Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gbe languages

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[edit] Gbe languages

The most comprehensive online resource on the Gbe languages. Has benefited very much from thorough peer reviews by Taxman, Peter Isotalo and Bishonen (see archived request). Self-nomination. — mark ✎ 21:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

• Strong support - I would have considered it to meet the criteria weeks ago. - Mustafaa 21:42, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support. All (reasonable) demands have certainly been met, and then some! / Peter ^Isotalo 21:48, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
• Enthusiastic Support. And I was hoping to be the first to support, but I had to take a phone call :). But he gives too much credit (to me at least). He has done tremendous research on this article and it shows, but is also well written and interesting. It is also a great example of what can happen in an effective peer review process as he did a great job implementing suggestions, and explaining his reasoning on those he didn't agree with. - Taxman 21:50, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
• Support — This article takes me beyond Ewe to see the broader picture. It is well researched and well written. There is no doubt on reading this that it is of the supreme encyclopaedic standard. --Gareth Hughes 22:45, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support it makes an excellent FA. --nixie 05:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Nice. Phils 05:44, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support -- ALoan (Talk) 10:13, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support - An excellent piece of work. Congrats to Mark and all involved. OpenToppedBus 13:25, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
• Support, but some minor quabbles.

1. I would move the map image to the top and give it a more prominent place.
2. Some of the letters in the linguistic features section don't show up. Please add a link to this font in near the table.
3. Where did the name Gbe languages came from? Mgm|^(talk) 20:50, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

• • (1) Moving the map has been tried [1]; it made the article look cluttered. I thought the whitespace right of the TOC was the nicest place. (2) There is a known problem with Internet Explorer not displaying some vowel symbols with tone marks on them (it was also discussed on the PR request). I'm afraid it can't be solved, though I'll try a thing or two. (3) In Gbe languages#Naming it says that Gbe is the word for 'language' in all Gbe varieties. Perhaps too off-hand? — mark ✎ 22:09, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Excellent piece of work and very informative. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 07:23, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
• Comments. Certainly worthy of high praise. I love the map. One thing I'm wondering is if it would be possible to obtain a sound sample from (one of) the language(s) as a .ogg file? A reading of a part of the gospel text shown or (as I would prefer) some native text. I think audio files are one aspect where Wikipedia can really outshine traditional paper encyclopedias. As for the gospel text I have something of a personal bias against using translated bible texts as text samples for different languages. To me it smacks of the old missionary attitude that the only reason to study a language and produce an orthography for it is to bring the scripture to a new people. I would much prefer some other text as a sample here, a native one or something like the frequently used "North Wind and the Sun". A personal and relatively small complaint, to be sure. The gospel text sample is certainly preferable to no text sample. All in all, congratulations on a work well done. Haukurth 01:35, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Presumably modern linguists don't like to use bible translations as samples? I've always assumed that the big reason they do is that these translations are usually the earliest, and sometimes the only, samples available. (And that the small reason is they can be compared with one another.) Bishonen | talk 06:29, 28 May 2005(UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Haukurth. I would love to add sound samples — the only problem is that it is a little difficult to get them. I promise that I'll add them as soon as I've laid my hands upon some recordings.

I can understand what you mean with regard to bible texts as samples. As Bishonen says, sometimes it's the only text source available. In this case it isn't, though — there are loads of literature in Ewe, and also a reasonable amount in Fon (though less so in any of the Phla-Pherá dialects). Anyway, I picked this one mainly because the translation is easy to look up for most readers. I fully agree that a native text would be better, so I'm on the lookout for a suitable one including a translation. —

Support. Good luck finding recordings and text samples :) Haukurth

mark ✎ 21:57, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

• Support, yet another tour de force by Mark. Bishonen | talk 06:29, 28 May 2005 (UTC)