User talk:Austronesier

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Austronesian Languages

Regarding your message on my page about Austronesian languages,

Hi, I'm not too sure about the etiquette regarding this kind of thing, but how it was before seemed messy and almost misleading to me, as if the majority of Austronesian languages is composed of Taiwanese languages. all the previous sub-denominations are on the formosian page, so it seemed like an easier way of organising it. I put a question regarding this kind of thing here (I wasn't sure where to put it) thinking that maybe a drop-down menu or bullet point list under category "formosan" could be implemented, though I have no idea how to create such a function. Thanks for contacting me and sorry If I had done something wrong, I just thought this seemed easier to understand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ihaasa (talk • contribs) 14:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

@Ihaasa: You certainly have a point that one should add structured info about the "uneven" geographical distribution of the primary branches. But I disagree with replacing the Formosan branches with a mere geopraphical grouping. After all, there is overall agreement among most Austronesianists that Taiwan is home to several primary branches of Austronesian which are coordinate to Malayo-Polynesian, even though there are different opinions about the details. Although there is no explicit policy on this, I think the infobox should list these primary branches as they are, regardless of any "imbalanced" geographical distribution. Nothing misleading here (IMHO), and having 10 primary branches in the infobox is far from being messy (Sino-Tibetanists have a bigger problem here!), but just giving due weight to the facts (read: the facts about the current state of research). So for these reasons, I will revert to the previous version. Probably you can come up with a solution using the "|children=" parameter to give some extra information. –Austronesier (talk) 17:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Glottolog

Hi, I just want to ask whether or not you know how to refer to a specific edition of Glottolog (like, the 3.4 one instead of 3.0). Because in the newest edition, Glottolog follows Smith (2017) for the classification of Land Dayak languages. Or should I just remove the earlier Glottolog classification from the article? Wait, my bad, Glottolog only merged Banyadu to Bekati but changed nothing else. Masjawad99^💬 22:54, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Lampung language

Hi Austronesier, do you know if there is any way to denote intonation contour in sentence glosses? The one source I use for the Lampung language article has something like this but I am not sure if that can be done in Wikipedia. Should I just ignore those marks? Or is there any other way to denote that? I am not that familiar with symbols used to mark intonation etc. Masjawad99^💬 23:11, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Masjawad99: I haven't come across intonation contour lines yet in Wikipedia. The article Intonation (linguistics) only has the rising and falling arrows. So you would have to covert the information in the paper for the WP article. To do so faithfully, there should be a one-to-one correspondence between the two transcription systems. Or maybe Uanfala has an idea about the contour lines? –Austronesier (talk) 00:29, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't know of a nice way to do that. I can think of the following, rather inelegant solution:

 ________┌──   ──┐__
 Lamban hudi → balak ↓
 house  that   large
 'That house is large.

This takes advantage of the fact that in wikicode a line beginning with a space will be displayed in a fixed-width font, so you can align words by adding the necessary number of spaces between them, and you can build the intonation contour using symbol characters like _┌ ─ ┐ ⸜ ⸝ (most of them taken from here or here). It might be worth asking at the village pump though, in case someone there could come up with a better way to do that. – Uanfala (talk) 14:37, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Kinaray-a ethnonym

Hi Austronesier,

Would a citation of historical texts where karay-a was derived from the Kinaray-a word iraya suffice to keep my edit? They used to be predominantly upland Visayans, and have long been distinguished from their lowland counterparts (cf. Hiligaynon) whose ethnonym is from ilig meaning downstream. Spanish texts have called the lowlanders speaking Hiligaynon as yliguenes/hiligueina, while the Kinaray-a as haraya.

References

Pansitkanton (talk) 13:54, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Pansitkanton: Sure, anything from a reliable external source would be welcome, even if it is based on non-specialist folk etymology. Personally, I would stil contest the etyomolgy "karay‑a" < *daya because of the additional glottal stop. [-Cʔ-]-clusters are very stable in all Visayan lects and therefore the glottal stop should also show up in "irayá/ilayá". But again, if you have a good source, I won't meddle with the edit, because I don't do OR on WP. As for de Mentrida, on which page does he relate "Haraya" to "Iraya"? –Austronesier (talk) 14:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Papuan language sources

Hello Austronesier, I have a question regarding some sources that I have used for a few Papuan languages. The web page https://pnglanguages.sil.org/resources offers a large index, with a wide selection of publications of the numerous languages of Papua New Guinea. The source can be viewed here: https://pnglanguages.sil.org/resources/browse/language. Many of these publications provide the phonological data, they are entitled as “Organised Phonology Data“ by SIL. Now are these sources from the site reliable sources that give a good explanation of the phonology of these languages? I would like to know your feedback and information. Thank you. Fdom5997 (talk) 19:28, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Fdom5997: I am not fully familiar with the internal review process of SIL for these data sources, but I would consider them reliable sources.

Btw, /j/ appears in the Kol table in the velar column. A certain economy is fine, but in this case I would simply follow the source, even if it results in a single entry column. –Austronesier (talk) 10:18, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Malayo-Polynesian

Hi Austronesier,

Recently I am thinking of updating this map:

• 

The current map obviously has many issues and should be replaced. However, I am not sure as to how. I think we should at least distinguish the boundaries of South Sulawesi, Celebic, and Northwest Sumatra-Barrier Islands subgroups. As for the rest of the lower level subgroups (including those in "Bornean" grouping), we can either display them individually (which will make it very messy) or perhaps create two versions to accommodate both Malayo-Sumbawan (version 1) and Greater North Borneo/Western Indonesian (version 2a & 2b) proposals.

Version 1

• Philippine
• Chamorro*
• Palauan
• Malayo-Sumbawan
• Javanese
• Moken-Moklen
• North Bornean
• Kayanic*
• Land Dayak
• Barito
• Lampung
• Rejang*
• Northwest Sumatra-Barrier Islands
• Celebic
• South Sulawesi
• Central-Eastern MP:
  • Central MP
  • Eastern MP
    • SHWNG
    • Oceanic

Version 2a

• Philippine
• Chamorro*
• Palauan
• Moklenic
• Western Indonesian:
  • Greater North Borneo
  • Greater Barito
  • Javanese
  • Lampung
  • Madurese
• Sumatran
• Celebic
• South Sulawesi
• Central-Eastern MP:
  • Central MP
  • Eastern MP
    • SHWNG
    • Oceanic

Version 2b

• Philippine
• Chamorro*
• Palauan
• Moklenic
• Western Indonesian
• Sumatran
• Celebic
• South Sulawesi
• Central-Eastern MP:
  • Central MP
  • Eastern MP
    • SHWNG
    • Oceanic

* may not appear as they are either too small or out of map boundaries

What do you think?

Another thing: regarding "Bornean" languages, I am not sure whether it merits its own article, even as a "geographic" group, since I am not aware of any scholar who groups them together (Alfred Hudson (1978) does refer to something that he calls "Endo-Bornean", but it is in no way a cohesive group). Perhaps "Languages of Borneo" fits more, but then it would be pointless since we already have Languages of Indonesia (plus Languages of Kalimantan) and Languages of Malaysia covering the topic. I am thinking of repurposing the article for the Greater North Borneo proposal. Or should I just create a new one from scratch?

Masjawad99^💬 07:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Masjawad99!

• Yes, the map is definitely outdated. The two-maps approach is a good solution, since Malayo-Sumbawan and GNB/WI are irreconcilable at the current stage of research. Maybe Malayic should be shaded in both maps (respectively with the same colour as GNB and Malayo-Sumbawan), since it is geographically and numerically the most important "microgroup". Btw, Hammarström has found a "solution" in the shape of a lame compromise in the Glottolog, where he creates a "North Borneo Malayo-Polynesian" subgroup claiming Smith's thesis as source, but achieves this essentially by doing cherry picking so as not to withdraw from the acceptance of Adelaar's Malayo-Sumbawan.

I agree that a conservative map won't do either, since it will pretty much look like a map of Germany in 1700. The only other alternative would be a Blust-ian map with a single WMP slice and an appropriate legend, but this would be potentially misleading.

• The concept of Bornean languages is clearly obsolete, and only existed in Merrit Ruhlen's Guide to the World's Languages (1987). It survived in WP because it was part of a problematic subgrouping scheme that overemphasized NMP – which btw made me rather annoyed than flattered ;-) – and included some clear OR (I am not sure if you are aware of this discussion). I think, the best way to rescue this article is to re-purpose it as you suggest and move it to "Greater North Borneo languages".

As for Languages of Kalimantan, this is actually a blatant piece of plagiarism from the Ethnologue that goes way beyond fair use. IMO, it should be moved to "Languages of Borneo", which should give a short overwiew of the languages of the whole island, with or without map, and with pointers to the relevant main articles. The section "Austroasiatic substratum" in "Bornean languages" can be moved here, but we should give credit to Adelaar as the real author of the idea, rather than to Roger "Jack of all trades" Blench, who is clearly overcited in so many articles about SEA languages (probably because his stuff is mostly open-access).

We should go to the talk pages of Bornean languages and Languages of Kalimantan first, since this involves major restructuring and potentially a massive cleanup of links because of the redirects. –Austronesier (talk) 10:58, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: So, I have tried to draw the basic version here. Surprisingly it is still pretty visible, although it'll need a lot of colors. The Malayo-Sumbawan one will combine the Malayic+Chamic, Sundanese, Madurese, and BSS in the map, while the GNB one will combine Malayic+Chamic, North Bornean, Land Dayak, Rejang, and Sundanese. Btw, I just realized this, but should I draw Melanau-Kajang boundaries in the Malayo-Sumbawan map as well (ofc it would be combined into GNB in the other version)?

As for Languages of Kalimantan, it seems like the creator wanted to make it more of a list article, although the texts are indeed copy pasted wholly from Ethnologue. If we want to repurpose it as Languages of Borneo, though, I think some of the content (at least the language names and number of speakers) should be moved to something like List of languages of Indonesia. But maybe we can think of it later. My plan is to expand the Languages of Indonesia article first, and then develop the list article from the redirect page. Masjawad99^💬 01:48, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

@Masjawad99: With the larger number of subgroups, the broken borders look somewhat strange. I don't know of an alternative yet; maybe black borders with full colored shading of the areas (on land only)?

Agree with the second part. Btw, I will initiate a discussion about nomenclature of Indonesian ethnic names, because we need a consensus about things like "Toba Batak" vs. "Batak Toba", "Ngaju Dayak" vs. "Dayak Ngaju". There is a tendency to replace the established and syntactically correct English forms with the Indonesian ones. Another point is the inflational use of "-nese" (Bataknese etc.), which makes me cringe, but I don't want to guided by my personal aversions. More on that later, I will ping you for the discussion. –Austronesier (talk) 08:33, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Btw, I just realized that the discussion on AA substratum covers languages that are part of GNB anyway. I think we can retain it. Also, I am not sure which Blust (2010) is referred to in the Melanau-Kajang article. My suspicion is that this scheme was taken from somewhere else (not even Ethnologue uses this classification). And one more: Blust (2010) GNB article only mentions Melanau and Kajang casually when discussing about North Sarawak. Should I just list them as separate branches within GNB (in the earlier Blust's version)? My understanding is that Blust assumed that all languages of Borneo other than Greater Barito languages are part of GNB, but he doesn't make a clear-cut internal division other than outlining North Borneo and including well-established subgroups like Malayic and Land Dayak. Masjawad99^💬 13:36, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

@Masjawad99: Melanau-Kajang is from an older version of the Ethnologue. It's quite interesting to see how much progress has been made in the last 15 yrs, if you look at the whole classification scheme (don't wonder about the messed tabs when you click on individual subgroups). For the synopsis of Blust (2010), I'd suggest you add an "unclassified" branch, which lists Melanau and Kajang separately. It's actually quite hard to extract a comprehensive classification scheme from that article. –Austronesier (talk) 15:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Hm, the internal classification of Melanau-Kajang in that older version of Ethnologue doesn't differ much from the current one. In contrast, the article includes a separate "Outer Central Sarawak" branch which doesn't appear in Ethnologue. That's why I asked whence the scheme came. Masjawad99^💬 22:13, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

@Masjawad99: I have seen you have already done a lot with GNB since our last discussion. I will also have a look at the whole complex of related articles. At the moment I have little time for productive work on WP, except for short discussions and patrolling my watchlist. Btw, I have seen the Ponosakan article. Good job! –Austronesier (talk) 09:17, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Sorry for another ping, but I just want to say that I will start a discussion on the restructurization of MP languages articles in the Indonesian Wikipedia. Take a look at the draft here; I will perhaps put it in the talk page of id:Rumpun bahasa Melayu-Polinesia Inti and ping everyone who might be interested. Masjawad99^💬 01:52, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

@Masjawad99: That's fine, I haven't been aware to which extent NMP is present in the Indonesian WP. Not as much as in the English WP (before my cleanup), it seems? I just checked at random id:Bahasa Tolaki which was created in 2010 with a "flawless" classification.

Btw, can you have a look at this discussion (so far it'a monologue): Talk:Austronesian languages#Inflated "Comparison charts"? I want to add a concise and representative table, and need a consensus in case it will be flooded by additions from users who feel hurt because their language was neglected. –Austronesier (talk)

Problem with the gene flow between the Ainu and “lowland East Asian farmer populations” (represented in the study by the Ami and Atayal in Taiwan.

Look at this genetic chart which is from the same study that you used as a reference. It is a autosomal DNA study

https://www.genetics.org/content/genetics/202/1/261/F2.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1

You can clearly see Ainu are 100% colored in gray showing they have their own independent genetic. The Japanese would seem to have around 15% (or 10-19% ) of it but you can clearly see the Ami, Atayal, Lahu, Dai have none of that admixture.

My problem is the misinterpretation saying there is gene flow on those populations like they have intermixed with Ainu when you can clearly see there is none at all. –DerekHistorian (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:25, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

@DerekHistorian: What about the passages which I recommended to read first in my last edit summary? I simply rephrase what the authors say in their article. The verbatims are:

"Surprisingly, we also find extra genetic affinity between the Ainu and lowland farmer populations in comparison to the Sherpa (Figure S14 and Table S5), indicating gene flow between these two groups of populations" (p.269, left column)

"Even though we find strong evidence of gene flow between the Ainu and lowland East Asian farmers, it is hard to establish whether migrations were mainly unidirectional and, if so, which direction was predominant. One possibility is that Ainurelated populations, probably hunter–gatherers, once occupied mainland East Asia preceding the expansion of farmers and that they contributed to the gene pool of the latter" (p.269, right column)

"The Ainu are more closely related to lowland East Asian farmer populations (Ami, Atayal, Dai and Lahu) than to the Sherpa or to Tibetans, suggesting gene flow between the two groups after lowland East Asians split from the high-altitude East Asians." (legend to Table S5)

You shouldn't be fixated on the ADMIXTURE K=8 diagram alone, especially since the authors also rely on other other methods to find gene flow events that occurred after the primary splits. They explain it on pp.266-267 in the section headed "The Ainu share more ancestry with low-altitude than with high-altitude East Asians".

Btw I would advise to take this discussion to the Talk page of the article itself, so other interested editors can contribute as well. Is it ok if I copy our main arguments to Talk:Ainu people, before proceeding? –Austronesier (talk) 15:55, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Palaeo-Sardinian

Hi @Austronesier:, it appears there's an edit war going on on the Paleo-Sardinian language page involving an unregistered user who appears hell bent on adding hypothetical language family affiliations to info-boxes, I've reverted their edit for now and your justifications sound fair to me (fringe theories about possible language family placement do not belong in the info box), however thought you should be made aware of the edit note left by 5.144.214.159

Reverted edits by "Austronesier". "Austronesier guy do not come to Europe, stay in Oceania with the other Austronesians".

Hedge89 (talk) 14:50, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Hedge89: Thanks for handling the revert and for your sensible edit summary. This is still below the report level I guess. In fact, I have reverted two more edits by the same IP editor, for similar reasons. Generally, WP is a microcosm that is overall way more civil that the rest of the web. For the small fraction of exceptions, I stick to WP:DFTT, and keep calm and bone dry. Again, thanks, much apreciated!– Austronesier (talk) 15:31, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Fair enough, I presumed you'd see the edit anyway but I thought it polite to make sure you're aware. As it stands, I agree you're right, should just ignore it for now. Meant to add, looking through the edit history for that IP and for other IPs that were making the same edits on that page before, I rather think it's one person who's IP keeps changing. I'll have a read through WP:DFTT now actually as it looks useful, thanks. - Hedge89 (talk) 10:23, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Hedge89: Judging from earlier edits from the same IP range, that editor's interest has a considerable overlap with my watchlist. In spite of this agreement, we apparently disagree on such fundamentals such as WP:reliable sources and WP:Due and undue weight, which almost inevitably ends in a revert, due to consistently low quality standards from their side. A wise editor once said: "The joy in editing wikipedia is inversely correlated with the size of your watchlist." So, what I make myself see is what I get. ;-) –Austronesier (talk) 15:26, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

spelling ?

there have been incessant discussions about spelling conventions at the WikiProject Indonesia noticeboard - and in many cases it appears to be exactly that - personal preferences, and done with no knowledge of attempts at standardising... sigh JarrahTree 12:55, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi JarrahTree! Thanks for dropping by. I have noticed that the article Indonesian language still contains some spelling inconsistencies, so it actually needs to be cleaned up. Is there any consensus about BE and AE spelling for Indonesia-related articles? Or just a consensus about having no consensus, as so often in WP? I personally write using AE spelling, but happily adjust if required, or already set out by the existing spelling in an article.

And by the way, I would to have your opinion about this matter: Talk:Ethnic groups in Indonesia#Terminology. – Austronesier (talk) 13:22, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

There are some systematic issues regarding the application of BE, and although a recent addition of a large number of AE added to the oz project, remained unchallenged by the main implementers of BE into the oz domain, the 'in' field has not had established standards, since I have been involved (circa 2007). Your request for my opinion, I am, for my whatever, a very large edit idiot when it comes to slowing down and comprehending the issues of such a discussion, my fieldwork in Java and my earlier hons degree was very yk and sk focused if you get my acronyms, and I frequently before fieldwork and after would have dabbled into the material available at that time in regards to the new order 'framing' of the world, and have really not made the effort to look at the 'frameworks' of understanding ethnicity in the current environment despite a short visit in country within the last 2 years. I could bore you silly with my opinionated understandings of the issues - for the 10 years of so of being involved in academic ways of looking at, and the subsequent 10 years + of this damned infernal goldfish bowl. Give me some time, real life jumps in at times making a considered response haphazard at worst. JarrahTree 13:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Also specifically locating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ethnic_groups_in_Indonesia#Terminology - may be one thing, but then also the noticeboard needs something as well... JarrahTree 13:40, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: Actually, it is just about names for ethnic groups in English, not about controversies about sub-categorizations and stuff, so nothing really deep in spite of my lengthy introduction. And note you're talking to a real dummy...please show me the way to the next noticeboard ♫. You mean the project's Talk page, right? – Austronesier (talk) 13:58, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

nah, I self identified in Yogya as a 'londo', and most of my Javanese friends were horrified that I dare self identify in such a manner, I am sure the dummy is my claim ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indonesia - is the noticeboard...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ethnic_groups_in_Indonesia - my reply is somewhat close to the original points, the problem with english wikipedia, is that many south east asian editors find english wikipedia a place to either assert their national or ethnic pride (sigh) and this manifests in scripts, and terms that the average english speaker has no idea what is going on... Then there is the huge array of editors who find practising their english in wikipedia is that they bring rather astonishing notions of what wikipedia is about by creating articles like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_national_football_team - which used to leave me nothing short of flabbergasted until I checked that other countries do such a thing as well, so clearly out of the range of what WP:ABOUT is trying to grapple with in WP:NOT. I think it is all linked myself... JarrahTree 14:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

mohon maaf, and kalau saya kurang sopan - about this, my apologies - I could be taken for an outsider with a skewed view, I hope not JarrahTree 14:42, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: No, no, all is cool, and being an outsider (= non-Indonesian Eurasian, to give a bit away about myself) with a skewed view is my claim ;)

And thanks for bringing the discussion to the project Talk page! Basically, it is all about WP:ENG when not knowing for sure what the ENG-part is. When 42k Dayak girls add #dayaknese hashtags to their Instagram posts (just checked for it), will that turn it into common and accepted English usage? I have a young oz colleague in linguistics who has blended in so well with the "-nese" fad that he has adopted the term "Torajanese" which still makes me cringe. As for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_national_football_team, having grown up in Europe, it doesn't really come as a surprise to me, notability-wise (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu%C3%9Fball-Bundesliga). – Austronesier (talk) 15:17, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Ethnolinguistic group

Hello Austronesier. I think the article needs expansion. Adding a list of contemporary ethnolinguistic groups would be an improvement. I have been searching sources on the topic but there isn't enough info on the net - the definitions are quite vague. Could you link me if you have or find a good one? Cheers. Puduḫepa 13:13, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: Greetings to the Hittite royal highness! I am a bit unsure about your question, since ethnolinguistic groups are more or less the default case of ethnic groups. Before proceeding, do you mean ethnic groups which are distinct from other groups solely (or mainly) because of having a distinct language, similar to the case of ethnoreligious groups? –Austronesier (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Greetings Austronesier:) See the old discussion here. A clear definition of ethnolinguistic group would help to resolve similar content disputes re: ethnolinguistic group vs. ethnic group. Puduḫepa 16:56, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Oh yes, now I get it, I forgot how far the definition of ethnolinguistic group gets stretched. Look at the pains kwami and I had in Talk:Indigenous people of New Guinea with an editor who couldn't understand the difference between genetic/linguistic relations and the basic definition of ethnicity. I only accept the proper definition of "ethnolinguistic group", so any attempts to define macro-ethnicities solely based on linguistic relationship are pseudoscience, and unfortunately quite rampant, even in WP. Ethnolinguistic groups in the scientific meaning of the term are ethnic groups, albeit just a subset of the latter. Albanians, Croats, and East Frisians all are ethnic groups; Albanians are an ethnolinguistic group, Croats (roughly speaking) an ethnoreligious group, whereas East Frisians historically were an ethnolinguistic group, but with the decline of the East Frisian language have become an ethnic group that is solely culturally distinct (a fate shared e.g. by the Manchus). I can try to add some clarifying examples and counter-examples to the article "Ethnolinguistic group" to unroot some common misconceptions. For the former, the sources in the article are already perfect, but for the latter, I will try to find a good source which specifically deals with the topic of "abusing" linguistic findings. –Austronesier (talk) 17:57, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

If I am not mistaken, "ethnolinguistic group" is broader (e.g. Slavic, Turkic, Iranic,...) while "ethnic group" is more specific (e.g. Russian, Turkish, Persian, etc.) Puduḫepa 18:22, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

An ethnolinguistic group is defined by common ethnicity and language, so Russians, Turks (in the narrow sense), Persians are ethnolinguistic groups, whereas the Slavic-speaking peoples, Turkic-speaking peoples, and Iranic-speaking peoples are not. Slavic peoples and Turkic peoples will be acceptable for some scholars as ethnolinguistic macro-groups, since the ethnolinguistic diversification happened quite recently in historical times. But the article Turkic peoples has the correct definition (emphasis added): The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethno-linguistic groups.... So again, the broader usage of "ethnolinguistic group" in the singular to comprise people from several distinct ethnic groups which happen to speak mutually related languages is simply incorrect. – Austronesier (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

It seems that the word comes from ethnology + linguistics (see ethnolinguistics). "Macro-ethnolinguistic group" makes sense. Pointing out the difference between "ethnolinguistic group" and "macro-ethnolinguistic group" in the article would reduce the confusion. Because we need a proper term defining the groups like Slavic people. X-speaking would be an insufficient definition in my opinion, as there are also other stuffs relating these people besides the common language group. Puduḫepa 19:06, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

By the way, have a look at articles like Germanic peoples, Iranian peoples, etc. "Ethnolinguistic group" is widely used in WP. Puduḫepa 19:53, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's all that clear cut, but the problem is the blurring borders get stretched to the point of abuse. There are Pan-Slavic, Pan-German, Pan-Arab etc. conceptions which are ethnic, and the sense of common ethnic identity depends on language (also history in the case of the Arab). What of the Chinese, who are an ethnic group that claims to speak a "language", even though they speak hundreds of different languages? Are there set terms for such cases?

Also, I wouldn't call the Croats an ethnolinguistic group. They don't have a distinct language, but are defined by history and religion. — kwami (talk) 19:59, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: Maximal reduction of confusion will be achieved if people would stick to the proper definition of "ethnolinguistic group", without trying to strech it to macro-groupings like Slavic peoples (plural!). "X-speaking..." is fine, and there is no need to invent terminology (like "macro-ethnolinguistic group"), or use an existing term improperly, which I have found does happen in several articles here. The definition in the article Ethnolinguistic group should not be altered just because of rampant improper usage of the term, maximally we could point out by examples and counter-examples what an ethnolinguistic group is, and what it is not.

The whole concept floating around in WP of lumping together people based on linguistic families does not really reflect modern scholarship. This kind of thing was popular in the 19th and to a lesser degree in the 20th century. But it needs more than linguistic affiition to turn these collections of ethnic groups into proper ethnological entities. – Austronesier (talk) 20:18, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Due to the language barrier/my poor English, I have difficulty in expressing my arguments well. Anyway, thanks for the friendly conversation. Happy editing. Puduḫepa 20:44, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: You have presented your arguments well enough, don't worry. It is just that I can be very uncompromising when it comes to terminological rigidity. I apologize if this may appear stubborn. Anyway, thanks for dropping by and happy editing too! –Austronesier (talk) 21:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi @kwami: Good you wouldn't call the Croats an ethnolinguistic group, because I haven't either (I said ethnoreligious group). And while most "ethnic groups" are "ethnolinguistic groups" at the same time, there are counterexamples of ethnic groups that are not ethnolinguistic groups: Chinese are a single ethnic group that speaks many related languages, because historically they have diversified linguistically, but not culturally (at least not in the same degree). On the other hand, there are ethnic groups which have given up their language, but maintained the cultural identity. But my main point is which I am sure you'll agree with: by definition, there cannot be an ethnolinguistic group which comprises several ethnic groups. "ethnolinguistic" is a Boolean AND of "ethnicity" and "language".

I know it is not a simple as this when it comes to sub-ethnicities of an ethnolinguistic group, but certainly applies when you go higher up in the linguistic "taxonomic" tree. Pan-Slavic, Pan-German are ideological constructs, while Pan-Arab is real because of historical continuity of using the fuṣḥa next to the increasingly diversified vernaculars which resulted in diglossia. –Austronesier (talk) 20:39, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Ah, yeah, I didn't notice you wrote 'religious' rather than 'linguistic'.

If you accept the Arabs because of diglossia, wouldn't you have to accept the Chinese? In many Sinitic languages, there is parallel vocabulary derived from standard readings of characters. Even for those who aren't literate or bilingual (as many Arabs aren't, or at least weren't until recently), that strongly affects the languages. Certainly Finno-Ugric ethnic identity is a modern invention, but what about German or Italian? They aren't all that much closer to speaking a single language than the Slavs or Turks. — kwami (talk) 21:11, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@kwami: These are the fuzzy borders where emic and etic distinctions don't overlap. German and Italian are quite special cases in Europe, because in these areas linguistic diversification could thrive due to political circumstances, while people maintained an awareness of common ethnicity and cultural heritage similar as in the case of Arabs and Chinese. In Germany, Luther's Bible translation played an important role (at least in the Protestant parts), while in Italy, Tuscan Renaissance poetry had an impact on literary forms of vernaculars. But in Swadesh counts of the spoken lects, figures can drop way below 80%, and lack of mutual intelligibility has given rise to tons of "dialect" jokes. But I would still say that diversity of High German lects does not match Slavic diversity. High German lects form an unbroken L-complex, whereas within Slavic, there are many clear-cut borders.

But then, these are all about the bottom end of taxonomy, where borders between dialects and languages, and between languages and closely-knit language families can indeed be fuzzy and sometimes even arbitrary and simply a matter of convention. All of these can comprise ethnolinguistic identities. But for Germanic languages, Semitic languages etc. the ethnic concept simply fails. The Germanic-speaking tribes may have been close to an ethnolinguistic group at the time of Tacitus, but the fallacy that many fall for is to project historical unity to the present. Just as you said on a different occasion about "Austronesian people"; the term makes sense when you talk about the prehistoric speakers of post-PAN lects migrating from Taiwan to SE Asia. But today, you can maximally talk about "Austronesian-speaking peoples". –Austronesier (talk) 21:53, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Still reading your TP...Based on this point of view, one can dispute the term "ethnic group" as well, i.e. "Germans" vs. "German-speaking people". That point of view undermines many terms that are still in use. Puduḫepa 22:34, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: Why, don't confuse German and Germanic. Germans are an ethnolinguistic group, just like Cherokee, Hausa and Khmer. German lects form an L-complex with a common literary standard, and German people precieve themselves and are percieved by their neighbors as an ethnic group, and not just based on language. On the other hand, Germanic languages are distinct, and their speakers belong to different ethnic groups. This by definition precludes talking about Germanic-apeaking peoples as an ethnolinguistic group. – Austronesier (talk) 22:57, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I am not confusing German with Germanic. What I am trying to point out that the arguments above could be applied to Germanic people as well (e.g. Swedes are perceived as a "Germanic" subgroup by their neighbors and by themselves). Also, if we dig up "Germans", we can conclude that they are also conglomeration of different ethnic groups. I think Slavic people, Germanic people, Iranic people, Finnic people,...are not incorrect terms. It is not only about the language, but also common culture (see Slavic mythology, Germanic mythology, etc.), common history, and to some degree, common ancestry. Puduḫepa 23:20, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

You are pointing out that that some of the arguments above could be applied to Germanic people as well, but you are missing two crucial points: Germanic peoples speak several distinct languages and each have distinct ethnic identities, whereas an ethnolinguistic group is defined by speaking one language and having a single ethnic identity. You are correct to note that e.g. Germanic peoples beyond their common linguistic ancestry also share cultural traits etc., but even then the term "ethnololinguistic group" does not apply here. It is a group/collection of ethnololinguistic groups at best. As for the Germans, Germanic Franks, Saxons, but also Slavic Wends converged into a single ethnic identity in the course of the first half of the second millenium. – Austronesier (talk) 23:58, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, they don't have to speak one language (see ethnic group). As for having distinct ethnic identities, yes, but many, if not all, have upper identities, like Slav, Finnic, etc. Russians and Serbs have two distinct ethnic identities but they also perceive themselves as Slavs. Puduḫepa 00:17, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, there is a Pan-Slavic identity. That's part of what I was getting to above. But there are relatively few such cases. Most of these supposed pan-identities are based on linguistic theories. But what happens when the linguists discover that they got it wrong? Do people's ethnicities magically change? What if here were a resurrection of a Pan-Romance identity? What would it take for us to decide that 'French' and 'Spaniard' were just part of a larger nation? And would Mexicans and Cubans be included because they speak Spanish? Ethnicity is primarily about identity. Language can play a big part in that, but you need to be able to show that the ethnic identity exists without having to rely on linguistic classification.

If you can show that there's a Slavic nation, and don't need to rely on linguistics to do so, that's one thing. But just taking a branch out of someone's language classification and saying "we'll call these people the X" is not ethnology. It's not any kind of science, just authors being sloppy because they're lazy or because they're dumbing things down for their audience. — kwami (talk) 00:29, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: I'm confused. Are we still talking about ethnolinguistic groups or rather about ethnic groups? Yes, ethnic groups don't have to speak one language, but ethnolinguistic groups definitely do so by defintion. –Austronesier (talk) 00:38, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

But Puduḫepa, it's not a common culture. I was playing devil's advocate above. There are plenty of borderline cases. But the Germanic peoples aren't a people or a culture. Certainly not in any way that would exclude non-Germanic peoples. I'm not sure how much you can even lump together the Germans and Dutch, but the English and Swedes don't feel a unity with the Germans that would exclude the French or Poles. People reify linguistic groups by projecting them onto ethnicity. That's because there's a relatively objective way to classify languages, but no objective way to classify ethnicity or culture. So for simplicity's sake you substitute language for culture. That works for books, but isn't real. I suppose that if people became conscious enough of language classification, they might invent an ethnic identity out of it, but that would be an exceptional case. In China, being "Chinese" doesn't even correspond to which language family your language belongs to, or at least it didn't before the govt started reclassifying people by language. The Zhuang, for example, spoke Chinese dialects even though they were Tai languages. Or take the She. 90% of She speak a Sinitic language, and 10% speak a Miao language. But there's no connection between the Chinese She and the Miao She except that the govt calls them both "She". During the end decades of the Ottoman Empire, there was all sorts of head-scratching as to what a 'Turk' was. There were Albanian-speaking Turks, Greek-speaking Turks, Bulgarian-speaking Turks, and of course Turkish-speaking Turks. (There are still Greek-speaking Turks, BTW. They call their language 'Roman'.)

To me, reified linguistic, faux-ethnic groups like "Germanic" or "Cushitic" are a bit like Social Darwinism. You take a scientific theory or model and apply it to a different situation where there isn't a good theory or model. But it doesn't work, and the result isn't science. Faux macro-ethnolinguistic groups are pseudoscience. — kwami (talk) 00:03, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Maybe, but what about micro-ethnolinguistic groups? They don't have the same culture either (e.g. culture of Balkan Turks is quite different from the culture of Turks from Gaziantep). They are also conglomeration of different/distinct groups/tribes. By the way, I am very sleepy right now. It is better to discuss this stuff on an another day. Cheers. Puduḫepa 00:39, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

From the Ethnolinguistic group: "An ethnolinguistic group (or ethno-linguistic group) is a group that is unified by both a common ethnicity and language. Most ethnic groups have their own language.[1][2] Despite this, the term is often used to emphasise when language is a major basis for the ethnic group, especially with regards to its neighbours.[1] " Macro groups like Slavic people, Finnic people,...are defined by the language rather than the ethnicity (as you pointed out above, there are multiple distinct ethnicities under the umbrella terms like "Germanic", "Iranic", etc.). The language does not refer to a "single language" here, but probably a language family. This is not the case for more specific groups, e.g. Armenians, as they can't be defined merely by the common language - there are other stuffs relating them to each other (and this is the case for many contemporary ethnic groups). That's why I think the categorizations like Russian (ethnicity) and Slav (ethnolinguistic group) make sense. Puduḫepa 10:34, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

"The language does not refer to a "single language" here, but probably a language family." No. Don't twist a crystal-clear definition just because it suits your wishes and preconceptions. A "common language" is a language, not a language family. Please take a look at the sources in the article, further at this link or here on page 15. In each of these sources language means language, not language family (otherwise it would say so). If you still insist on redefining "ethnolinguistic group", I'd suggest we agree to disagree. –Austronesier (talk) 11:26, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

wawasan

Interesting, I would leave it. I had been through Indonesian history and anthropology studies in the 80s and 90s, and 'Pembangunan' was the national ideology of the new order, and this is simply a re-hash, in current circumstances... It is in itself an important snapshot of attempts at a national ideology/plan. Bit like Brexit, and life by twitter, in other places, the attempts of nations to define themselves was a major struggle for Ben Anderson and others to understand where and how Sukarno and Suharto eras had ideas to try to hold everything together against the odds... Nah, dont let me start, noting that Afd is not the place for such a thing. JarrahTree 09:59, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: Thanks for your input. It gives indeed a very new order-ish impression. Ok, keep, but then probably it would need better sources, and to be rewritten in a more descriptive tone. As it stands now, it rather sounds like a proclamation of an ideology. –Austronesier (talk) 10:41, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

studying about and living in Suharto era Java, most public text was either lists or proclamations, it all fits... JarrahTree 10:44, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Paleo-Sardinian2

Although the theory described by Areddu is certainly interesting, I don't know how Wikipedia handles self-promotion of one's particular opinion, especially if they state them as indisputable facts that would make them fall within a violation of the neutral point of view. Moreover, I am afraid that such theory suffers from quite a few problematic assertions. I am certainly not an expert on population genetics, but research on the matter as well as the work of the dearly departed Blasco Ferrer seem to point to a Pre-Indo-European origin of the Sardinians, especially those from the interior areas that A. Areddu consider instead to have originated in ancient Illyria and, thus, to originally be of Indo-European stock. Unfortunately, we know very little about the linguistic affiliation of Paleo-Sardinian, and most of what we do know is effectively based on archaeolinguistic speculation. For example, some scholars also posited a Berber-related influence on the Sardinians, even, from which they further proceeded to analyze a common North-African and Sardinian substratum of Vulgar Latin. Saludos!--Dk1919 (talk) 10:21, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

@Dk1919 Franking: Thank you for your response. Akerbeltz has come in to handle the case in the meantime, summing it all up perfectly in his reply to Sig. Areddu. Adding one's own research results actually is not an issue as long as the editor sticks to WP:NPOV with all its facets (notability, weight). Unfortunately, most researchers (both amateurs and academics) lack the required modesty ;)

Paleo-Sardinian is indeed a complex topic, and I think we should add a short second paragraph as in the Italian and French articles. Also the work of the late Blasco Ferrer needs a Reception/Criticism section, since his findings were met with mixed result among academics. But yes, a Pre-Indo-European affiliation of Paleo-Sardinian is much more likely than an Illyrian and thus IE origin. As for Sardinian, if I remember it correctly, Lausberg proposed that it had lost the Latin vowel length contrast at a very early stage together with North African Vulgar Latin, predating and independent of the collapse of vowel length in the remaining Romance languages (we call it Quantitätenkollaps in German). –Austronesier (talk) 14:32, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Tireless Contributor Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		Good work on your contributions to articles on Austronesian languages, and beyond! — Sagotreespirit (talk) 12:51, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Uralic and ...

I did leave Finno-Ugric peoples because of the recently formed sense of connection, but I wonder how much the 'Ugric' part of it belongs, and if it shouldn't be renamed 'greater Finnic peoples' or something. Also, there's Cushitic peoples, which at least is not trying to define people by language. That article's so well developed that I didn't just delete it. Anyway, I'm trying to think of more of these linguistic ideas masquerading as ethnography. If you run across any, please let me know. — kwami (talk) 03:25, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi kwami! Occasionally these articles build on other tertiary sources, so the underlying concept (unfortunately) at times meets the WP:NOTABILITY criterion to some extent. Often linguists themselves are to blame for introducing such concepts, driven by the belief to hold the "key" to ethnographic classifications. Uralic peoples hardly is supported by any source, and I can't see any non-linguistic criterion by which e.g. Samoyedic peoples and Finnic peoples should be grouped together. And once the genetics cavallery comes in trolling ethnologic and linguistic articles, OR and synthesis are having a feast. I'll ping you once I come across unsupported material of the "X peoples"-type.–Austronesier (talk) 08:31, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Ethnolinguistic Groups

After reviewing our discussion about the use of the expression "ethnolinguistic group" and its debatable use at the front end of this article, I think I have to reverse my position based on your follow-up dialogue with Andrew. When you mentioned the designation between an "ethnolinguistic group" being dependent on emic and etic perception, and then the tendency for historians to conflate them as opposed to linguists, I am now seeing your point. For that reason, I support your initial argument to change the opening to read as you originally mentioned. My apologies for my outbursts, as I all too frequently encounter pseudo-intellectuals around here, who—as I am sure you've likewise experienced—pass themselves off as experts for having read one or two books on a subject. You won this argument brother and have earned my respect for standing your ground and for being right, while remaining civil.--Obenritter (talk) 23:22, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

		The Socratic Barnstar
		For your knowledge, civility, and competency in argumentation and logic—you are hereby recognized.--Obenritter (talk) 23:34, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Obenritter: Thank you! Concerning the civility: frankly, I had to bite my tongue way to the flesh at times. But then I understood that your zest is driven by a conviction we both share: to make information on WP as reliable and verifiable as in a scholarly-edited encyclopaedia and to fence off any attempt that could result in a lowering of this standard. I have to admit that I myself did the mistake of (additionally) playing the "expert card", instead of keeping to true wiki-expertise: select and cite sources in a balanced and non-cherry-picking manner in order to prove one's point. In other words, I might have fallen and still may fall in the future into the same trap as you unfortunately did in our exchange.

Going back to the actual topic, I am quite aware that some scholars—including historians—do employ "ethnolinguistic group" in a k.o. sensu lato manner (which an editor pointed out to me in a fairly similar discussion); it is nevertheless non-standard and potentially misleading: I want to see WP a place where only Ipomoea batatas is called "sweet potato", even when there may be other potatoes that are sweet... I'll handle the opening of Germanic peoples accordingly, and will proceed with other articles as well. –Austronesier (talk) 06:59, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

You are quite welcome and I am glad to see people of your caliber around here. Many scholars refrain from editing Wikipedia due to the fact that any dolt can edit the content. In many ways the project represents what's best about the human hive in the aggregate, while concomitantly demonstrating the worst part of humanity at times. My actual wish is that they would require only registered users with the ability to edit pages. BTW--Your expertise in linguistics and ethnic studies with regard to the use of the term "ethnolinguistic" should trump the contrary position, but like you mentioned, it will have to be accomplished in Wiki-fashion with sources. In the case of the Germanic peoples page, you may want to add an explanatory—academically substantiated—footnote where you deem best to explain the change. Keep fighting the good fight.--Obenritter (talk) 16:49, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@Obenritter: The dimension of your remark here now truly unfolds in the utterly pathetic charade we can witness now. I can imagine how sick you feel to see when a simultaneously determined and incompetent editor is warded off by someone who does often the right thing in wrongest of all ways. What is most painful to me is that a coherent and in-depth article is transformed into a shallow panorama-style page (similar to Slavs), while its meaningful content is chopped into pieces as if it were some secondary and peripheral matter (a fate that Early Slavs – the worthy counterpart to Germanic peoples – at least does not share). Do you think it will make sense to bring it to ANI and ask for full-protection (after restoring a stable version) until there is some consensus about the content of the article? I hate wiki-drama, but it's just a pity for all the good work that went into the article. –Austronesier (talk) 21:06, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Austronesier--this is the aspect of Wikipedia that runs real scholars away. Much of what was originally on the Germanic peoples was a result of my efforts--so yes, it pains me to watch this page being utterly torn to shreds by both parties. Each of them asked me to get involved in their drama, which at this point is even difficult to follow. Like you, I have more or less refrained from participating at this point, as I feel like so much of my earlier work has become unrecognizable or bastardized into something other than what was intended. What I think should actually happen is that the page should be restored to its original status from about 6 months ago, locked down, and then any and all changes going forward be discussed on the talk page and approved only per consensus. How to make THAT happen is another matter altogether.--Obenritter (talk) 01:23, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Obenritter: FYI- User talk:Doug Weller#Germanic peoples. Frozen in the current pathetic condition, but at least that's a starting point. But I'm afraid the logorrhea in the talk page won't be affected by it. –Austronesier (talk) 17:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Herr Austronesier--thanks for the update and especially for the potential neologism "logorrhea" (which elicited raucous laughter) to describe the convoluted dialectic battle between the participant editors on that page.--Obenritter (talk) 19:27, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Obenritter: I always thought it is a jocular formation, but apparently it is a valid medical term. Wonder if the former came first, or vice versa... –Austronesier (talk) 11:10, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Austro-Tai languages

I saw your reversion of my edits on this page. Thanks for pointing this out to me. If the convention for expressing these is to use an asterisk and no italics, I think I can stick to it pretty easily. I will attempt again shortly, and please take another look, but the appearance should be the same. I'll be changing only those words that could be detected by spellcheckers, and won't bother with single letters. If there are any errors, just let me know.

Ira

Ira Leviton (talk) 00:11, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I just finished the edit - can you please also check another word on the page - ablasion (toward the bottom, in the section on non-linguistic evidence). I cannot find this as an English word. I'm 99% certain ablation was meant because it's a dental procedure, although it abrasion might have been meant.

Ira

Ira Leviton (talk) 00:25, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Ira! Looks fine now, I have just fixed two double asterisks. I will check with other editors from the Linguistics project if there is a standard way of tagging reconstructed etyma so they won't show up as spurious errors. And yes, "ablation" is correct and also spelled as such in the source. –Austronesier (talk) 10:59, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

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A haplogroup and a proto-language do not a people make

In the article I read: "A haplogroup and a proto-language do not a people make". Is this sentence intended as it is, or was: "A haplogroup and a proto-language do not make a people" intended?Redav (talk) 21:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

@Redav: This should answer it ;) –Austronesier (talk) 22:23, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Gutian Language

I don't know why you reverted my edit, I have talked about it in the talk page but no one explains why a published scientific work shouldn't be mentioned but a wild guess about Tocharian origin is mentioned! --MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 12:34, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@MojtabaShahmiri: Thank you for bringing the topic to the talk page of the article concerned. Please do not be in a haste, and leave the discussion in one place. If your research meets the criteria for inclusion in WP, you can be sure it will be inserted—ideally, by a non-involved editor to ensure a neutral point of view—in due time. In the meantime, your questions will be answered in due time, too. –Austronesier (talk) 12:48, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: It sounds good that a non-involved editor writes about it but I don't think that this person can be found here, if my theory is just mentioned in the main page then more people read my articles and then edit this section. --MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 13:57, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@MojtabaShahmiri: Note that Wikipedia is not a tool for creating a wider audience (WP:SPA, WP:SELFPROMOTE, WP:NOTHERE). If you in fact believe that not a single one out of the many, many active WP editors—which include people from all over the world with a vast scope of interests—will take notice of your research in due time, you have—to put it bluntly—actually answered the question of whether this research is sufficiently notable for inclusion in this encyclopedia, or not. –Austronesier (talk) 14:20, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: How can I contact those WP editors who are interested in this topic and ask them to read my articles? Even in Iran where ancient Gutians lived, you can hardly find anyone who knows anything about them, if I want to wait for finding a non-involved editor, this important theory will never be seen in Wikipedia, the same thing can be said about all other scientific theories in narrow fields of studies, there should be a way for solving it. --MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 15:19, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@MojtabaShahmiri: At the risk of being repetitive: 1) Again, please do not haste. 2) Do not underestimate the community of WP editors. 3) If any piece of research will escape the attention of the community of WP editors even after the elapse of due time, this piece of research simply might be not important. Leave it to others to decide what is important or not. If you want to be heard by an English-speaking audience, then go ahead and publish your research in an English-language peer-reviewed journal. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vehicle for the promotion of one's own research. So please make yourself familiar first with the goals and policies of this encyclopedia, cf. the links I have given in my last reply. Final note: I could have been one of "those WP editors who are interested in this topic", and might be in the future, but sorry, as for now, I'm out. (@Kanguole: This is sort of a continuation of the discussion on your talk page...) –Austronesier (talk) 15:53, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

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Malay Indonesians

Hi, could you please take a look at the aforementioned article? It has been affected by some really bad editing recently. I have no time or patience to deal with these people and Wikipedia's inner mechanisms (and its disappointing lack of revision control). It would be great if you could provide your take on the issue and perhaps patrol the article a bit. As a speaker of Indonesian, I'm disgusted with the ongoing POV-addled disrupt.

(As you probably know, Indonesian (referring to the standard variety, not the local dialects) is a standardized form of High Malay. It's not the Riau dialect, in spite of what the term "Riau Malay" suggests.) Nama.Asal (talk) 11:18, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

@Nama.Asal: Thanks for dropping by! I have added this page to my watchlist, and have requsted page protection [1]. Hope it will go through. I have studied SEA studies and linguistics with Bernd Nothofer, so I am quite familiar with the history of standard Malay (including the misunderstands about "Riau" Malay) and the diversity of modern Malay[an/ic] lects. As for the "lack of revision control", well you and I, and all the remaining sensible editors will eventually tackle such problems collectively. I always say to myself "keep calm and hit the button". The id.WP is better protected, but look at the backlog of some pages: [2], which is just as annoying. –Austronesier (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! Yeah, idwiki is far from perfect, and I guess the revision control thing can't be of much help without active reviewers, let alone considering the overall quality of Indonesian articles (sloppy translations, poor/decent OR). Honestly, I've kinda given up on idwiki. But anyways, I've just accepted your edits.

But on the other hand, it's very easy for anyone to tamper with information on enwiki, and even obvious vandalisms can stay unnoticed for a longer period. I find this fact very exasperating. Polish Wikipedia might be lacking in certain aspects (the quality is respectable, but it's not as comprehensive as enwiki), but vandalisms and other undesirable changes are virtually never presented to the average reader. While enwiki just lets anyone go around changing Malacca to Riau and "variety of Malay" to "different from Malay"... Very disappointing, honestly. Nama.Asal (talk) 14:43, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

A kitten for you! (+ Santali language)

You are welcome.

Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:15, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Believe me, it was heartfelt! I was near to ping you about it, and truly appreciate you already have taken action. –Austronesier (talk) 17:57, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks bud. Appreciate your work too. Feel free to ping me anytime. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:06, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Welcome again. Perhaps you can restore that article to the stable version since the disruptive editor got blocked. Totally a face palm situation making them understand the use of a simple template. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:36, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I can see that our friend WilliamThweatt and you already have taken care of it. I will still take care of the tags, and address the sane part (it seems there is such albeit little) of the issues raised by the blocked user in the talk page. –Austronesier (talk) 08:36, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree there are issues with the article, but the way that user behaved was simply Facepalm. I wonder why some people think that they can get their opinions across that way. Oh.. if one of the issues is demographics related and ethnologue is not providing enough, then Indian census data would be the most reliable thing to consider IMO, however it would be from 2011. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:01, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I haven't seen that template before LOL. You know, my gut feeling says that the editor will return after the block. Antics like the one we have witnessed, as well as other dubious behavior (check this: [3]), indicate that they may not be here to build an encyclopedia, but will not retreat until kicked out by an indefinite block. But then, gut feeling is one thing, AGF another. I'll keep my calm and enjoy contributing to this project in spite of the silly drama some people enforce on us.

And yes, the discrepancy between the total number based on the 2011 census and the breakdown based on the 2001 census should be fixed, if the 2011 census data allows a breakdown into provinces. Do you happen to know on which Indian government website the census data is hosted? –Austronesier (talk) 09:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Oh that facepalm template . And LOL at that user pretending to be an admin. Either he's a troll or there's something to do with "delusions of grandeur", and he'll be back most likely. Anyway, I remember an IP from Bihar at Santal people article. Similar removal of content which the IP claims to be not up-to-date [4]. However that was religion related which I fixed using 2011 census source. For the population sources for specific Indian states you can check this link. However for the total, we need to find other sources. I'll try do find some now. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:41, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Not fully unrelated to this topic: if you want to make your WP-life unhappier, add National language to your watchlist. Look at the hist and you'll see what I mean. –Austronesier (talk) 12:34, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Oh man! No thanks lol. I already have things like these in my WL, though now I only revert obvious vandalism in that specific article. I made an edit however in that article, arranging those Indian languages as per number of speakers. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 12:47, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

That problem user is not coming back. They got indeffed. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:09, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

About IKAN BAKAR

Moved discussion to Talk:Ikan bakar#Country of origin

why missing ??? okay, you want to end this debate. so I didn't fix it for as long as Wikipedia said the grilled fish/ IKAN BAKAR came from Indonesia Alam Bashari (talk) 09:38, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

oh apparently you switched the conversation to the ikan bakar talk page Alam Bashari (talk) 09:47, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

@Alam Bashari: Read first, then act. –Austronesier (talk) 09:50, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Pertanyaan mengenai pembuatan halaman baru

Saya tidak mengerti langkah apa yang harus saya lakukan setelah saya membuat halaman baru, kapan halaman yang saya buat bisa dikonfirmasi oleh wikipedia? Alam Bashari (talk) 07:14, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Oleh sebab itu saya bertanya kepada anda karena anda memiliki jam yang tinggi di wikipedia Alam Bashari (talk) 07:16, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

@Alam Bashari: I am willing to guide with some basics here on WP, but only if you start contributing in a constructive way. This includes correcting the citations in Bakmi and Ikan bakar (tampered source titles!), as I already have addressed on your talk page. And please use English, for the sake of other WP users who happen to read this talk page. –Austronesier (talk) 09:44, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Regarding my mass editing/Mengenai pengeditan masal saya

Jika anda perhatikan tidak semua makanan “pencipta” yang saya edit menggunakan Indonesians, saya memperbaikinya juga dengan dengan Betawi cuisine, Javanese cuisine, Sundanesw cuisine, Batak cuisine, Minangkabau cuisine, kecuali bagi makanan nasional dan makanan daerah tertentu yang tidak mempunyai link ke halaman wikipedia seperti makanan khas aceh atau bugis saya lebih memilih mengarahkan ke makanan nasional

If you notice that not all "creator" foods that I edited using Indonesians, I fixed them with Betawi cuisine, Javanese cuisine, Sundanesw cuisine, Batak cuisine, Minangkabau cuisine, except for national food and certain regional foods that do not have a link to the wikipedia page like aceh or bugis specialties I prefer to point to national food Alam Bashari (talk) 22:31, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

It seems you have a problem with me? Alam Bashari (talk) 22:34, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

No need to get personal, as you did before (WP:ADHOM). No, I am just worried about the nature of some of your edits. Pinging @Jeblat who is an editor committed to keeping high-quality standards to Indonesia-related articles, for a third opinion in this matter. –Austronesier (talk) 10:21, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Alam Bashari & Austronesier, please refer to Template:Infobox food. "Creator" in my general understanding refers to a specific individual or chef, for example, Gordon Ramsay. In the case of traditional cuisine with no solid evidence (if you can cite a reliable scholarly source) who first created the dish, just leave out the creator= parameter blank. -Jeblat (talk) 08:51, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jeblat: Thanks a lot for your input! –Austronesier (talk) 08:40, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Iya sama sama👍🏻 Alam Bashari (talk) 09:34, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

Hello Austronesier: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:29, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Bahasa melayu berbeda dari bahasa indonesia

(copy)= Anda sebagai editor harus memahami perbedaan mendasar antara bahasa indonesia dengan bahasa melayu, sejak sumpah pemuda 1928 seluruh pemuda dari berbagai latar belakang suku bangsa di indonesia sepakat menggunakan “BAHASA INDONESIA” sebagai bahasa mereka, bahasa melayu dan indonesia sendiri berbeda satu samalain apalagi jika kita bicara masalah hukum dan pengakuan di indonesia, bahasa melayu hanya sebatas bahasa daerah yang digunakan di pesisir timur pulau sumatra. Sangat aneh jika editor malaysia termasuk anda terus memaksa bahasa melayu seolah sebagai bahasa yang lebih tinggi dari bahasa native “sumpah pemuda” kita bahasa indonesia. Anda mengklaim terdapat org jawa di malaysia? Pertanyaan saya apakah org jawa disana masih mengakui dirinya “orang jawa” secara keseluruhan? Faktanya mereka telah merubah identitas mereka menjadi “orang suku melayu” sangat aneh dan kurang masuk diakal jika kita harus mengerdilkan bahasa indonesia hanya karena adanya “diaspora” jawa diluar negeri Nelson Salomo Jr (talk) Nelson Salomo Jr (talk) 09:50, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Nelson Salomo Jr: Take this to the talk page of Javanese people, and please use English here on en:Wikipedia. And btw, I am mot Malaysian. I am simply concerned about bad-quality and POV-pushing edits. –Austronesier (talk) 10:19, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy New Year Austronesier!

Happy New Year!

Hello Austronesier:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve the encyclopedia for Wikipedia's readers, and have a happy and enjoyable New Year! Cheers, Donner60 (talk) 00:23, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks (static)}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Happy New Year, Austronesier!

Happy New Year!

Austronesier,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:33, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Nasi goreng

@Austronesier: how you can change facts easily, about the problem of "Nasi goreng”. what you need to also change Rendang, Satay, Nasi lemak and Sambal as a shared meal GA1015 (talk) 12:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I have seen many sources from sites in Indonesia, abroad, said Nasi goreng is a typical Indonesian food because of its "authenticity" GA1015 (talk) 12:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

You speak neutral, but the source listed is "how to cook" :::@Austronesier: GA1015 (talk) 13:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@GA1015: Take this to Talk:Nasi goreng. –Austronesier (talk) 14:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Just noticed this by accident. Certainly here in the BENELUX Nasi Goreng is seen as a special recipe distinct from other types of Fried Rice. By chance I recently noticed this article which shows that this is also widespread in English: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/nov/06/how-to-cook-the-perfect-nasi-goreng-recipe . (As an article which compares many recipes by cooks, I suppose it is more useful as a source than most recipe articles.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:14, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Yes, the iconic nature of the Indonesian/Malaysian variant certainly deserves a standalone article. Geef mij maar Nasi Goreng LOL. But the sock editor wanted to turn Nasi Goreng into an exclusively Indonesian creation, whereas it is common heritage of all Malays, Javanese etc. from times before the division into a Dutch and British domain. –Austronesier (talk) 15:25, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I read a lot of cook books and I know off by heart that Sergio Herman, a famous Dutch speaking cook, calls Nasi Goreng an important part of the Dutch (Nederlands) food culture (not Flemish unfortunately, where it is tougher to find). But possibly we will also need to have a linguistic and a genetic definition. :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:46, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Here in Germany, Nasi Goreng has in fact become so iconic as the fried rice dish, that Vietnamese/Thai/Chinese restaurants sell their own version of fried rice as "Nasi Goreng". But among all the fakes, it is actually hard to get authentic Indonesian or Malaysian nasi goreng here.

The most bizarre of all is this though [5]. I have seen the same thing a long time ago at Manila airport, but I'm quite sure that the Philippine owner did it on purpose for fun (a proto-troll in the pre-digital age?). –Austronesier (talk) 16:09, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

In Dutch, and I think by extension in German, indeed there is an ambiguity in that Nasi Goreng is sometimes simply used as the word for any fried rice. But as people get more used to "foreign food" I have seen "gebakken rijst" becoming more common. I would see this as one of those cases where the common usage is not necessarily most correct.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:32, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Linear A

Hello, unfortunately, I cannot promise that I will do it immediately. As you may notice on the history of editing, I do add sources from time to time, but it usually happens after I go to the library and do some research. I am currently busy, so I cannot predict when I will be able to add new sources.
I can only mention that you can find some articles of the adherents of the Anatolian theory online on academia.edu (e.g. Margalit Finkelberg), and what they say does not really sound convincing (at their best, they could identify some words that "sound Anatolian"), but that's it.
The fact that the Hittite Empire was not a maritime empire is a well-known fact, I do not think I need an extra citation about this. There is an interesting theory though that the word "Ahhiyawa" mentioned in Hittite texts actually refers to Crete (in the Mycenaean period) and only later began to apply to the entire Mycenaean confederation. There was a discussion on this matter (see e.g. [6]) --Dmitri Lytov (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Dmitri Lytov: Thank you for your quick reply. I personally agree that the Anatolian theory (Luwian per Palmer and Brown; Lycian per Finkelberg) is not a likely candidate for delivering a breakthrough in the Linear A-question. But it's not ours here to refute these proposals, even if we can back up the arguments for a rebuttal with reliable sources (that would be OR and/or SYNTH). We need a reliable source that does the job from A to Z. I'll also try to search for more info about it, and also a source for a rebuttal of Finkelberg's Lycian hypothesis, which now has a mention in the article without critique. –Austronesier (talk) 16:18, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: FYI (the original question is here[7]). –Austronesier (talk) 11:26, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

trolls and stuff

I know what you mean. It is always difficult on WP to know whether to spend time on someone. I've put a lot of special effort into Germanic Peoples - related discussions, and this may or may not turn out to be a good investment in each case.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:05, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Revert of velar fricative on Sallaans, Gronings, West Frisian pages

Greetings Austronesier, Sorry to bother you, but I'm having quite a bit of frustration on the following pages of Sallaans, Gronings, and West Frisian. User:Kbb2 keeps reverting my (sourced) information on the phonology of the languages. He constantly keeps claiming that the velar fricative /x/ is displayed as a uvular fricative /χ/ and I keep having to revert his errors, and he is accusing me of edit warring. I gave him sources that prove him mistaken, and he is constantly refusing to acknowledge them. What is your say on all of this? Please let me know. Fdom5997 (talk) 08:19, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@Fdom5997: There is a long tradition in Dutch and German phonology to notate dorsal voiceless fricatives with velar contact generally as [x], even if they are actually post-velar. All information in WP must of course be based on our RS, but context also matters. E.g. Sipma's grammar is from 1913, and emplyos Greek ‹chi› for the "velar" fricative. The IPA portraits of Dutch (Gussenhoven 1992, Mees & Collins 1982) are good complementary sources, even though they only cover regional Standard Dutch and not the regional dialects (or languages). –Austronesier (talk) 12:19, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Andi Language

I have organized a table based on the http://www.philology.ru/linguistics4/alekseev-99b.htm article, would that be a correct source for a consonental table? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MacySinrich (talk • contribs) 23:35, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@MacySinrich: Well, I have seen that your edit is based on TITUS, so let's discuss this one. Yes, TITUS is a good source, but try to be faithful as possible. On first inspection I would say you largely succeeded to do so, except for two points: 1) you have missed the aspiration of plain voiceless stops 2) you have lumped the voiced obstruents in the lenis columns, while the source (TITUS) tabulates voiced obstruents as neutral for the lenis-fortis contrast. Fixing 1) is easy, for 2) it will be tedious, but advisable even though it's just a minor issue. –Austronesier (talk) 11:45, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm extremely sorry for this, but can you dumb it down for me, because according to the Fortis and Lenis page, it lists that fortis and lenis can be transcribed differentiation between voiceless and voiced, or plain and geminated consonants. Which means that since Andi has plain, geminated, and ejective consonants, wouldn't the voiced obstruents be fortis as well? eg: d͡ʒ t͡ʃ. Or should I add another row for Plosives and Affricates to include a voiced one?, apologies for the misunderstanding on my part. MacySinrich (talk) 14:46, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@MacySinrich: Sorry there was a blunder on my part: it's not lenis-fortis, but lax-tense in the source. If you want to be on the safe side, just follow the source, so yes, the best thing is you add a voiced row, with colspan=2 for all but the labial entry. –Austronesier (talk) 14:54, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Baree etnic

Hi. Yes, the dab is fine by me. Thanks. Davidelit (Talk) 09:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

where does Hindustani discussion belong?

Hrm... i'm getting a bit muddled now, you suggested talk on the Hindustani language page might be more useful, but there's a message there directing me back to the Hindustani page?

== Move discussion in progress ==  There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Hindustani which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 01:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC) 

Irtapil (talk) 16:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@Irtapil: Ah, now I got it. Yes, you're right, it starts getting confusing. Basically, there are two discussions. The older, and much more lengthy and tiring one is about scope and title of the article Hindustani language. Basically, @Fowler&fowler contests that "Hindustani" is not a valid term for any of the contemporary variants/styles/registers of the Hindi–Urdu(–Hindustani) complex. We are still discussing, and have not reached the stage of a page move request yet (which is essentially a courteous restraint on F&f's part).

The hatnote refers to a new, and essentially technical discussion initiated by @Kwamikagami, who wants to move "Hindustani language" to plain "Hindustani" with the reason that the language is the primary topic for "Hindustani". So anything about "Hindustani" vs. "Hindi–Urdu" should still better be discussed in Talk:Hindustani language, even though the main participants in the dispute tend to bash their heads about that topic in any discussion that comes along the way :) –Austronesier (talk) 16:48, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Austroasiatic languages

Hi, can you verify the content added here by the new user? Regards - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: My first impression is that this looks a weak source (a Vietnamese reader for learners?) for such a bold claim. Maybe Kanguole can help us out here? Btw, I agree with Wario-Man's observation about the novice editor[8]. –Austronesier (talk) 11:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, I'll revert and ask the user to discuss it in the talk. Thanks. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: You're welcome, and thanks in return for having a close watch on Austroasiatic_languages! –Austronesier (talk) 11:32, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Don't mention it . Had good friends in college who were Santali speakers and lived in Meghalaya, Odisha for a good amount of time. Recently got interested in linguistics too! - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:49, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

The claim is false, as can be seen from the Language Atlas of China and other Chinese reference works. (They routinely include Tai and Hmong–Mien in ST, but not AA.) There's also a linguistic claim sourced to a paper on molecular genetics. There's a bit of a pattern of such papers citing linguistic proposals that fit with their genetic conclusions (in this case Starosta's Yangtzean), but that doesn't make them useful authorities on linguistic matters. Kanguole 12:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Kanguole: Thank you for the clarification and confirmation! And yes, genetic studies are all too often carelessly included in comparative linguistic pages as "suppporting evidence", and unfortunately just as often in violation of WP:SYNTH. –Austronesier (talk) 12:27, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

That user is a confirmed sockmaster & sockpuppeteer. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Musical mosaic. Feel free to revert their edits. --Wario-Man (talk) 11:25, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

@Wario-Man: Thanks for the info and for initiating the SPI! Their editing looks versatile, so LTA indeed seems very probable. WorldCreaterFighter has a different fingerprint though, and I have no idea about other potential sockmasters. Austronesier (talk) 11:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

When someone creates a WP:SOCKFARM, they are usually a returning "blocked" sockmaster. Take a look at their edits on Yuezhi and Talk:Yuezhi; obviously not a newbie. They may be WorldCreaterFighter or another blocked user. Thanks for pinging/notifying me. I may add some of those targeted articles to my watchlist. Cheers! --Wario-Man (talk) 08:24, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Makassar language

Hi Austronesier! As you have seen, I'm rewriting the Bahasa Makassar page on id.wp. I just want to ask your opinion regarding the glosses used for the 'ergative' and 'absolutive' clitic pronouns. As of now, I don't standardize Jukes glosses for these (hence the different glosses for examples taken from Jukes 2020, where they are only minimally labeled for person, e.g. 1= for ku= and =3 for =i). What do you think? Should I regularize the glosses (perhaps following the usage in Jukes 2020 as it is his most recent publication on the language)? I have regularized the mark for "affixal clitics" boundary to ≡, anyway. Masjawad99^💬 00:21, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi Masjawad99! Yes, I think the minimal labels from his thesis/book are better than ERG and ABS in Jukes (2005 etc.). Makassarese is close to split-ergative (were it not for optional clitic-stacking like nu_O=ku_A= in certain transitive constructions), and the case labels (especially ERG) are actually not fully correct. So standardizing the glosses in examples taken from Jukes (2005 etc.), is a good solution, but you should then explicitly mention (e.g. with an efn) that you have done so. –Austronesier (talk) 08:44, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: By the way, where in the article, do you think, should I put the discussion about Makassarese aspectual/modal clitics etc.? Also, you're welcome to comment about the article structure in general and what should/should not be included in the article. Tangentially related: I'm planning to expand Malayic languages article as well, but I'm not sure how to structure it, because there isn't a particular "model article" that I could think of for language subgroup/family articles. Masjawad99^💬 01:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Masjawad99: I think you can follow Jukes's order, so you may add that point after the pronoun section. The article looks great so far; if I have ideas for additions etc., I'll go to the talk page or try to dare some edits with my id-4 (or just id-3?) proficiency.

As for language family articles, I think synchronic info (typology etc.) should come first, then subgrouping, then reconstruction. Adelaar's overview "Structural diversity in the Malayic soubgroup" in Adelaar & Himmelmann (2005) has good material for inclusion in the article. –Austronesier (talk) 09:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Masjawad99: So far I have stayed in a passive role, and just enjoyed looking at your solid work in w:id:Bahasa Makassar.

Your small edits to w:id:Bahasa Muna have inspired me to slowly expand Muna language. René's grammar is an excellent overview of this pretty complex language. You might take a shot at it as well in id.WP. Muna is fun, although I have never mastered to speak it, except for producing gramatically correct mini-sentences after at least ten seconds of mind grinding (interacting with Muna speakers/informants during my time in Mksr). –Austronesier (talk) 13:09, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: (I just realized that {{yo}} is another shortcut for {{reply to}}) Thank you, though there hasn't been any significant update to that page since last week (I'll try to get it done in this following week, but I can't promise ahaha). I did the edits on w:id:bahasa Muna just to remove the noref tag, although I haven't actually read even a quarter of René's grammar. But I will get into it later. The reason why I choose to expand w:id:bahasa Makassar first is because it is one of the most viewed pages in the Languages of Indonesia cat on id.wp (see here for the list).

Regarding language proficiency, I myself have never actually mastered any bahasa daerah whatsoever, except perhaps my own Palembang dialect. Even my Javanese is a bit rusty LOL. Masjawad99^💬 14:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started

Hello, Austronesier

Thank you for creating Sumba languages.

User:North8000, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Good start!

To reply, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|North8000}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~ .

(Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

North8000 (talk) 11:48, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Malayo-Sumbawan languages

Hello, Can I create category "Malayo-Sumbawan languages" ? It is accepted by Glottolog. Please let me know. (Jkrn111 (talk) 12:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)).

Hi @Jkrn111: No, I wouldn't recommend that. Malayo-Sumbawan is rejected by Bob Blust and Alex Smith, and also Sander Adelaar himself, who initially proposed the subgroup, has silently abandoned the proposal by accepting Blust's and Smith's alternative proposal, viz Greater North Borneo, in his latest paper. So I'd suggest to turn "Greater North Borneo" into a category. This would affect the current categroy Category:Bornean languages, which is based on a spurious grouping. Category:Basap–Barito languages would then be directly under Category:Malayo-Polynesian languages, and the rest must ve moved to the new GNB cat. Pinging Masjawad99 for a second opinion. –Austronesier (talk) 13:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that would work. Shouldn't Category:Bornean languages be redirected to GNB cat, though? Masjawad99^💬 23:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

@Masjawad99: Catergories cannot be moved that easily (usually via WP:CfD). It's easier to abandon them until somebody finds them unused and proposes them for deletion. In any case, the category business for mapping complete tree classifications is a flawed idea, anyway. A lot of things going on here violate NPOV by giving preference of one model over another. IMO, complexity can only be dealt with in prose, as we have done e.g. with the Malayic languages. –Austronesier (talk) 10:34, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Problem editor

Now the tables have turned. What I did today was far from exemplary (quite the opposite), and I've tried to make amends on the user's talk, but if you find it insufficient feel free to call me out. Thanks. Nardog (talk) 03:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@Nardog: I think you made our common point clear, let's just see how they respond in words and action. We need to keep an eye on that. –Austronesier (talk) 09:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Pending changes reviewer granted

Hello. Your account has been granted the "pending changes reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on pages protected by pending changes. The list of articles awaiting review is located at Special:PendingChanges, while the list of articles that have pending changes protection turned on is located at Special:StablePages.

Being granted reviewer rights neither grants you status nor changes how you can edit articles. If you do not want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time.

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• Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes, the guideline on reviewing
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• Wikipedia:Protection policy#Pending changes protection, the policy determining which pages can be given pending changes protection by administrators.
  

~Swarm~ ^{sting} 16:58, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Proto-/Common Norse and Romanian

Hi Austronesier. I don't remember where your comment on Proto-Norse was, but I have a similar issue with Proto-Romanian that's now gone to discussion. I moved that to 'Common Romanian' per the definition in Bussmann's dictionary (Routledge) that a 'protolanguage' is reconstructed by the comparative method, and Agard's distinction between Common Romance (the attested ancestral language) and Proto-Romance (the reconstructed ancestral language). Is this a distinction to make on WP? Very often, of course, the terms are synonymous, but should 'proto' articles be about things that we'd put a protolanguage infobox in, with others moved to 'common', 'primitive' or some other name? — kwami (talk) 04:01, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

@kwami: I would reserve the proto-language box for genuine reconstructed proto-languages. Apart from Agard's awkward distinction, there are some cases where common usage has "proto-X" for other things, e.g. internally reconstructed "pre-X". Proto-Basque language is an interesting case. Here, scholars reversely apply sound changes observed in Romance loanwords to native Basque vocabulary, which is a valid method, but different from the comparative method. "Pre-Basque" would be more correct (Florian Blaschke once pointed this out to me) but "Proto-Basque" is generally used. Use of "proto-" in page title and using the infobox should remain two different things. –Austronesier (talk) 09:36, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, in other language families it would be "pre-" rather than "proto-". You also see e.g. "pre-proto-IE". — kwami (talk) 09:45, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Proto-X strictly speaking only refers to the last common stage (analogous to the MRCA in biology) before the start of the divergence, because only this stage is directly reachable through the comparative method (external reconstruction). Earlier stages are labelled "Pre-Proto-X".

Plain "Pre-X", however, is problematic because it can also refer to other things like substrates.

The language of 7th-century (and even 6th-century) North Germanic inscriptions is close enough to the stage that can be reconstructed on the basis of the attested Old Norse dialects that "Proto-Norse" is an unproblematic label, if maybe slightly imprecise, but "Primitive Norse" or more accurately "Primitive North Germanic" (or also "Archaic Norse" etc.) – analogous to "Primitive Irish" – would be a better catch-all label for the whole period c. 200–700. One might also consider using "Primitive X" instead of the rather clumsy "Pre-Proto-X", even though "Primitive X" is generally only used for languages that are at least slightly attested, although to be fair, I don't really know any common examples except Primitive Irish. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:00, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

There's a snag, though, in that "Proto-X" reconstructions reached through the comparative method tend to be at least slightly, or even significantly, less archaic than the corresponding real-world varieties wherever there is direct evidence of them, with Proto-Romance being the best-known example.

According to Ringe, Sardinian began to diverge from the rest of Romance in the first century BC, and I'd even find a split in the late second century BC conceivable, or in any way still in the Old Latin period, when the written language was still relatively close to the spoken one (if not as much as the language in Plautus' comedies), before the more artificial Ciceronian norm known as "Classical Latin" emerged and established itself between c. 80 and 60 BC – although some authors and inscriptions at the time probably still use a language that reflects the contemporary spoken idiom closely, so we have a rough idea what it was like; and what we can reconstruct for Proto-Romance – even including the Sardinian evidence – is very different and significantly more innovative, especially in the lexical realm, because many common words in Latin texts (especially particles and other short words) have not even left traces anywhere in Romance.

So, on the face of it, you could suspect that the real-world counterpart of Proto-North-Germanic might have been the clearly more archaic Early Proto-Norse c. 200–500 – with umlaut phenomena, syncope, and other changes taking place in a regionally already slightly diversified North Germanic dialect continuum; although in theory, this is very much possible, I don't know of any concrete, hard evidence for this possibility.

Although there have been attempts to discern regional differences within the Proto-Norse inscriptional corpus, these attempts are controversial, and as far as I know, regionally specific features that appear in Old Norse cannot be traced further back than the 8th century. So even if there were regional differences within Proto-Norse, of which there may or may not be traces in the inscriptions we have, it does not seem like they continued into the Old Norse period as diagnostic regional traits. Rather, I suspect that the best explanation is that a specific regional dialect of Primitive Norse achieved supra-regional importance around 700 and gradually replaced all the other Primitive Norse dialects, and it is this specific dialect that effectively corresponds to the Proto-North-Germanic we can reconstruct, all the previous regional variation being overwritten by its spread (and eventual regional diversification again) and lost – except perhaps for faint traces in the extant inscriptions. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:55, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I suspect (following a suggestion by Schrijver) that the extensive Sabellic–Latin bilingualism that has to be assumed for Italy in the first century BC played a significant role in the development of Romance, and that while the Latin spoken in Rome, especially among the upper class, was still fairly conservative, there were innovative rural dialects influenced by Sabellic (especially in phonology) spoken outside Rome at the same time, and that Romance originated in this Sabellic-influenced Latin. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:39, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: It is interesting to see from all these examples to see how much "information" may be irretrievably lost in the descendants of a parent language, unless recoverable from ancient documents or—which is much more complex—via distantly related languages. We could e.g. somehow reconstruct Proto-Romance case endings based on the fragments left in Old French and Romanian, plus evidence from other IE languages, but if hadn't Latin, we could not even tell whether Proto-Romance had two cases, or more.

I remember (and have already re-checked in my Göschen booklet) that Lausberg also proposed that Sabellic influence was responsible for the changes in the majority-type vocalism of Vulgar Latin. –Austronesier (talk) 19:35, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, next to the several waves of monophthongisation and syncope, the Quantitätenkollaps in particular looks very Sabellic-like, and it also seems to have happened quite early, around the turning of the eras probably, when Sabellic was still widely spoken in Italy (especially in the south, I suspect). I think that, due to their relatively great similarity to Latin, especially Sabellic, but also Celtic, and to a lesser extent Greek, were able to exert a significant influence on Romance, and might be largely responsible for the stark difference between Classical Latin and early Romance, much of which is due to lexical replacement.

(But then, perhaps Proto-Germanic was also a good deal more archaic than our reconstructions. For example, there might be faint indications pointing to a cognate of the Latin verb īre still in Proto-Germanic, although I'm far from convinced; see here.)

Especially the Romanian evidence, but also traces throughout Western Romance strongly suggest the reconstruction of a third case besides obliquus (accusative) and rectus (nominative), which mainly continues the genitive, but also partially the dative; I'm not sure, but traces of further cases have been claimed, though our hypothetical linguists who have nothing but the medieval and modern Romance evidence would probably be hard-pressed to interpret this evidence correctly – unless, perhaps, they knew the non-Italic rest of Indo-European well. It would also be possible to reconstruct a third gender, continuing the neuter, which, like the feminine gender, only displays a two-case system, though: a well-preserved case whose forms are essentially based on the accusative (in the feminine) or never had separate nominative and accusative forms at all (in the neuter), and the less well preserved case which is based on the genitive and partially dative.

That said, at least the verbal system of Latin is preserved fairly well in Romance, and in reconstructed Proto-Romance, even more so. This reconstruction should be significantly more archaic than any medieval language, including Italian and Sardinian, yet still very different from Old and Classical Latin in many ways. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:45, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and it's true that ancient forms of Basque and Albanian shouldn't be called "Proto-Basque" or "Proto-Albanian" either; Primitive/Archaic/Ancient Basque and Albanian sound fine, don't they? Also, Aquitanian seems indistinguishable from Archaic Basque at the time of the early Latin loanwords, so it's essentially just an alternative label that skirts the issue completely. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:32, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Ronald I. Kim source

Hi Austronesier. Thank you for this[9] edit. It seems that the same cherry-picked content was added to multiple WP pages[10][11][12], most probably by the same editor. Puduḫepa 10:42, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: Thanks in return for your vetting and scrutiny! And you're right, the biased citation seems to come from a single editor[13], it looks like a (willful?) misreading of the source to me. Anyhow, what do you think, should we just fix it everywhere? I'm not really a fan of duplicated content, and rather like to keep detailed information in one place, but for a first aid measure, that should suffice. –Austronesier (talk) 11:26, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

it looks like a (willful?) misreading of the source to me. This is either a tendentious misrepresentation of the source or, if we assume good faith, is a WP:CIR case. In my opinion, it is both. I have been seeing their naive ethno-centric POV edits for a long time on my watchlist (since the last sumer) and did warn them before. Since they edit obscure WP pages which are not checked by other editors or admins frequently, they managed to escape scrutiny for a long time. I had to report them yesterday due to their edit-warrings to keep their SYNTH content. I am also not a fan of duplicated contents, i recently tagged an article for this reason. But unfortunately, I am not fluent in English to completely rewrite the pages that have duplicated materials. Puduḫepa 11:42, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: I have read this[14] now. Unfortunately that corresponds with my own experiences with them: Talk:Mushki#Avoiding WP:synthesis concerning Phrygians. I already had come across other misreadings before. I will have a look how to fix the small issue of the Kim cites in the individual pages, but I will also have a closer eye on the wider edit range of said editor. Without taking sides, but I certainly will tag or remove SYNTH and misrepresations of sourced content. We owe this to our readers. –Austronesier (talk) 12:03, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

About Neutrality

Hello, Austronesier, I'm Shrestha Shome. You wrote to me about the recent change of the article Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb. You're right about the fact that Wikipedia is written by people who have a wide diversity of opinions and articles should have a neutral point of view. But here's the thing, being neutral does not mean discouraging every point of view; it also means to support every POV irrespective of their stand. My recent edit to Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb was done to enrich the article and making wikipedia fair place for every fact/opinion. My edit was done to balance The article in every fact. Anyway it should not have been removed. If you think I made a mistake, or if you had any questions, you could have messaged me on my talk page before removing the edit. Every edit in wikipedia takes valuable amount of time and reasearch to find the source of information and removing mistakes. And we all do that. If you can undo the deletion, please do it because it is my values which restricts me to force my work over someone else.

Also, some of the news and opinion websites are banned in wikipedia while some others (mainly opposite oppinions) are not. This makes it hard to balance every article on the basis of POV. This has negetive effect on the reputation of Wikipedia's neutrality. It should been dealt wisely.

Thank you. Shrestha Shome (talk) 14:55, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Sir u should have replied her already if u can reply others and her statements really make sense . you may have been on wiki for long time still we r humans we make errors . sometimes i wonder wikipedia shouldnt be allowed to give the authority to post or edit or even delete article related to different countries to every nationality (plz dont take this seriously) Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Puipuianunuibuangpuia1: It was about this very tendentious edit[15]. Most Indian Wikipedia editors in good standing would agree that this kind of language is not neutral. –Austronesier (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Etruscan language

Hi again, Austronesier. Have you checked this section before? I think it is filled with fringe stuff (e.g. Daghestani–Etruscan relationship, Finnic–Etruscan relationship, etc.), but you are the expert here. What do you think? Puduḫepa 08:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

PS: The wording is OK, as it makes it clear that most of the proposals under the section are fringe. But it's still a bit weird to have such a long section filled with fringe and/or outdated theories. Puduḫepa 08:40, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: User:Calthinus and I had done some reading for Alarodian languages, and the Etruscan-NE Caucasian connection deemed us at least worthy of mention. S. Starostin proposed many highly controversial hypotheses, but he definitely based them on a very broad knowledge of the available data, unlike fringe "reseachers", who usually pick two languages or language families because of non-linguistic motives, and eventually detect the inevitable random correspondences. My favorite is Hellenic-Cherokee, which is regularly promoted by a crank IP on various pages[16] and talk pages.

In some cases, it is advisable to keep information which under regular circumstances would not appear notable, for the sake of putting things into the right perspective. With topics like Etruscan, many readers will be confronted with loads of theories on amateur-run blogs and history pages, and sometimes even non-linguist scholars will be tricked into putting too much weight into fringe theories. At least for the more common stuff our readers deserve to hear the mainstream opinion about it (which is done nicely e.g. in the third paragraph). That's what we also do e.g. on Basque language, although I have kicked out the most outlandish BS like Basque-Dogon, because some fringe proposals are just too asinine that no serious researcher will even spill a drop of ink for discussing them. –Austronesier (talk) 09:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: PS. Unlike with other languages that have been early recognized to belong to an established language family, the history of classification proposals is a notable topic by itself for languages like Etruscan, Basque, Ainu, Burushaski or Enggano. So what may appear as unnecessarily detailed, may actually be the most interesting topic for some readers. –Austronesier (talk) 10:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Imo, agreeing with Austronesier here, this is the least bad option. It is useful for people to know the history of past proposals, as that is a topic of interest for the specific case of Etruscan, as with Basque, Georgian etc. As long as it is clear we are not "proselytizing" them, it may be a bit awkward, but there is more to be gained from coverage than noncoverage, while on the other hand, I"m not sure it has the notability for a standalone page (though if someone wanted to put in the work I wouldn't complain). --Calthinus (talk) 04:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa and Calthinus: FWIW, I just comes to mind that there even is a standalone article for Hungarian, which—I admit—looks a bit like a freak show, but it is an important piece for understanding the cultural discourse in Hungary. Such fringe discourses, weird as they may appear to outsiders, are notable and valid research topics of their own (Tamil is another notorious candidate). –Austronesier (talk) 17:31, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

A standalone article for the Etruscan can be created. Puduḫepa 06:34, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Bisakah anda bantu saya untuk “merevifikasi akun saya”

@Austronesier: Ksatria Khazanah (talk) 15:27, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

my account is often blocked suddenly and sometimes it's hard to log in can you help ?? Ksatria Khazanah (talk) 15:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Here's a new one

Instead of Urartian-Indo-European vs. Alarodian, we now have a paper arguing for Indo-Alarodian [17]. The guy has a career [18] that does involve his particular (not exactly widespread) view on Basque, which got these 16 citations [19], make of it what you will. Not planning to add to wiki any time soon, but thought you might take interest in light of other ongoing discussions.--Calthinus (talk) 21:38, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: When I looked at Basque, I was about to remove his proposal as a low-impact hypothesis, but then I decided to leave him there per notability by rejection[20] :). The IE-HU-NEC article is cherry-picking of random similarities, and a far cry from controversial but IMO more thorough long-range proposals by e.g. Bomhard or Nikolaev. –Austronesier (talk) 08:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I think, sometime in the future, it could be useful to have a page listing non-mainstream phylogenetic proposals, so as to handle the Indo-Basque proposal and its kind on pages that are not actually about Basque, so as not to publicize it. --Calthinus (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: I have mixed feelings about it, but one advantage would certainly be that we could mention proposals that pass the notability treshold (for mention, not GNG for standalone), but cannot be easily integrated into other articles without raising undue weight issues. –Austronesier (talk) 19:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Speaking of long-range proposals, see p. 53f.. I remember Aikio used to be very sceptical of EU in the past, but he seems to have warmed to it, and now that he even accepts the possibility that the objective conjugation is already PU (p. 34), maybe that's favourable too because it's been one morphological aspect that people have tried to link to the EA verbal system ...

Also, if, as hinted on p. 46, PU wasn't spoken in the Volga Basin (contra Kallio, Häkkinen and others), but at the foot or possibly even east of the Urals (Aikio doesn't accept Ugro-Samoyedic or other intermediate branches proposed by Häkkinen and others and essentially retreats back to Salminen 2002, p. 3), in Western Siberia or perhaps even further to the east (roughly contemporary with PIE, p. 52), where areal contact with Archaic Turkic/Mongolic/Tungusic would be more likely (p. 50), and accepting Vovin's argument that PE (and PAE presumably too) must have been spoken in North Asia, perhaps (because of the early contact with Northern Tungusic proposed by him) as far southwest as Transbaikalia north of Mongolia (or wherever PNT might have been spoken, presumably in the first millennium AD) means that the geographical distance to be bridged is not large, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:06, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think some of the proposals floating around will eventually become "respectable" even in the eyes hardcore splitters if long-rangers would restrict their evidence to the best correspondences. Austro-Tai from Benedict to Ostapirat is a good example we talked about before. There is no a priori reason to dismiss long-range proposal because we have somehow reached the absolute limit of observability. Not even Lyle Campbell would go that far, in fact he believes that intuitively, many proposals look prominsing, but he simply and rightfully expects to see better evidence. And EU looks quite promising, I agree with Aikio about that. –Austronesier (talk) 10:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Indeed I expect links between established families everywhere to become apparent as our knowledge grows, as documentation, systematisation and reconstruction improve in quantity as well as quality (rigour) – a process happening across the board; while it is also expected that links going deep in time will not be based on a wealth of morphology and hundreds of reconstructed lexemes as in Uralic but only on a few dozen equations at best, if they're sufficiently solid, that should be enough.

So EU doesn't even necessarily go back much farther than PIE, PS or PAN, with a homeland I'd look for in Southern Siberia (funny enough, there have been suggestions of an EA-like substratum in Western Siberia, underlying Ket–Yugh – perhaps Nenets has a similar substratum –, and I think Vajda has mentioned this, but I haven't been able to find it again; that said, I recall an attempt to etymologise the ethnonym Yugh with reference to yuk 'person' in Yupik languages, and that sounds fishy because the underlying PE lexeme is *ińuɣ or so), and although I'm unable to judge the actual linguistic evidence for DY, the idea of a DY homeland in the Russian Far East, specifically Kamchatka, a few millennia ago has started to appeal to me, especially because Itelmen seems to have a substratum not unlike Na-Dene, and in fact Aleut has been suspected of having such a substratum too, so I've softened my intuitive resistance to the whole concept. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:32, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Standard German back fricatives

An OR observation: I wonder if the popularity of the velar/uvular fricative (sometimes approximant) realisation of /r/ is motivated by the way it acts as the voiced/lenis counterpart of the allophone – and marginal phoneme – [x ~ χ], rendering the consonant system more symmetrical. One might expect that [x ~ χ] will eventually become a full phoneme. Indeed, the [ʝ] realisation of /j/ could also become more widespread – in fact, oddly, I thought I remembered that Standard German phonology described [ʝ] as the regular realisation of /j/, or even notated the phoneme as /ʝ/! I remember this clearly because I wanted to ask about exactly this on the talk page (I don't think [ʝ] is really common, especially in the south, but my intuition could be wrong, and /j/ could be more strongly fricated that I've realised), when I found out that my memory had apparently played a trick on me. Mysterious. Anyway, I think there are SG varieties where you could, in principle, move /r/ next to /j/ and notate it as /ɣ ~ ʁ/ instead – but phonotactic reasons probably advise against that, as /r/ still behaves as a rhotic/liquid rather than a fricative – or approximant, like /j/ and /v ~ ʋ/. Hm. Now that I think if it, I'm not so sure anymore that it doesn't work, though. The fricative system starts to oddly remind me of Proto-Eskimo–Aleut and the like. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Just for fun:

			Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar/ Uvular	Glottal
Nasal			m	n		ŋ
Plosive		fortis	p	t		k	(ʔ)
		lenis	b	d		ɡ
Fricative	sibilant	fortis		s	ʃ
		lenis		z	(ʒ)
	non-sibilant	fortis	f	(θ)	ç	(x ~ χ)	h
		lenis	v ~ ʋ	l	ʝ ~ j	ɣ ~ ʁ

Something like this ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: I'm not sure about cause and effect here, but yes, the outcome pretty much looks like this. We still need [ɬ], though!

As for the motivation, my main objection is that [r] → [ʀ~ʁ] occurs in many areas which already have [ɣ] as voiced counterpart of [x], inlcuding areas where [x] is marginal (Low German, Dutch) or nonexistent (very conservative Danish). And urban legend has it that [r] → [ʀ~ʁ] started in Paris, which has no [x] either. So we have actually a novel back fricative in French, and fricative overcrowding in the guttural area in German/Dutch/Danish. Danish /ɣ/ eventually fell victim to this overcrowding.

Full pairs of voiced/voiceless fricatives are not all too common on a global scale. But such a system is inherently stable. Fang-Kuei Li reconstructed Proto-Tai with /f~v/, /s~z/, /x~ɣ/, and many Athabascan languages have full pairs, including /ɬ~ɮ/ (but no /l/!). Interestingly, the Athabascan languages of the US NW Coast have lost all voiced fricatives. Sibilants merged with their voiceless counterparts, /ɮ/ and /ɣ/ became approximants /l/ and /ɣ˕/. But this happened clearly not because of inherent instability, but convergence with local Penutian and Salishan languages. –Austronesier (talk) 10:26, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

PS Here's[21] somthing about [ʝ] in Plattdeutsch, and it is not uncommon the northern colloquial language. –Austronesier (talk) 10:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Urdu alphabet

Someone deleted 80% of the Urdu alphabet page without consultation, by reverting 6 months of edits from 20 different users. I had left it a bit messy for a few days because i got interrupted, so the version immediately preceding the destructive edit is not the best to discuss. I want to try to improve what was there, but they did it again while i was in the process of working on it. I know edit wars are very much frowned upon but i'm not sure what the right way to deal with this is. Irtapil (talk) 06:16, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Japonic and Austronesian

Just wondering – what's up with that perennial attempt to link Japonic to Austronesian (or Kra–Dai) in any way? Apart from an impressionistic typological resemblance of Japonic languages to Austronesian (or Kra–Dai) languages that I can sort of see but no more and that AFAICS is too vague to mean anything anyway, I can't remember encountering any material evidence in the form of plausible loanwords (at least with respect to Austronesian) – let alone cognates, for those who suggest that the link is more than purely areal. Or have I just missed them? Vovin has argued for an origin of Japonic in southern China, based on a supposed early contact with Kra–Dai – what do you think about that? It all sounds very sketchy to me. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:14, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: The typological resemblance between Japonic and Austronesian is mostly about syllable structure, and even here, the resemblances are only found with languages which have undergone some degree of erosion of syllable-final consonants, most common in the eastern part of the Austronesian area. Blust has deconstructed the proposal here[22] (p.704) and here[23] (p.306). The very few "obvious" corrrespondences like Jap. nomi ~ PAn *inum (POc *inum-i with transitive suffix *-i) are most likely due to chance. Vovin specualations about a Kra-Dai substrate/adstrate in Japonic[24] are also very vague, and actually just a vehicle to cement his denial of a Japonic link to Altaic. IMO, Bomhard's shaky evidence for Nostratic is more compelling than anything I have ever seen from proponents for the inclusion of Japonic within Austro-Tai. –Austronesier (talk) 07:51, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, that confirms the suspicions I've had myself. Proto-Japonic phonology and phonotactics are pretty extreme in their simplicity – the only roughly comparable phonologies I've seen within Austro-Tai are in Oceania, but not in East Asia (nor even Southeast Asia). That said, Proto-Austronesian itself is far too old to have had direct contact with a not-absurdly-remote ancestor of Proto-Japonic, so it's rather irrelevant; sensible comparisons would involve Proto-Japonic and more recent intermediate reconstructions within Austronesian.

I also agree with your unfavourable comparison to Nostratic: I've seen morphological similarities pointed out that did look interesting, but unfortunately they rarely amount to more than a single phoneme in a suffix. It's just that they make intuitive sense to me, like it feels that there is something going on there in Eurasia, at least in and around the IE–U–EA core, but the relationship might be too remote to ever demonstrate it conclusively. It would be nice if methodically rigorous linguists attacked the problem with top-quality data and reconstructions; at the very least, it does look more promising than most other macro-family proposals and the like. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:45, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: There some similar inventories in AN languages of Insular SEA (Sulawesi, and CMP), but these can be shown to be the result of relatively late changes, too. Btw, I forgot to mention another theory (by Ann Kumar) about Javanese cultural diffusion into Japan in the first millenium (a favorite topic of the uncrushable sockmaster WorldCreaterFigher). It suffers from the same flaws as the proposals refuted by Bob Blust.

As for Nostratic and narrower connections like IU or UE, a quote from Lyle Campbell says it all (read it yesterday cited in a volume about Australian subgrouping): "A proposal may present evidence that is sufficient to attain a certain level of plausibility but not sufficient to eliminate all doubt." Lack of methodical rigorism can be very disappointing at times, especially if the presentation of the language families to be compared gives you the impression that the researcher has a good understanding of what the comparative method entails. I enjoy reading introductions by Starostin, Nikolaev; they write really good state-of-the-art descriptions about established language families. But once the macro-comparative part starts...

Btw, do you have access to Tom Güldemann's The Languages and Linguistics of Africa? It's highly recommendable, especially if you want to learn more about the validity of subgrouping proposals for African languages. –Austronesier (talk) 17:18, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, the Javanese hypothesis doesn't make a lot of sense, either, looking at the actual evidence; such a relatively recent cultural diffusion should have left more obvious traces. What would, in principle, make sense is that there was a (typologically) Polynesian-like substratum spoken on Kyushu in the first millennium BC, overlaid by an immigration from the mainland whose result was the presumably Primitive-Japonic-speaking Yayoi culture, resulting in Proto-Japonic c. 300 AD with its characteristic phonology. Although it's possible that this substratum was Austronesian, maybe even specifically Oceanic, positive evidence for this is absent. A key problem is that there is no certainty about stages preceding Proto-Japonic, making it hard to identify a substratum, lexical or typological. If we could trust attempts to reconstruct "Proto-Macro-Altaic" or at least "Proto-Koreanic-Japonic" at least broadly, the situation would be a lot better, but unfortunately we can't. So all we have is a general typological resemblance of Proto-Japonic to, say, Proto-Polynesian; that they seem to be roughly contemporary is remarkable, but their putative homelands are too far apart for a direct connection to be plausible. Nor is there independent evidence for Polynesians traveling this far northwest.

Yes, that's a good way to put it, and yes, a quite unfortunate situation; despite what "lumpers" sometimes allege, we would love to have things like PIU, PEU or Proto-Nostratic to work with.

Unfortunately no, especially not at home – I'd love to learn more about the macro-families of Africa from a rigorous, sceptical historical linguist; so far, I have little reason to take them seriously. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:37, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: Check your mail... :) –Austronesier (talk) 16:44, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: PS:  Done –Austronesier (talk) 08:55, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Your opinions and contribution here would be appreciated

I feel as if the said person deleted too much of the history section of the Philippines especially the Islamic era, even though I agree with him that the article is excessively detailed, I also feel that the said deleted portions were crucial and necessary, can you chime in on this? Thanks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Philippines#PH_0447's_deletions_of_many_Islamic_era_history_paragraphs

Pronounciation of your name

This might seem irrelevant but how exactly do you pronounce ʁ̥, is it just a χ? Also, isn't the diphthong iæ written as iæ̯ rather than i̯æ as well? Macy 01:19, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@MacySinrich: No, that's fine, noticing minor details is a good thing for getting a full grasp of phonetics. As for [ʁ̥], yes, it is a voiceless uvular fricative [χ], and out of context they are indistinguishable. But in many languages, there is a phonemic contrast between fortis and lenis voiceless fricatives. This contrast can be notated in various ways; one common method is to write the lenis fricative as a voiced fricative with a devoicing symbol (which looks like a paradox, but is common notational convention). Here's a source about Zurich German, which has loads of such fortis/lenis contrasts, not only with fricatives but also with plosives. As for the diphtong, you always have two possibilities (especially opening diphthongs), rising or falling. E.g. Italian has rising /u̯o/, while Lithuanian has /uo̯/ (I have modified the exact values of the second segment for simplicity). In my transcription, [i̯æ] is a rising diphthong, pretty much like in Spanier (scroll down to "Lautschrift"), just with a different final segment which is a trademark of my local dialect. –Austronesier (talk) 16:12, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@MacySinrich: PS, please sign properly by typing at the end ~~~~ or using the button in the edit window; the result will be a link to your user page plus a link to your talk page, which is WP standard. Thank you! –Austronesier (talk) 16:36, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

The duck

@Chaipau: I have found some stylistic diffs in the talk page that are very compelling. Can you provide two or three content-related diffs, so I can file an SPI? The page history is a nightmare, and I get dizzy looking for myself... –Austronesier (talk) 16:53, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I am working on it. Give me a little time. Chaipau (talk) 17:47, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Chaipau: Sure, no rush; the more solid, the better. –Austronesier (talk) 17:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started

Hello, Austronesier

Thank you for creating Northern South Sulawesi languages.

User:North8000, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Nice work!

To reply, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|North8000}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~ .

(Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

North8000 (talk) 20:40, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Trolls

@Austronesier: Trolls have hit again overnight on Baybayin and Suyat lol. The only thing they ever "contribute" to the Wiki is changing all the names of the Baybayin varieties (THEY ARE DIFFERENT SCRIPTS!!1) for political reasons. I wish we could lock certain sections from edits, it's getting tiring. Glennznl (talk) 09:23, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Glennznl: Yeah, it's frustrating, but we can maximally protect it against novice editors, since incompetence of long-time editors isn't flagged here LOL. We just have to establish quality consensus on the talk pages, then we can also involve admin help if disruptive editing is getting out of hand. I think Zzz... is cooperative for consensus apart from their lack of understanding what WP:reliable sources mean. Btw, there is another page to watch: Abugida. –Austronesier (talk) 09:36, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Luckily it seems that most other editors have stopped with the name wars, unfortunately it hasn't really reflected yet in contributing to the actual content of the article. I just scrolled through Abugida and first thing I notice is: Baybayin – Tagalog, and possibly other Philippine languages, Baldit – Visayan languages, and possibly other Philippine languages, Basahan – Bikol languages. Does it ever end? Lol. I'll keep an eye on it. Glennznl (talk) 10:26, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Glennznl:I just have added another comment[25], and really had to bite my tongue (or better, my fingers) not to write "silly" or "asinine" – so I chose "off the mark". –Austronesier (talk) 18:01, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Lmao, you destroyed him. I am sure we will get a high quality contribution on the terminology using good sources any second now... really soon... can't be much later... Hopefully they'll stop for now. Curiously, it seemed like they were working as a duo on multiple pages, probably organized outside of Wikipedia. I guess we'll have to explain the terminology to prevent this sort of stuff in the future. Glennznl (talk) 19:16, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

overly detail on languages of Indonesia

Hi... first of all, mohon maaf lahir batin :)
could you please take a look on Languages of Indonesia, new editor seems to put load of things on lead section. it may be correct and sourced information, but i think it's a little bit too much. maybe you can help to trim it down. thank you. Ckfasdf (talk) 07:34, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@Ckfasdf: Hi, and mohon maaf lahir batin to you too! The information is good, but very heavy on the lead and definitely needs trimming. Some of the stuff is already mentioned in other sections, so it should be merged there. It's like they wanted to write their own thing, without really caring about the overall structure of the article. Btw, most of it they had added to Indonesia before expanding Languages of Indonesia. –Austronesier (talk) 08:07, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Austronesier, I believe my insertion of information re Indonesia being the second most linguistically diverse country in the world is accurate, as much as the information of the country being the fourth most populous in the world, which is placed earlier in the article. I would be grateful if my editing is reinserted. Thank you for your kind assistance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Free2victory (talk • contribs) 12:10, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@Free2victory: For the benefit of all interested editors, please discuss this at Talk:Indonesia. And don't edit-war. You will achieve little except for risking to get blocked. Thank you! –Austronesier (talk) 12:20, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Another example of when nobody ever questions Wikipedia

I just noticed the term Apurahuano being used as an alternative name for the Tagbanwa script. I checked the sources we used on the relevant Wikipedia articles, and it never showed up anywhere. Neither did it in any modern academic articles or any old materials. It seems to have been created in 2008 with this unsourced edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tagbanwa_script&type=revision&diff=234953764&oldid=234953627 Interestingly enough, the editor got banned a few months later, about which he said: Got banned from Wikipedia a year ago, but I bounced back, and by the power, justice and wisdom of the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, I was permitted to return successfully to Wikipedia with all my pride and dignity intact. I JUST feel victorious! - 01:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Apurahuano has however been picked up by news articles, who probably used Wikipedia as their source: https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/02/17/weekly/the-sunday-times/cover-story/suyat-calligraphy/ and https://cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/2018/8/22/ancient-Filipino-scripts-surat-Baybayin.html

Really irritates me when I see people abusing their responsibility... most people don't question Wikipedia. Glennznl (talk) 15:46, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@Glennznl: Always be prepared for new skeletons in every closet into which you take a closer look. You eventually will find your own mix of building content, decrapifying long untouched pages, reverting blatant BS, and occasionally bringing major disruptions to admin attention. Fortunately enough, collective effort has produced much content of high quality here. But yes, it is frustrating when you see that baseless content is amplified by WP and search engines, and is taken for granted and cited by media which otherwise are known to contain reliable information. –Austronesier (talk) 16:10, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I do find a pleasure in solving these "mysteries" and discovering crap that everybody just took for granted. I've tidied up, merged, reorganized and expanded quite a few pages by now, it's good fun to find "odd" stuff. Like sometimes you find a page with a certain section and a link to the section's mainpage, but the section on the first page has 3 times as much information as the main page and sometimes there is even a 3rd page which describes the same content and which belongs together. Good fun sorting it all out, putting underneath the right categories and templates, it's like building infrastructure for future editors to pick up where you left off.

There is a lot of good stuff on WK, but it does seem like a page needs one or multiple "strong men" to keep it going in the right direction, or otherwise random IP addresses will turn it into a Facebook quality article in a year :P. Glennznl (talk) 17:09, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@Glennznl: Sometimes it is mix of everything: good faith edits from "those wild years", when standards of WP:V and WP:RS were stil nascent: incompetent editing from cranks; but also—and always keep this mind—our own limits of comprehension of a topic and its sources. Occasionally, we will meet editors who indeed know better (like Stricnina), and that's a good thing.

Ill balance between general and specialized pages is indeed a problem here, plus the overall redundancy in some pages. By laws of entropy, redundant information will eventually diverge, often leading to contradictory information (sometimes deliberately, which is called WP:content forking). That's what the guy in the section above didn't want to accept, although the other editor explained pretty will why they removed most of the edits from one page (but not the other). –Austronesier (talk) 19:48, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Yea I definitely noticed this. Some editors seem to be adamant on multiple small articles for each and every subtopic, which are then highly vulnerable to vandalism and low quality edits. I have encountered tons of 10 year old stubs with 2 blogspot sources. Imho a long and broad article can be more easily maintained by a small number of editors and ends up having more quality edits by the amount of traffic it receives. Perhaps I should go filter on stubs some time soon. Glennznl (talk) 21:42, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents. Nardog (talk) 01:03, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nardog: Thank you for the link. I have long been aware of the phenomenon, but not of that page. I think might add one example there about the fabrications on Philippine history by an editor notorious for their creative interpretation of primary sources, which were eventually cited in reputable news sites.

For another bizzare case, cf. here. "Sunda–Sulawesi" found its way into at least one RS[26]. Fun fact: I have cited the latter (Pagel 2018) in a chapter to appear in a peer-reviewed tertiary volume, because—apart from the small blunder—it is a very valuable source :) –Austronesier (talk) 08:44, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

PIE edits

Thank you for your recent helpful edits on Glottalic theory and Laryngeal theory. It is not my intent, of course, to go around making more work for other people, but in these cases and in one other subject I've written about recently it seemed like talk page messages didn't catch people's attention, so I decided to just go ahead and edit the articles. And in all of these cases the result was an article that was better than it had been before, thanks to the efforts of people who have greater access to the required academic resources. Best regards, —Soap— 16:44, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Soap: You're welcome! And agree, blowing boldly the dust off indeed helps to trigger more scrutiny into articles like these. Bathwater gone, baby rescued, but the mission is far from accomplished. The paragraph in laryngeal theory we have edited is actually an oasis in a citationless desert. And I share your experience about talk page messages, response to cries in the wilderness (like this one) is often lame. –Austronesier (talk) 17:36, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Reproachable...

I did finally decide to report [27] and they are now banned. Thanks for nudging me in the right direction. I see I have to yet improve on my pitch at the ANI.

I am eagerly waiting for A haplogroup and a proto-language do not a people make—it is urgently needed for articles such as People of Assam!

Chaipau (talk) 12:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Chaipau: It is actually a positive trait that you still try to take the stony way and to engange in discussions with these problem editors. However, most of the pages affected are underwatched, and you will soon fall into the edit war trap. And many uninitiated editors might think you try to WP:OWN these pages—I have to admit that was my very first impression, too, until I had closer look at the shallow rants of all the socks of Sairg, and got a picture of the dimension of their disruptive and biased POV-pushing. So after all, it serves all of us better if you embolden yourself to take the step to ANI/SPI as soon as you're sure about the issue of socking or disruption.

That page you mention was meant as a satire and never intended (lazy me!) to go beyond the title, but actually it adresses a serious problem. Many amateur websites, blogs and forums propagate a simplistic "conflationist" picture of genetics, ethnicity, archeology and paleo-linguistics, and quite a number of editors (with or without account) are influenced by this worldview and try to push it into WP. In the worst case, these people also believe in obsolete racial concepts. Complexity sucks, so they talk about "Austroasiatic race", "Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Uralic etc. Y-haplogroups" (as if fathers were the ones who talk most with their children!) and if they're male white westerners, they flock around Race and Intelligence to defend the "superiority" of their kin.

Don't get me wrong, nothing is more exciting than interdisciplinary anthropology; it is the very mismatches between genetics, archeology and paleo-linguistics that tell us the real story of our multidimensional history. But in the "wrong hands", dumbed-down genetics etc. create a very divisive and potentially toxic worldview. –Austronesier (talk) 17:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Zorc collection

Hi Austronesier, here is a big treasure trove to go through: [28] — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 12:53, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sagotreespirit: Yeah, it'a great, this one[29] too. –Austronesier (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Dorset Dialect

Thanks for your contributions to the Dorset Dialect article but can you add a full reference, please? Best regards --Ykraps (talk) 07:02, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ykraps: My dumb, the source is right there[30], but for some inexplicable reason, I have cited Burton as "Turner" in the following edits. Thanks for pointing it out! –Austronesier (talk) 08:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

No worries, I'm quite the expert on silly mistakes myself. :) --Ykraps (talk) 08:18, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

"Funny" racialist maps being pushed

For some weeks, three maps claiming to show the distribution of Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid populations according to recent genetic studies are being pushed into various Wikipedias. Unfortunately, it is not a problem of any Wiki where I feel at home (German or English), so I'm a bit at a loss what to do. Since you recently made me aware of that "Race and intelligence" deletion discussion, maybe you have an idea. I already deleted those maps from some Wikis where I know at least some scraps of the language (like French) and got an administrator of the simple English Wiki to start a deletion request at Commons. A fourth map (obviously based on the Mongoloid file of the three) recently showed up, for which I started the deletion request. I have a bad feeling about both deletion discussions, which are here: The three original files, the more recent file. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: Looks like it will be hard to enforce WP:SYNTH and WP:OR to Commons (especially if two studies talk about the same regional clusters using the same terminology), so we can only apply that when the files are used in WP. However, translating the terminology of regional clusters into obsolete racial concepts is not acceptable. Also the conflation of two different regional clusters in one map based on the identification of these with a single historical racial concept. But I simply don't know enough about the Commons policies how to push through with this.

@Grayfell: You might be interested in this too. Ideas how to proceed in Commons? Commons looks like a handy backdoor for Coon-ist and other racialist POVs. –Austronesier (talk) 09:47, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, I am indeed interested in this. I'm not sure what to do either, but it really looks fishy. Since I've seen similar problems before, I have asked for some advice at meta: Meta:Help Forum#How to handle cross-wiki disruption. Some of these images were added to articles by User:213.162.72.186 (a mobile IP from Vienna) who is in a range that was blocked from En-Wiki by User:Berean Hunter in March. I will keep an eye on it, and please let me know if this lands somewhere else. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 22:46, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. @Grayfell: Your comment at Commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_uploaded_by_VivekAdivasi is a great analysis of the problems. BTW: Just yesterday, there was a new move to remove the word "Rasse" (race, but with a stronger biological connotation) from the German constitution which seems to have good chances to succeed - so maybe it's easier to remove racialism from a constitution than from WP. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:36, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: Chapeau, your deletion request has triggered that one of the worst and unstoppable long-time abusers with a sick world view has got smoked out on Commons (check the latest events there, if you haven't seen them already). And thanks to Grayfell from me too. –Austronesier (talk) 20:36, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your encouragement and for passing on the information to the right person. --Rsk6400 (talk) 07:07, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hindustani/Hindi-Urdu

A user has made some controversial edits to the Indo-Iranian languages ‎and Indo-Aryan languages articles removing any reference to Hindustani language citing WP:COMMONNAME (which is clearly an incorrect guideline to cite) and the term as historical, while presenting the languages as completely separate languages in the articles. I believe that this has been discussed to death already with a consensus that Hindustani is a language with separate registers. I believe you are familiar/participated in the debate, so please see if you can deal with the problematic edits in the above articles. Thanks. Gotitbro (talk) 22:21, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Gotitbro: Thank you, these edits indeed have escaped my attention. The discussion about the best name for the language (Hindustani vs. Hindu–Urdu) is dormant, but not over. For the time being both terms are fine here. In the current case, I will assure that the target remains the single article Hindustani language. –Austronesier (talk) 08:07, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The user has again repeated his contentious edits, removing any mention that the languages are considered one on the Indo-Aryan languages article. Please look into it, thanks. Gotitbro (talk) 13:45, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

West Eurasians

Wikipedia life was so easy before I became involved with those race-related articles ! On June 22, someone created West Eurasians, which seems to me a Wiedergänger of the Caucasoid race. Since you have a sharper eye in those matters, I'd like to hear your opinion. I already gave mine on the talk page and also asked Doug Weller (talk · contribs) at his talk page. --Rsk6400 (talk) 15:45, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: The page is well-made in the sense as to lull editors who just have a passing superficial look at it into believing it's well-sourced and sound. There are good sources, and the Reich team indeed does use the term West Eurasians, but not quite in the sense the page West Eurasians suggests. To me it looks like a cherry-picked synthesis of respectable research to prove a point, viz. that the Caucasoid race really exists. Simple as that. Unfortunately, I am not as well-read in archeogenetics as I am in linguistics, so it will take me some time to read all the sources in order to deconstruct the page. But one thing is immediately clear: the Reich team does not use the term "Caucasoid", and I doubt that any other of the sources in the page does, so the second sentence in the lead is deletable as unsourced OR. –Austronesier (talk) 18:19, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. That was really helpful. I just removed a lot of unsourced content from the article - let's see what happens. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:51, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: There's a lot going on in the page, especially from IP editors. Be careful about 195.123.239.24, that might be an editor trying to evade their block for disruptive editing and edit warring. –Austronesier (talk) 08:55, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The article was really lousy - its creator didn't even care to give the long forms of sfn-references he copied from other articles. May it rest in peace, together with the Mississippi flag. BTW: Hope you don't mind if I keep your talk page on my watchlist. --Rsk6400 (talk) 09:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

These correlations are so meaningful they touch my soul

Thought you might find this amusing/interesting [31]. --Calthinus (talk) 21:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: Yeah, Everett's paper is epic, I've read it before, but I haven't seen Roberts & Winters (2013) yet. I love "Acacia trees ←→ Linguistic tone". It's rare to find good sources which debunk bunk, because most scholars don't even bother. That's one of the problem with fringe: sometimes, respectable scholars publish a bold hypothesis about an esoteric topic in a peer-reviewed journal. But then, the proposal is largely ignored for its outlandishness, and the author may even silently abandon it. So we have a RS for the fringe proposal, but no RS for its refutation...

Btw, less funny, but just as interesting: what do you think about the page mentioned in the section above (West Eurasian). Rsk6400 already has done much of what is necessary, but we all should have an eye on it. –Austronesier (talk) 08:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, boy. I'll take a look. --Calthinus (talk) 13:22, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

A mention of Everett's claim was added on Ejective consonant only a little over a year ago, with little contextualization. I just slapped together a sentence based on the three sources quoted by Wood. I tried to find non–self-published sources but to no avail (except Pereltsvaig & Lewis 2015:5, who direct to the web article; Roberts & Winters don't directly mention Everett), most likely for the reason you point out. Augment the sentence/sourcing there if you could and are so inclined.

Meanwhile, the claim from last year that labiodentals developed after evolutionary changes in human anatomy, in turn caused by changes in diet,[32] is only mentioned in the further reading on Labiodental consonant. It seemed much better founded despite being the kind of argument linguists typically rush to dismiss (with some recognizable co-authors). I'd appreciate it if any of you could summarize this one, too, in the article. Nardog (talk) 09:40, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nardog: Another way to tackle one-time fringe proposals would be to the delete the info per WP:UNDUE and WP:EXTRAORDINARY. I did so e.g. with the claim of human island dwarfism on Palau, which luckily was dismissed in a RS with the beautiful title Small Scattered Fragments Do Not a Dwarf Make; or a cringeworthy proposal linking Basque to Dogon. So I am actually more inclined to do the same thing in Ejective consonant. I still have that page on my to-do-list because I want to add some information from Fallon's The Synchronic and Diachronic Phonology of Ejectives about the diachronic perspective on ejectives.

The labiodental paper has trustworthy names on it, but I'd rather wait for the result of the ongoing discussion[33][34] and more reactions from other scholars. –Austronesier (talk) 11:39, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

That's a good point, but I feel like each claim has received enough publicity to the point that people are going to look it up on Wikipedia (and write about it if they don't find it), so I think it's beneficial to contextualize it using decent sources. It might be better relegated to the bottom of the article or what have you though. Nardog (talk) 03:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nardog: "and write about it if they don't find it": I have to admit, that's an even better point, especially if these proposals have some lasting public impact. So one of the rationales would be pre-emptive inclusion in the right spot and perspective. I'll think about what to insert in labiodental consonant and what to add in ejective consonant. –Austronesier (talk) 08:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ooh Saad

Doug Weller talk 17:45, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Thanks! And it doesn't really come as a surprise to me. Trolls multiply by budding... –Austronesier (talk) 18:51, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Blendman toes

I've started work on blends, to be dumped into the article that's now oddly titled "blend word" -- a term that I've found is used by linguists, but only rarely. I think it should instead be "blend (word)", or "blend (linguistics)", or "blend (language)" -- but not "blend (morphology)", as discussing this possibility could easily head into a discussion of whether it's really morphology at all, or indeed into one about what morphology is. (It's all so a-morphous. Arguably.) I'm surprised to discover that philologists have been fascinated by the subject for well over a century; perhaps this merely shows my ignorance of philology. Anyway, as usual when I attempt anything ambitious in WP, I'm first working on this on my hard drive. I'm going to be pretty busy over the next few days but hope to start improving the published article within one week. -- Hoary (talk) 06:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Hoary: Yes, it seems that Hockett coined his technical term on an older tradition of common usage in popular and non-popular philology. Btw, I want to retract from the idea to move Portmanteau to Portmanteau morph(eme) or something, just looking at how many pages link to Portmanteau, since 99% of these are about the meaning "blend". Maybe, the better solution is to create a new page Portmanteau morph (if there is really much to say about it—still browsing the lit), and turn Portmanteau into a redirect to Blend word (or whatever will be a better page title for it), and add a hatnote to Blend word "Portmanteau redirects here, for other uses see Portmanteau (disambiguation)". Btw, here's a nice source about portblendtoes[35]. –Austronesier (talk) 16:02, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

No objection from me about the matter of article naming. Even if we only look at material written by linguists (and not mere "language experts") in the last half century, we see quite some disagreement over what's referred to by blend (as well of course as over the processes of blend-coining, etc). Still, there does seem to be agreement that what we might call prototypical examples are examples. Now, portmanteau is used by some linguists for all of these, and by others for only certain kind(s) -- and by most not at all. This business of definitions is going to need some care. ¶ That PhD thesis is an unpublished PhD thesis, and therefore better not cited; however, its author has published at least one (of course cite-worthy) paper, and as is usual for PhD theses hers has a bibliography that alerts the skimreader (me) to the existence of somewhat obscure sources. ¶ I've now amassed all the sources I need, and more, or anyway for blends in English. I'm too busy/lazy/incompetent to read sources other than in English, and so far I've found little in English that's about languages other than English, or even that's purportedly about language in general and doesn't turn out to be blinkeredly concerned with English. However, I'm not looking -- I have enough on my plate as it is. -- Hoary (talk) 00:31, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

A strange little discussion about the genitive currently taking place reminds me that I have more important work to do. Actually I am doing it, sporadically. Don't hold your breath, but also don't give up. -- Hoary (talk) 12:49, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

First stage. -- Hoary (talk) 05:17, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

@Hoary: Meh, don't tell me that's your company page on Youtube... I've been busy with extra-WP writing these days, and took up again expanding Erzya language, so I kinda forgot about blortmendoughs (it's a myth that we [1pl.excl] Austronesians are good in keeping things in focus). The first stage looks good! I'm pleased to see that the unexplained syllable counts are gone. Btw, I want to add a bit about Kofferwörter in German from this source. The non-English examples are now distributed in "Bleding of two roots" and "Use". What do you think about sections like "Blends in English" and "Blends in other languages"?

And about your Help desk discussion: IMHO "our company page" does sound appropriating, even when other readings are technically possible. But then, I'm a not a native speaker, and there are subtle differences among languages with regards to the usage subjective genitives and objective genitives. And wouldn't your arguments better apply to [[our company]'s page] than to [our [company page]]? Just a thought. –Austronesier (talk) 07:45, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes -- I'd assumed that "our company page" was an L2 English slip or L1 English typo/brainfart for "our company's page", but I could have been wrong. If I was, then [our [company page]] would be the right interpretation; and yes, this does sound proprietary. Feel free to add material about German or indeed Erzya. Feel free to reorganize the article as you wish. I'm just wary of the material about Hebrew (just as I'd be if it were about Arabic or Amharic): I mean, the notion of templatic roots blending seems to require my my mind should contemplate an additional dimension. "Template smoke. Don't breathe this!", as the Blendtec man might say. -- Hoary (talk) 08:20, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Sino-Tibetan morphology

Hi Austronesier -- firstly, my apologies for my absence from archaeo-genetics topics -- I have not found the time to become well-read on the matter enough to be helpful yet, I think. I was interested in your thoughts about WP:DUE with regard to this section. Most of it seems to discuss what was believed about Sino-Tibetan historical morphology over a hundred years ago, rather than the current understanding within the field, but as it is still an(other) area I have yet to get totally up to speed on, I hesitated with fixing it and thought your take could be useful. Thoughts? --Calthinus (talk) 21:50, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: I looks like somebody started with a nice historical introductory note, but never proceeded to write the main part of the section. The typological range between isolating branches (e.g. Sintic languages), and the morphologically "richer" branches of Sino-Tibetan deserves due mention, but there is much more to ST morphology (like the s-prefix and initial voicing). So we could leave the current text, but should expand the section (one more for the to-do list lol). The LaPolla reference is a perfect source for that purpose (his POV about subgrouping dosn't matter here). The original text of the first edition (2003) is available on LaPolla's Academia page[36], I also have a copy of the full volume (1st ed). –Austronesier (talk) 11:44, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

That's a great idea. I'll look throuugh LaPolla. --Calthinus (talk) 14:41, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: PS, I just remember there is this paper which can help to have some balance so we don't lean to much on LaPolla. –Austronesier (talk) 07:53, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I am somewhat busy focusing on real life projects (as my low edit volume might suggest) at the moment, but I will try to get to this before October. Cheers! --Calthinus (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: Hey, that initial "before the new year" made me laugh. I wish you always stay on focus with RL-projects, but it's always cool to see you around. Maybe I'll start with ST morphology when I am not too busy IRL (including some writing for RS's). Have a good one! –Austronesier (talk) 20:30, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Urdu

Hi, not sure why you cannot see that, if Joshua Project is unreliable per community consensus, then the entire table is a waste and needs to be started from scratch. Nor why you didn't trust my statement that JP is indeed unreliable. It is blindingly obvious even without an RSN discussion - just read their website or look at our article about them. - Sitush (talk) 18:49, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sitush: You assume a lot. I am equally not sure why. I know that JP is not a reliable source. I regularly remove content solely sourced on JP with the explicit and unambiguous edit summary "Joshua Project is not reliable source"[37]. If contested, it's easy for me to explain why, without relying on blue-sky arguments ("obvious...", "just look at..." etc.). The assumption that I "didn't trust [your] statement that JP is indeed unreliable" is wrong. I just wanted to know (and actually expect this from a constructive edit summary), which other sources might likewise be considered unreliable. Not for myself, but for any other good faith editor who wants to restore the table based on valid sources, without having to grope in the dark whether the CIA Factbook or Ethnologue might also have been contested (in RSN or elsewhere) as RS. See, an uninformed good faith editor might even believe you're talking about the CIA Factbook, and restore the table based on Joshua Project data... You should consider this, too, especially when editing a page that falls under WP:AC/DS. –Austronesier (talk) 19:34, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I think you need to check my edit history. I am well aware of the sanctions regime and I am renowned for giving edit summaries that mean something. - Sitush (talk) 19:35, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sitush: "You need to check my edit history." I have done so before I undid your edit to Urdu. @Jeppiz: FYI :) –Austronesier (talk) 19:43, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Ixil phonology section

Hello Austronesier, And thank you for your correction on the K'iche' language page regarding the phonology section. I have also been taking a look at the phonology section of the Ixil language. I am currently looking at the vowel section, and as I can see, it is a bit different but not sourced, and I also am not 100% sure for the most part if the consonant section is correct either. Do you have any available sources for the phonology of the Ixil language? I have looked at Thompson (1991), which explains the phonology, but does not give a clear and simple explanation of it. Where are better sources that explain the phonology of Ixil? Fdom5997 (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Fdom5997: Thank you for bringing the page to my attention! The vowels (inserted by an IP in 2012) look utterly nonsensical. I have just listened to Ixil NT recordings from three dialects, the vowels sound pretty much like cardinal vowels. Ayres (1991), La Gramática Ixil in the external links is a perfect source (cf. page 7). It uses IPA, except for the hissing/hushing sounds, which are however well described for the Nebaj and Chajul dialects, so it's easy to find the apt IPA symbols. –Austronesier (talk) 07:48, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Pashto

Dear User:Austronesier, I hope this message finds you doing well. I noticed that you removed a column from the table that I worked on today. If you take a look at the source used in the "Vocabulary" section, it states that "Pashto has borrowed largely from Persian and Hindustani, and through those languages from Arabic." I trust that you can now see why it was relevant. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 14:38, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

@Anupam: If you can supply Pashto vocabulary that specifically derives from Hindi–Urdu, you may well add it to the table, ideally spelled in the way it is spelled in Pashto (i.e. using Perso-Arabic script).

I'll look into it, although I should inform you that Hindi-Urdu and Pashto use different scripts; Hindi-Urdu uses Devanagari and Nastaleeq while Pashto uses Naskh. If I add a Hindi-Urdu column, those scripts will be included. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 16:38, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

@Anupam: Nasta'līq and Naskh are styles, the script is the same. My text editor converts them one-to-one (although typeset Nasta'līq is more nas(kh) than ta'līq), the same way it converts Garamond into Mistral. When I read my grandparents' books in Fraktur, it's still the same Latin script as I use now. –Austronesier (talk) 18:37, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, they are different styles that are based on the same script though Urdu and Pashto possess some different characters as well as different sounds too. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 20:00, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

"Urdudaan" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Urdudaan. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 18#Urdudaan until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. -- Toddy1 (talk) 05:11, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Toddy1: I have cited WP:CHEAP in the discussion, but when invited, I gladly assist with my thumbs-down :) –Austronesier (talk) 12:13, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

sigh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamengkubuwono_II sigh... JarrahTree 04:41, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: I took care of all recent addtions, not just the silsilah. –Austronesier (talk) 10:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you - there is also a problem where quite valid material is added in some articles where the refs are all in Indonesian, and the lack of links to existing items leave me totally distracted, my lack of having good english sources to hand is bothering, my academic library was playing silly the other week and restricting access... JarrahTree 10:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: I know it's utterly silly and childish, but can you assist me once in a while in Ayam goreng and Ikan goreng? I feel like a lone traffic officer on a Bobby Car playground. –Austronesier (talk) 14:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I have developed an aversion to the incessant to and fro and the circular lose lose manner of it all... nothing childish - it's all a case of where protection and proscribed sanctions have to be gained in time. I think of some possible not very nice words in arabic, and russian, which might reflect what I feel about the disaster areas of wikipedia, but I am not fluent in either language beyond a very few words. Maybe, kalau mencari kata kata that are adequate to express the frustration, maybe I will remind myself of the crossing Malioboro during rush hour.

I would be much more autobiographical in ruminating about the issues, but decided seeing the old fish owl this place is, too much is known anyways... JarrahTree 14:58, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: If not childish then asinine. I have no other word for the fallacy of Indonesian and Malaysian editors that just because nasi goreng has made it into an identifiable and notable dish distinct from generic fried rice, ikan goreng, ikan bakar, ayam goreng also must be "dishes" in their own right. I don't have to put much effort to remember all the apt words that I have picked up in UPG... –Austronesier (talk) 15:15, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

sigh - your thoughts ? Hamengkubuwono IV trying but not yet? so much WP:OR and obvious copy from dubious website sources... do you think ? JarrahTree 08:30, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: The sources range from nice, but unverifiable, to acceptable. I think the weakest part is the genealogy, which we should delete based on WP:V and WP:DUE. –Austronesier (talk) 14:58, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Expanding the scope of Latin Americans in Asia from just the Philippines to also Indonesia especially the Moluccas.

As developments in the talk page point to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Philippines#Latin_American_settlers It turns out that the Moluccas in Indonesia has received thousands of Mexican and Filipino recruits who were stationed there and some deserted and mixed with the native population. https://i.imgur.com/rSBr4Xb.png Source: https://academic.oup.com/past/article/232/1/87/1752419. There were even Indonesian-Moluccans who ended up accused before the Mexican Inquisition due to having Mexican fathers. https://www.academia.edu/20365981/Transpacific_Mestizo_Religion_and_Caste_in_the_Worlds_of_a_Moluccan_Prisoner_of_the_Mexican_Inquisition How do we incorporate these texts into the Indonesia Wiki project? I think the Moluccas is a very racially diverse place, with Papuans, Melanesians, Austronesians and even Latin Americans having intersected histories there. --Rene Bascos Sarabia Jr. (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Rotuman

Hey Austronesier,

Cleaning up articles with curly quotes in them, and wondering whether Rotuman uses apostrophes for contractions, or if they're all glottal stop. E.g. in the island Hạf'liua. I expect CC sequences in Rotuman, and so assumed that in Itu'ti'u, Itu'muta, Noa'tau they're glottal stops, but three C's w glottal stop in the middle? That seems a bit odd. Since Rotuman uses the 'okina for glottal stop, I'm wondering which of these to fix.

— kwami (talk) 23:09, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@kwami: Hạf'liua is a spurious spelling, Churchward spells it Hạfliua, check p. 115 here. Rotuman has no CCC clusters, maximally CC from metathesis of -CV+C- to -(V)C+C-, like Ituʻtiʻu, Ituʻmuta from ituʻu + tiʻu/muta. AFAICS, apostrophes are not used in Rotuman, contracted vowels are spelled as one vowel, without any indicator that something has been "shortened". And all texts in Rotuman use 'okina for the glottal. –Austronesier (talk) 09:21, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. My Jstor account doesn't give me access to that, unfortunately, so I can't check for other names. Besides the three you mentioned, I changed Noaʻtau. — kwami (talk) 10:01, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Bugisnese, alternative spelling of Buginese

Why you reverted my edit about Bugisnese, pal? You can see alternative spelling of Bugisnese in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (OHCHR), and several websites in Google Search Engine (Bugisnese). Ivan Humphrey (talk) 08:34, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ivan Humphrey: I've answered in Talk:Buginese language. –Austronesier (talk) 12:32, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping

The discussion on Krakkos's talk page has been archived but I have read it all. A good part of the targeted articles are already on my watchlist. Thank you for letting me know. Puduḫepa 09:24, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	Even though we agreed to disagree on certain concepts and had tiresome discussions in the past, I have always appreciated your honesty and effort to make WP a better place. Puduḫepa 10:56, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

@Puduḫepa: Thank you! –Austronesier (talk) 12:30, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Altaic / Transeurasian

Why did you revert my edit ? My goal is not to create a war edition, I just added a sentence which is better to illustrate the current situation in the scientific community. Onche de Bougnadée (talk) 19:32, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Onche de Bougnadée: One researcher does not represent the "scientific community". Martine Robbeets is a notable linguist, and it is great that she continues to defend her hypothesis in new publications. But adding cherry-picked reviews (why do you omit Georg's review?) does not alter the fact that the final verdict is still out. I suggest to engage in a visible discussion in the talk page of Altaic languages. –Austronesier (talk) 19:51, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: You are right about Martine Robbeets and Georg's review, but the acceptation of the theory is not limited to Martine Robbeets. And →"Although this theory has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, it is better accepted nowadays." is different from →"Although this theory has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, it is very accepted nowadays." or → "Although this theory has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, it is totally accepted nowadays.". I am not claiming that there is a scientific consensus and I agree with that. Onche de Bougnadée (talk) 20:03, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Onche de Bougnadée: I'll copy this to Talk:Altaic languages for the benefit of all editors interested in this topic. –Austronesier (talk) 20:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

india people and mizoram august 2020

Sir plz read my reply and reply me on my talk page. So first of all that mizoram thing .i was just practising and looking at the outcome of my semi edits (didnt thought this will happen) with no bad intension . i know theres many people already out there whos mischievious works makes u tired so am not one of em I dont wanna write that long so and its already night at our part of planet earth zzzz plz read my reply and answer me on my talk page . Have a good day — Preceding unsigned comment added by Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk • contribs) 18:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

One last thing sir i really wanna follow rules but am such a dumb and slow mi Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 18:46, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

U can see i didnt sign above cause i dont know how to .thats it

Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 03:56, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I remembered and saw one thing . On the indian people talk i mentioned if i am wrong (AM NOT SAYING i was totally wrong , will see about that) i will put it down and remove it . U could have say something on the talk pages first . (anyway no problem , cause every person is different) Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 08:51, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

@Puipuianunuibuangpuia1: Just don't add content without sources. If you want to sign, just type ~~~~. –Austronesier (talk) 10:30, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Then what about the india article mizo is mentioned there but not in the indian people article .plz look for yourself and read my reply on my talk page. i just put a word which was missing in an article while present and mentioned as the eight scheduled languages in the india article .see it for yourself and can u tell me, how to get and put and where to put sources for our edits.

Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 11:44, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that(sigh) Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 11:46, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

"Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 11:48, 20 August 2020 (UTC)".

Sir plz if not busy plz Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 18:11, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Read this .Sir i have decided() Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 18:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Sir i have decided(not a promise😎)that i for a while now , will not do editing stuff before knowing enough wiki policy and... and before becoming a good editor etc but will look for errors on articles. sir theres an article named chothe naga which has only three references , out of which only one works and even the only working one doesnt mention it as chothe naga but only chothe . Sir i think u must see and take some action. Thankyou✋ Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 18:26, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Puipuianunuibuangpuia1: I am indeed quite busy, sorry that I haven't responded to all your questions before. As for the status as a scheduled languages, well, there is a proposal to include Mizo in the eighth schedule, but from all I have read, it looks like an half-hearted BJP election promise that hasn't taken shape yet.

Looking for errors or unverified claims in articles is very important, so it is good that you point out these things whenever you see them. Take it slow, and don't feel discouraged by our rather strict reaction to your passionate, but not quite rule-conform editing at the beginning. And sure, I will have look at Chothe Naga. –Austronesier (talk) 18:59, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank youuuu very much😄 Puipuianunuibuangpuia1 (talk) 19:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Kurds and Medes

Under the sub-title you people put some scholars' views about Medes. For example the passage "Gernot Windfuhr, professor of Iranian Studies, identified the Kurdish languages as Parthian, albeit with a Median substratum." You accepted it as an encyclopedic information, right?

And, I wonder why you guys omitting the very same professor's claim "The majority of those who now speak Kurdish most likely were formerly speakers of Median dialects.” [Gernot Windfuhr (1938- ). Source: “Isoglosses: A Sketch on Persians and Parthians, Kurds and Medes”, Monumentum H.S. Nyberg II (Acta Iranica-5), Leiden: 457–471.] as an encyclopedic information?

So, who is considering a content's encyclopedic value? Isn't it misbehave the that proffessor?

If you give me a reasonable reason I will respect you else, I have a few words to you. Key Mîrza (talk) 05:35, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

@Key Mîrza: For the benefit of other editors, please take this to the talk page of Origin of the Kurds. Note that I have said the list is unencyclopedic (it looks like an unfinished draft, but not like something to be added in a coherently written text), not necessarily its content. Btw, what is the meaning of "Isn't it misbehave the that proffessor"? –Austronesier (talk) 07:38, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

You know this is another topic. Why you bend it with my previous texts?

Before your question, let me remember you that there was one earlier question asked? Can you answer my very first question Boss? Are you taking scholars' opinions electrically as per your desire? What are your criteria? Key Mîrza (talk) 12:19, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

It is very easy to put this sentence next to his above said sentence that will not lead misbehave to the Professor Gernot Windfuhr's views. Key Mîrza (talk) 12:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, please take the word "electrically" as "eclectically" Key Mîrza (talk) 12:32, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Are you taking scholars' opinions eclectically as per your desire, or as some other people's desire? What are your criteria?

Boss the whole "Sub-title" is problematic. Just look the last sentence: "Garnik Asatrian stated that ... the relationship between Kurdish and Median is not closer than the affinities between the latter and other North Western dialects – Baluchi, Talishi, South Caspian, Zaza, Gurani, etc."

Actually as you mentioned in Wikipedia under the same titles "Zaza" and "Gurani" that they are of Kurdish origin. And even Baloch people have a strong historical connection with Kurds. Today and historically. Just google it. Also, Akhund Salih 17th Baloch historian state that Kurds and Baloch are from same roots in his book "Kurd gal namak".

The question is how you can put such a useless sentence in Wikipedia encyclopedia? How these two Kurdish tribes can be listed in against Kurds in general? Garnik Asatrian is a political guy working for benefit of Persians' and Armenians. He know nothing.

Key Mîrza (talk) 12:08, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks my man. When are you going to write this? Eagerly waiting.

Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:04, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Yeah, that's a top one on my non-existent to-do list. Initially I meant it as a tongue-in-cheek joke, but actually I am quite serious about the statement, and already have a few good sources. Maybe I'll turn it into a collection of quotes ... –Austronesier (talk) 09:02, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, that's a serious topic. While in-depth knowledge of languages and genetics makes one embrace all, but a lot of times supremacists, nativists, separatist use these to further their own agenda. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:20, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Absolutely. There is a lot of valuable research that tries to find and measure the correlations between languages, genetics and archaeology, but in the wrong hands and without proper understanding of the scientific context, results from this research can be abused for all kinds of bogus claims, sometimes just on silly amateur blogs without an agenda, but very often also by such toxic groups that you have mentioned. –Austronesier (talk) 09:35, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I used trawl a lot of genetics related forums and blogs. In major forums like Anthrogenica, people are level headed, but in some blogs and anthro sites, you'll find all these kind of people. I've seen some north and south euros hurling comments based on their respective east Asian and African admixtures. Some south Asians with higher "steppe levels" get too happy about it and display inappropriately in the internets, likewise those with high "SAHG" levels have that "nativist, we are first, get out of here outsiders" attitude. I mean what the hell. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:37, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I try to avoid places densely populated by dumb people, IRL and online. Some sites are good as long as you skip the comment sections, but we can't the blame the good-faith makers for the trash section of their consumers (just like with TV shows, sigh). –Austronesier (talk) 11:10, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Eh, completely unrelated to this, but what's your take on this one? –Austronesier (talk) 13:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

As you know, this infobox should only mention "official" and "recognized" minority languages. I believe there is no room for "honorary languages". Some body added this to support the Sierra Leone entry. Is it still "official" tehre? If not, we should remove it. The Chicago thing that the user added looks like POV, IMO. According to it "The Bengali language has been included in the offices and courts of a large area in the vicinity". I'm removing that. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:56, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

August 2020

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback the additions I made were for the reason as it's ambiguous. There are many communities who have learnt Pashto and now even claim to be Pashtuns. Therefore, I consider it important that such clarification is made that one who has adopted that culture but belongs to Sarbanris, Karlanris, Bettanis or Ghorghustis Confederates of Pashtuns.

Regards Azmarai76 (talk) 10:07, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@Azmarai76: Thank you, if the information is significant, we all the more need sources that it back up. Your edit modified sourced content, which made it look as if the content you had added is also found in the reference by Beebe Bahrami. This is something you should by all means avoid. –Austronesier (talk) 11:29, 28 August 2020 (UTC)