, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
"all the modern linguists have agreed that the classification is still ambiguous"does not match the lead of the SOAS project paper [7] which flatly states:
"Sylheti is a minoritised, politically unrecognised, and understudied Eastern Indo-Aryan language."At least for these linguists, the matter is quite clear. "All the modern linguists" is counterfactual. – Austronesier ( talk) 11:53, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
The papers presented in this volume highlight some of the striking structural differences between Sylheti and standard Bengali, in phonetics and phonology, lexicon, and grammatical structure, and challenge the view that Sylheti is merely a dialectal variation of Bengali.I don't think anything can be said more emphatically in academic writing. Chaipau ( talk) 13:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Again, please consult what is required to be submitted to Ethnologue for any language variety to acquire an ISO language code. Linguists who respect the work of fellow linguists, who put politics aside, accept the non-political ISO code distribution process. Sylheti's classification as a language is NOT ambiguous. And I vote that if 'dialect of Bengali' is retained on this Wiki page, the same should be indicated on the Bangla/Bengali language Wiki page, to not promote cultural supremecy of one language over another. If we're going to continue to use the term dialect on a page about language it should be used in its linguistic sense, which means saying 'Sylheti dialect', 'Nadia dialect', etc. In linguistics there is no hierachy of language variation so 'dialect of' is not an acceptable descriptor. Or we should be consistent with the Wiki pages of related languages: Rohingia: 'It is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Bengali–Assamese branch, and is related to the Chittagonian language spoken in neighbouring Bangladesh.' Chittagonian: 'is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Chittagong Division in Bangladesh. It is generally considered to be a nonstandard dialect of Bengali because its speakers identify with Bengali culture and Standard Bengali as literary language, but the two are not mutually intelligible.' Manipuri Bishnupriya: 'is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Indian states of Manipur, Assam, Tripura and others, as well as in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, Burma, and other countries.' Chakma: 'is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Chakma and Daingnet people.' etc. These are all recognised Indo-Aryan LANGUAGES. Tuahtme ( talk) 20:10, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Since this is getting derailed again—could we decide on the first sentence first: is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language.
I have dropped the word "variety" here because of the objections from Uanfala and Austronesier. UserNumber and Za-ari-masen favors retaining "variety" this, and Msasag favors removing it. Since this recommendation comes from specialists here, I think it is binding on us. If it fails here, I shall seek advice on where to go next.
Chaipau (
talk) 16:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Addition: I have parsed the comments and can say that users
Abu Ayyub and
Tuahtme too favor dropping "variety".
Chaipau (
talk) 16:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
This discussion is focusing on the terms language and dialect (of Bengali), but there's no sign of 'Bengali' being discussed and defined. Today the standard language used in formal institutions is Bangla(/Bengali), a relatively modern dialectal variation that was standardized in the 1920s (as stated above). It is clear that Sylheti is not a dialect of Bangla and even the often misinformed/politically-motivated colonial linguistic studies puts what would be today's Bangla in a 'western' branch while Sylheti is grouped in an 'eastern' branch (see above). The term Bengali used to describe the inhabitants of the historical geographical area(s) that have had various political borders over hundreds of years of rulers from very different origins, is not the same term that describes the Bangla/Bengali language - sociolinguistically, this has influenced both identifiers of ethnicity and unspecific indentifiers of language. A parallel would be calling all the specific languages spoken in the Iberian peninsula by the unspecific term 'Spanish' which would then make Castilian a 'dialect of Spanish', Catalan a 'dialect of Spanish', Aranese, Galician, Portugese, Menderico, Mirandeses, etc. all 'dialects of Spanish', 'Spanish' being some socio-political historical term to indicate present-day politics, not a linguistic term. If I can propose another parallel - a parallel example to help further the discussion, not an exact similitude, the term Bengali when referring today to languageS is like the term Romance; just as today we can linguistically call the Gaul branch of languages one branch of Romance dialects, and the Iberian branch of languages another branch of Romance dialects, all these are still languages today, as recognized by various international scientific (non-partisan/non-political) institutions such as UNESCO and Ethnologue. (Please take a look at what is required by Ethnologue to make a proposal for a language to be accorded an ISO code, which Sylheti does have, internationally recognized, syl.) Calling Parisian French a 'dialect of Castilian' is equivalent to calling Sylheti a 'dialect of Bangla' - this is not linguistically correct, as in, there in no observed data according to the scientific method that would allow a linguist to declare that Bangla and Sylheti, two languages on different evolutionary branches, are 'dialects' of each other, especially because that's not how linguists use the term dialect. These languages are on separate historical brances of language evolution. Yes, recognizing the political influence of historical and present-day government policy on how certain speakers identify the language they speak is significant, but it does not change linguistic science. To continue to highlight that Sylheti is a 'dialect of Bengali' in any way other than to reflect present-day political policy and mis-informed/biased education policy is perpetuating an unscientific political bias. Linguistically, if 'dialect of Bengali' is to be used on this page, with Bengali defined either geographically or as a larger historical grouping of languages similar to Romance, then we should change the Bangla language page to reflect that fact too, that today's standard Bangla is also a dialect of Bengali. There is of course a term already used similar to Romance in reference to all these related language, that is Bengali-Assamese. Can we think that when people say 'dialect of Bengali' they actually mean 'dialect of Bengali-Assamese'? In summary, if we include that some people call Sylheti a 'dialect of Bengali', we need to define what they're referring to by Bengali, a term with different historical meanings, not all linguistic, in different languages, exonyms and endonyms, etc. which is a social study, not a study of language and does not change scientific observation of linguistic conlusions. However, if Bengali here is used to mean the Bangla language, it is recognized as incorrect by ALL linguists - Sylheti on the eastern branch is not a dialect of standard Bangla that is merely one language variety/dialectal variation on the western branch. (I've worked with Sylheti speakers who say that Sylheti can't be a language because it's not written. Their politically biased education denied them access to learning about the hundreds of years of the Sylheti/Syloti Nagri script and writing tradition in the Sylheti language. I won't call them wrong because that is what they learned, but if I repeat that declaration as fact, that Sylheti isn't a language because some people say that Sylheti isn't a language because it's not written, it would be irresponsible of me, with my knowledge of the written Sylheti Nagri history and that the majority of the world's ~7000 languages aren't written, writing is not a basis for analyzing a spoken or signed communication system as a lnaguage or not, and I, and for example, this Wiki page, would be wrong.) Tuahtme ( talk) 11:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Sylheti is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. In sociolinguistic terms, it is generally viewed as a dialect of Bengali....If it needs sharpening up or corrections, suggestions are most welcome. Or you can attack this suggestion, just be pleasant when doing so. Abu Ayyub ( talk) 16:03, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
halt a 'Bengali' cultural imperialism in the region that is moving toward erasing linguistic diversity to fit", "
Linguicism and linguicide are real" — Tuahtme, your posts don't look civil and you need to see WP:NPA, WP:AGF to know how to interact with other editors. Sylheti is still called a dialect by many linguists and no, they are not Bangladeshi linguists. Dialect is a linguistic term and many languages do have regional variations. Very few Bengalis are native speakers of the standard version and most speak the regional variations. There is nothing about ethnic pride here. Za-ari-masen ( talk) 09:14, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
dialect is a linguistic termand yet you are ignoring the objections to your claim that "Sylheti is a dialect of Bengali" that linguists in this group have put forward. Uanfala deconstructs Rasinger 2007 here. Here is an objection to Chung 2019 [9] which deals with Sylhet in the same manner as Rasinger 2007. You are cherry picking "dialect" mentioned in linguistic sources to support your POV without paying heed to the linguistic worth of these mentions. Chaipau ( talk) 11:00, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
More importantly though, it's clear from this quote that he uses the term "dialect" in a way that's closer to the everyday meaning ("low-prestige variety") than to the meaning usually employed in linguistics texts, including Wikipedia articles ("a sufficiently distinct variety"). Since Rasinger is not using a linguistic definition of dialect you cannot use Rasinger to define Sylheti is a dialect in the linguistic sense. Chaipau ( talk) 12:24, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
If you need a source supporting the dialect view, this definitely is one" in his words. He mainly objected to the criteria used by Rasinger to claim the dialect view. Za-ari-masen ( talk) 12:35, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
@ UserNumber: I hope you agree with Abu Ayyub and Uanfala above that the linguistic definition of the Sylheti language does not impact the identity of the Sylheti people. If you agree with this, then we would have taken a major step towards agreement. Chaipau ( talk) 15:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
considered a distinct language by many and also as a dialect of Bengali or Bangla by some others.
generally considered to be a dialect of Bengali), but bizarrely, it claims the very opposite of what is stated in the only relevant one of the sources cited. – Uanfala (talk) 19:55, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
because of significant morpho-phonological differences and a lack of mutual intelligibility, a strong argument can be made in favour of Sylheti claiming the status of a language in its own right.Surprisingly Sen says Sylheti is also considered as a dialect of Assamese—though people have been talking about the similarity with Assamese, no one else that I know of has claimed it is a "dialect" of Assamese. Chaipau ( talk) 21:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
Please see
Talk:Internet#Request for comment: should "internet" be capitalized as a proper noun?
There's some debate there about what a proper name is, about distinguishing between a proper-noun phrase and a common-noun phrase that refer to different topics ("the Internet" vs. "an internet"), and about whether news style guides (cf.
WP:NOT#NEWS policy) should be considered reliable for how to write about technical topics. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 14:34, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
TERF has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Loki ( talk) 08:37, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
There are two vowels with missing sounds at IPA vowel chart with audio: ø̞ and ɤ̞. Perhaps someone involved in this WikiProject could attend to this. Thanks. Mgasparin ( talk) 07:21, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Urheimat (now moved to "linguistic homeland") was recently nominated for deletion and, while it was obviously kept, the article is in a bit of a state. Only a small portion of the text is about the concept itself. The rest is a very long list of sections, of varying quality, about the homelands of particular language families, turning it into a doomed attempt to summarise the language history of the entire world. Any assistance in cleaning up these sections and splitting them off to standalone articles where appropriate would be appreciated. – Joe ( talk) 13:16, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
My fellow Wikipedians --
Our coverage of Indo-European and Proto-Indo-European topics is in disrepair. We've got a great deal of content and a great deal of articles. But they overlap, conflict, contradict confuse and muddle.
To say nothing of the PIE template(s), just look at this list of articles. You can figure out just by the titles that there's a great deal of redundancy:
(I am aware that some of these articles don't belong exclusively or even at all to linguistics.)
To take one example of where we see issues, let's look at " Proto-Indo-European homeland". This article generally sloppy (eg it can't decide between "urheimat" and "homeland"), but let's look at its structure specifically. You'd expect this article to look something like this:
Instead, the article is structured so:
At any rate -- problems like these are abound when it comes to PIE topics. That's why I propose an Indo-European Topics taskforce to fix this madness. Let me know if there's any interest. CampWood ( talk) 18:28, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
For details, please see:
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 02:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Preferred gender pronoun § Requested move 3 December 2020. GreenComputer ( talk) 04:53, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello, the article on the lexeme chickenhawk concluded with a well-sourced sentence (The Atlantic, Newsweek, etc.) on its contemporary attestation/usage in English. However, a single-purpose account has repeatedly removed the information as an "irrelevant personal opinion." Looking for commentary and/or involvement regarding the linguistic neutrality of presenting the attestation ("has been used as") and the reliability of the sources. Thanks. Doremo ( talk) 03:48, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
In plaint English, this article is in such a poor state that it needs to be fixed or it risks deletion. Bearian ( talk) 23:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Hi everyone,
I've discovered a number of Fringe etymologies at the page Slavicism (see [11], [12], and this talk page thread and I was hoping anyone who knows more about Slavic etymologies could help pick out some more (I'm limited to my knowledge of Germanic). Thanks!-- Ermenrich ( talk) 19:36, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Additional input by editors more familiar with the topic is requested here: Talk:The Language Instinct#Reception, rejection. Crossroads -talk- 21:43, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
What would you suggest be the best reliable resources to take into consideration when editing articles? Besides mainstream websites such as google. Reinhearted ( talk) 14:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi all, the Linguistic Society of America's annual meeting is coming up and---as is becoming the norm---there will be a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in conjunction. This year, it looks to be 11 January 2021, from 20:00 UTC to 23:00 UTC (noon to 3 pacific). I wanted to make you all aware for a few reasons, a big one being that we'd like you to join us in building the encyclopedia. If you can't commit the whole time, there are lots of ways you can still be involved and helpful. After edit-a-thons, many people never come back especially since most ling articles are lonely places. If you see new faces on your watchlist, meatball:WelcomeNewcomers by leaving a message on their user talk or thanking them with the thanks button. If you can, lead by example and try to fix the newbie errors instead of reverting. If you need to revert, try to leave them a message or ping them to the article talk page. I'll be on the zoom call to wrangle them, so if you're really having problems during the event get in touch. Suggestions on what articles could use expert attention or that you've been wanting a collaborator on are also incredibly appreciated and you can feel free to let me know and I'll compile them as a handout for participants. Thanks everyone and hopefully we get some new editors and new content! WugapodesOutreach ( talk) 02:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
We have a long-running minority practice of color-coding phonology tables to indicate things like dialectal variation (e.g. Hmong language#Phonology) or phonotactic limitations (e.g. Selkup language#Phonology). This in principle risks problems in accessibility or printability, though; see MOS:COLORCODING. Should we consider having particular recommendations on how to use contrast in tables, for starters e.g. table cell color vs. text color (and perhaps specific color guidelines)? I know I've also seen bolding-for-emphasis and italics-for-emphasis which could be debatable as well.
This comment inspired by running into Dargwa language#Phonology whose hot pink and gold text on normal light gray seems pretty straining to read even as a person with unimpaired color vision (formerly also more copiously in running text which I've fixed already); I also recall Abkhaz language#Phonology having darkish blue and darkish green which are not the easiest to tell apart immediately. ( Abkhaz phonology remedies this by adding asterisks / daggers, though.) -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 14:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
color is not the only method used to convey important information. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 06:40, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
An IP editor has recently made dozens of credible but unsourced non-English IPA changes. Please could an expert check them? If you have the CIDR gadget enabled then the edits can be seen here, otherwise there is a Latin sample here. Thanks, Certes ( talk) 12:52, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
"If you wish to participate in WikiProject Etymology, please add your name to the list below and introduce yourself on the project talk page". So hi? I'm LocalPunk :) happy to be here, I have a special interest in etymology LocalPunk ( talk) 22:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest that the article on Auditory phonetics be removed from the list of topics needing attention, as it has been considerably expanded from the single sentence mentioned. RoachPeter ( talk) 09:21, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Please see: Talk:Irrealis mood#Contemplative is missing? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Surely the criticism of the Phonetics article is no longer valid? RoachPeter ( talk) 10:02, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Members of this WikiProject may want to visit the page at https://xkcd.com/2421/ Eastmain ( talk • contribs) 04:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
Any knowledgeable folks here? I've found this paper, which calls for a re-evaluation of the evidence, as many alleged cognates between Eskimo and Aleut are highly dubious and likely the result of relatively recent language contact and borrowing. My understanding as an outsider is that while Proto-Eskimo is relatively well understood and there are decent reconstructions, Proto-Aleut is much less so, and while their relationship is not in doubt, it is distant and a good reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut is still sorely lacking. Weeding out borrowings and other false cognates between the two primary branches is vital for the progress of the reconstruction, but it also thins out the evidence, which doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly plentiful anyway, so the paper brings bad news in this sense. I wonder what the effect on PEA reconstruction really factually is, and how large the amount of remaining evidence, and reconstructible material. Also, should the paper be mentioned in Proto-Eskimo-Aleut language or other articles? Is there recent literature on Eskimo-Aleut in the form of long-form studies, monographs, textbooks? -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 16:05, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Please state your opinion in Talk:surname#Technonym. Lembit Staan ( talk) 17:54, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Hello all! I’ve just created a redlist for women in linguistics as part of WikiProject Women in Red. Would like to encourage people to jump in, edit, and create articles. Muspilli ( talk) 11:03, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Hi all, Josef Fruehwald uploaded File:Philadelphia Short-A Flow Chart.svg for use in Philadelphia English, but it needs some clean-up before it can be added. If anyone has the time and skills to work with SVG flow charts, feel free to lend a hand. — Wug· a·po·des 22:03, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi, so I'm feeling free to make a suggestion here. In the process of editing
Voiced_dental,_alveolar_and_postalveolar_lateral_approximants I've discovered that references to individual languages are given either at the left after the language name, or at the right in the notes, seemingly without rhyme or reason. It is obvious to me that they should be consistently subjoined to individual statements in the notes, and that they're both difficult to detect and out of place next to language names fight me Let this be a policy proposal if anybody wants to take this up because I'm not active very on the website - too big and scary for me. Tho I can go ahead and convert that page if y'all agree.
Brutal Russian (
talk) 19:49, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Gibberish | foo | [fʉu̯] | 'bar' | 1 |
An editor has contested a recent addition of a note about brackets and delimiters in {{ Infobox language}}. Input will be appreciated at Template talk:IPA notice#Brackets. Nardog ( talk) 09:52, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Hello, |
Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC?, for a proposal relating to optional characters/marks for indicating vocal stress, used in some foreign languages, include "ruby" characters for Japanese and Korean, and znaki udareniya marks in Ukrainian and Russian. The short version is that, based on a rule already long found in MOS:JAPAN and consonant with WP:NOTDICT policy, MoS would instruct (in MOS:FOREIGN) not to use these marks (primarily intended for pedagogical purposes) except in unusual circumstances, like direct quotation, or discussion of the marks themselves. Target date for implementation is April 21. PS: This does not relate to Vietnamese tone marks. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:41, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Rhotacism (speech impediment) needs to be looked at. An IP user 129.206.196.103 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) recently added multiple tags to this article, including one claiming that the title is inaccurate. They also made this edit, which removed unreliably sourced material and OR but was justified as ableism. In August 2019, I tagged this article for lack of medical citations and OR, and the claim of inaccuracy is backed up by the talk page, where the most recent commentor, @ Danbirchall, claimed that the term speech impediment is outdated. From the other comments, I suspect that the article has a major NPOV violation where the subject is unduly presented as a speech impediment. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 23:52, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Dear linguists and interested people, I have a question about the linguistic classification of the term " Nintendo". Can this company name be classified as a neologism of the 1980s when used instead of the term "video game" or " video game console"? Usage examples: "to play Nintendo", "I'm taking the Nintendo with me on vacation." – Gebu ( talk) 20:19, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Not really linguistics-related, but since this project's banner was on the talk page, there's an editorial dispute between myself and another editor which could use more views. Opencooper ( talk) 15:48, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Please see
Help talk:Pronunciation respelling key#Replace "moral" example.
There's a dispute (with too few participants) about what example(s) to provide and whether the current one is adequate for or confusing for most editors. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 22:13, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
WT:LINGUISTICS seems as a good a place as any for notices about English-language slang coverage. Please see: Talk:BBC (disambiguation)#BBC as a porn/sexual term – apparently the entry to for the sexual term keeps getting censored off the disambiguation page, despite there being an ideal article section to point to. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:25, 14 April 2021 (UTC)