Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tamil language

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[edit] Tamil language

This is almost a self-nomination. I did a major rewrite, content addition and formatting according to the standard template for language articles. Had earlier put it for peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Tamil language/archive1. Had converted the alphabet chart into image format to avoid browser incompatibility on Bishonen's suggestion there. I feel that the article is mature enough and is of featured-quality. -- Sundar 06:56, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

  • comments: a map would be desirable. the "Dialects" section is a list without commentary. We would at least want a map to show their distribution. I'm not sure about the tablea-as-images: I cannot render Tamil Unicode, but I would use something like the table on Tamil alphabet, with a small image of each letter on top of the Unicode glyph). "Writing system" looks a bit orphaned, at the bottom there, it should probably come before "Phonology". A short section about Tamil literature would also be nice. The detailed explanation of the example sentence is very nice. dab (ᛏ) 07:48, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • I've requested for help with maps from User:Nichalp. "Writing system" moved above. Pjacobi has offered to work on the tables over the weekend.-- Sundar 05:53, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
      • Vadakkan has rectified most issues pointed out. -- Sundar 12:58, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object.

1) No references. This is a basic requirement of a featured article. Please do not nominate articles that do not meet them.

2) There are many sections with only a few sentences or a single paragraph, or merely a summation. This indicates that either more can (and should) be said about the topic, or that the structure of the article should be revised.

3) Some (at least one) sound samples of spoken Tamil are needed.

4) Some of the section jump from topic to topic, notably the Grammar section. Text flow needs to be improved in these sections.

    • It has improved after Vadakkan's edit, but the grammar section still needs improvement. -- Sundar 05:53, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
      • Done - the grammar section has been totally rewritten and now flows quite well. Ditto the section on phonology. -- Arvind 17:40, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

5) I think mentioning Tamil as a language spoken in for example the Netherlands is ridiculous. I looked it up, and there are an estimated 2000 Tamils (7000 acc to ethnologue) living in the Netherlands (on a population of 16 million). Even if all of them speak Tamil, that's not a significant number. Jeronimo 08:07, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

    • Done. That part is removed in the box and rephrased in the geographic distribution. -- Sundar 05:53, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
My objections seem to have been resolved. Support. Jeronimo 08:36, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks to both of you for the comments. I'll try to rectify soon. -- Sundar 08:28, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Awesome article... Conditional Support When the references are added, then this is a support vote. If not, it's a neutral vote. Squash 09:39, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Will do that soon. -- Sundar 11:43, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • Someone shall acquire relevant papers from this list or shall try to get authoritative books from the library on this subject and reference them. -- Sundar 11:54, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Layman's conditional support, I fear there's still a lot to do, starting with the literature references. I have the article on my watchlist since I'm on Wikipedia but unfortunately without much ability to enhance it myself. Some thoughts:
    • The "spoken in" table entry just went nuts in a lot a language articles, there should a serious clarification, where to draw the limit. And some volunteers watching all these boxes. Fortunately nobody added Tamil to Category:Languages of Netherlands (yet).
      • I've no problem in removing non-obvious entries from there. Feel free to remove them. -- Sundar 11:43, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
        • Done. -- Sundar 12:58, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
    • I hope (and wait for the experts' judgements) the dates in the history section are in accordance with current scholarly opinion, as they were often targets of edit ambushes in the past of the article.
      • Newer evidences are coming to surface as latest as today. Please refer to this news item. -- Sundar 11:43, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
      • Done - the section has been checked, and a reference to a source has been inserted. -- Arvind 17:40, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
    • It's a plus that the alphabet tables are converted to graphics and include IPA pronounciation, but:
      • IPA should be written with brackets, not slashes
      • The IPA column should be given the header "sound", the current "sound column" better replacved with romanization columns
      • Both ASCII based and scientific romanization should be given
        • I'll wait for some time till someone else does this as I'm somewhat busy with work. If noone does that, I'll try to do that myself. -- Sundar 11:43, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
        • Done. -- Arvind 17:40, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
    • Don't we have the ability to upload and link audio clips? That would be most cool for language with a rather different phonem inventory than most readers are used to.
      • I know of audio clip sources for Tamil, but have to see the license conditions. -- Sundar 11:43, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
        • I was more thinking along the line of you speaking the example phrases and recording that. --Pjacobi 12:26, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)
          • Oh. Me, of all the people, with my horrible voice. Let me try to get it done from one of my friends. First of all, I need a Windows machine with the whole setup. Also, it appears that I may not be able to contribute to the article in a big way for the next couple of weeks. So, if nobody else helps with the objections, I may be withdrawing the nomination. :-( Meanwhile, I've requested comments from Prof.Hart through mail. -- Sundar 12:41, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Pjacobi 10:28, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)
  • Support. The references had been used properly, just had not been added to the article. Sound samples would be great to. The more the better. Especially that alphabet song :) Object. No references. As a courtesy to other editor's time, please make sure the article you nominate meets all of the featured article criteria before nominating it. - Taxman 14:02, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • I apologise for not doing so. I thought a brute force method of receiving quick objections and rectifying the errors in one go might work as the article didn't get much attention in Wikipedia:Peer review/Tamil language/archive1. Now, a few contributors like Pjacobi, Vadakkan etc have started working on the article. Let us see if we can bring it to FA status or else I'll withdraw the nomination. -- Sundar 15:34, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
      • Well, now you know. Please follow that advice in the future. This looks like it will pass FA if not this time, then the next. Peer review is improving, as more editors are commenting, and more people are implementing the suggestions. It will take time, but it is becoming a more valuable process. Now as to references, as has been pointed out to me by multiple people, adding references solely in response to a request for them carries the risk that they were not properly used as references and they are just being added to check off another requirement. I have asked Vadakkan to confirm their proper use. - Taxman 15:08, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
    • I've added a tongue twister as a sample of how the language sounds. I'd be very happy if someone with a better voice than mine can sing the first few alphabet verses from the atticudi (or just recite/chant it). Arvind 19:48, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment — On an 800x600 resolution the horizontal scrollbar is extremely irritating. Consider moving the offending table to another page. Nichalp 19:43, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • Should I presume that you meant the table in the Examples section? If so, what can we put there as a summary? By the way, can you help with creating a map showing the Tamil-speaking areas around the world? (I know your expertise in maps ;) -- Sundar 04:15, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
      • Btw, I've reduced the font size of the table. Feel free to format it further to make it even more smaller. Once the phoneme charts are modified, made smaller and inline with the paragraph text, the article should be shorter. -- Sundar 06:06, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
        • After putting a lot of thought into it, I don't think the table can be compressed further. What you can do instead, is put up a simple example, a very basic example on the page and move the table contents to a new page. This would clean up the current mess. Nichalp 18:14, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
          • User:Kaal compressed the table horizontally by combining three columns into one. This issue seems to be fixed for now. -- Brhaspati 01:07, 2005 Feb 20 (UTC)
  • Most of the concerns have been addressed. -- Sundar 12:58, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
    • All have now been addressed, as far as I can see. -- Arvind 17:40, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. All the concerns have been addressed. This article is now awesome. -- Kishore 03:53, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Image:WikiThanks.png - Thanks for the wonderful edits by Vadakkan which were well supported by Brhaspathi, Kaal, Nichalp and others. Now the article has reached featured-quality. -- Sundar 04:48, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. This article is fantastic, but I have one doubt in this. The character "akh" is called as Aayidha Ezhuththu not aayudha ezhuththu, I believe. The image of the shield is put in the Tamil books for school children to visualize and remember it better, but we seem to associate the shield as weapon and call it as Aayudha Ezhuththu. It is also called saarbezhuththu, since it cannot be used separately. Correct me if wrong, and if I'm right correct the article. -- Santhoshguru 07:57, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • AFIK, it is called aayutha ezhuthu, may be, I'm wrong. The association with a shield may be because of what you say. If you find any references or any info regarding the name do add that. I agree on the saarbezhuthu part. We should add it to the article. -- Sundar 08:36, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
    • Perhaps it would be appropriate to list all the different saarbezhuthukkal of which only(?) 'akh' has a visual representation. I think characters undergoing elision are also called saarbezhuthukkal. In fact, ezhuthu in Tamil may not correspond entirely with a character, lexeme or phoneme. -- Sundar 08:45, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
      • Take a look at my edit to the section which, I think, fixes the problem. I don't think we need to discuss all the saarbezhuthukkal in this article - although we perhaps could do that in the article on the Tamil alphabet. -- Arvind 13:01, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
        • Your latest edits are fine. And I do agree that such detail as saarbezhuthukkal belongs in Tamil alphabet and not in this article. -- Sundar 14:55, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
        • The change is good. But still I have one small issue in that, article says "The āytham is also called ahenam or āyutha ezhuthu ". I think it must sound something like this "The āytham is also called ahenam or ஆய்த எழுத்து, but people pronounce it wrongly as āyutha ezhuthu due to the association of shield with it". May be the structure of the sentence is bad, but I think you people can get what I want to say. -- Santhoshguru 09:57, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
          • It's not really a mispronunciation - ஆயுத எழுத்து has become one of the names which people use for the letter, thanks to the association with the shield. I've reworded the section a little bit more - see if you agree with the present. And this is really a very small niggle which doesn't have much to do with the article's FAC, so we probably should move this discussion to the talk page rather than continuing it here. -- Arvind 13:59, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
            • I agree with you, this really is a small niggle. Lets move forward. -- Santhoshguru 15:20, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)