Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liburnian language

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was No consensus, default to keep. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liburnian language

Liburnian_language (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

The whole information about the so-called Liburnian language seems to me very unreliable if not fake. Such long existence of a relict Indo-European language in Europe would be a scientific sensation; however, this language actually "exists" only in Wikipedia and its clones. Isn't it strange, Dmitri Lytov 16:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Delete. "Liburnian language" is original research & mistification, as Siberian language--Nikolay Kolpakov 18:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 15:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Question/Comment - I see that the apparent creator of this article is currently banned from editing Wikipedia. Can someone enlighten me on the possible significance of that, either here or on my talk page? Thanks! Keesiewonder 01:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Keep. Liburnian has an entry over at Linguist List, and an ISO 639-3 code. The article certainly needs a rewrite, but even if it isn't a real language, it'd still be worth having an article that begins "Liburnian is a hoax Indo-European language fabricated by..." --Ptcamn 17:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and an entry in Trask's Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics: "Liburnian An extinct and sparsely recorded language spoken on the coast of Croatia in Roman times, probably related to Illyrian or to Venetic (opinions differ)." Seems pretty real to me. --Ptcamn 17:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This old language is only mentioned but not attested by any inscriptions, so that people can only guess about its origin. As far as I know, ancient authors wrote nothing about the origin of Liburnian people. --Dmitri Lytov 10:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete or Re-Write - while Liburnian is a real, attested language, the "neo-Liburnian" language, added by User:195.29.48.224 seems to be patent nonsense. Dewrad 17:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This is patent nonsense, certainly anything post-Roman in it. Delete it as soon as possible, it just brings the wikipedia into disrepute.

If anyone disagrees with me, let's look at the following quotation: "Among 23,700 noted words, ...". OK, let's see those 23,700 words, where are they - in what books, in which libraries, authenticated by which scholars?

Gsandi 14:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, W.marsh 20:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm looking for resources, haven't found anything to share yet, and have asked someone passionate about languages for their input. Keesiewonder 11:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC) / I've since learned that both the Ethnologue and Omniglot sites do not have any mention of the Liburnian language. Keesiewonder 10:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. The topic is encyclopedic. Problems over content are not solved by deletion. If we decide to delete this, it will be questionable whether anyone is allowed to create an article about the real Liburnian language without some tedious and problematic "resurrection" procedure here. (I would consent to any sort of deletion of this page only if the deletion deletes hoax content edits, but not the topic itself.) Maed 07:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep - I'm glad to hear the opinion that the topic is encyclopedic. Can you then refer me to some resources so I can read about it for myself? I have not been very successful yet on my own (I'm usually pretty good at finding resources) and am doing my best to remain open minded. I will try to locate the references noted on the article's page. Regards, Keesiewonder 12:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC) / Amazon.com allows you to search within Wilkes' book mentioned on the article's page. Searching for Liburnian yields 35 hits, none of which appear to have anything to do with a Liburnian language. Please see [1]. With that, I vote delete since I will not be able to read the other 2 resources mentioned unless they are translated to English. Keesiewonder 10:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC) / Reconsider from a delete to a weak keep, focusing on input from Ptcamn and DGG. Keesiewonder 11:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment There does seem to be a book discussing neo-Liburnic (details on Talk:Liburnian language) but one of the authors may be rather "non-mainstream". Tending towards 'delete' unless someone can stub it down to verifiable facts about the ancient language. --HJMG 16:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete unless someone has the specialist knowledge to present differing opinions from a NPOV. My second choice would be for someone to create a stubby article mentioning Trask - as quoted by Ptcamn above - and Glanville Price: "Liburnian . . . . If, which is uncertain, their Illyrian-type speech was sufficiently distinct to have constituted a separate language, the evidence of place-names from the area suggests that it was similar to Venetic." --HJMG 12:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Being bold, I have simply reverted the article back to a version without the controversial "Neo-Liburnian". Hopefully this should satisfy everyone? Dewrad 20:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you, Dewrad. It certainly is better, but I'm still concerned that this article may be speculation dressed up as knowledge. The article has too many un-cited, vague assertions like "It appears to have been...", "may well have been", "a number of linguists argue" and "probably very early in the Common era" while giving the impression that such theories are more or less established as facts. The title and overall approach to the topic may be inherently POV since apparently not everyone agrees it was a distinct language. The sources seem rather sparse. The Wilkes book only mentions names and the Untermann article is 16 pages long, but may not be all about Liburnian. --HJMG 16:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• KeepSpecialized knowledge is not necessary. What is necessary is that a language with an iso code and multiple mentions in major reference work in the subject is notable. (this is an article about the Liburnian language, so it also does not require specialist knowledge to see that any doubts about a neo-Liburnian language is besides the point. If there's an article on it eventually then we can appropriately discuss neo--Liburnian DGG 05:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you DGG. I agree about the language having an ISO code. Good point. And, for "multiple mentions in major reference works," you must then consider two works, Trask and Price, adequate, even if all there is in each work is 1-2 sentences. I can agree with that ... Keesiewonder 11:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.