Talk:Borneo-Philippines languages

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[edit] Confusing group name

The name of this article and the grouping of languages in it is very confusing.

According to Ethnologue the name of the language is different and so is the grouping of languages: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=89852

Moreover the interwiki links point to even stranger things.

This article does cite one source, but it's probably printed and i don't have access to it.

I am trying to clean up the mess in Category:Austronesian languages and Category:Malayo-Polynesian languages and this is a serious stumbling block.

My actual knowledge of Austronesian languages is almost zero, so any help will be appreciated. --Amir E. Aharonid (talk) 20:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Ethnologue is not a reliable source and should not be used unless there is nothing better. (It's merely a complete source, which is quite rare, so that's why people use it.) You could use "Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian languages" if you prefer, but either way this is the latest respectable classification that I'm aware of. It is, however, very possible, maybe probable, that only Inner Western Malayo-Polynesian constitutes a valid genealogical node, and that Outer WMP will turn out to be paraphyletic the way Formosan is. For example, the Kadai languages may turn out to be Outer WMP. kwami (talk) 20:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, i encountered weird internal contradictions in Ethnologue a couple of times, so i don't count on it blindly. Unfortunately i am not aware of any better online source about Austronesian languages. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It was pointed out in the 14th ed. that some of their languages don't even exist, but even then some of them made it to the 15th. It's a real hodgepodge, as any work of that magnitude would have to be.

The MP articles currently follow Wouk & Ross down to the level that they covered. (The did not go above MP.) At the lower levels they follow earlier classifications, some of which may be from Ethnologue. kwami (talk) 22:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)