Wikipedia:Featured article review/Tamil language/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 20:21, 1 May 2007.

Contents

[edit] Tamil language

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Sundar, Ganeshk, India noticeboard, Tamil Nadu, and Languages.

I am far from a regular participant in areas related to featured articles. But I know when something at least comes close to acheiving featured article status. I appreciate the work that has gone into this page, but this, I'm afraid, is far from featured article quality at present. There are justifiable {{fact}} tags littering the intro and pretty much all of the rest of the article, and some of the prose is vague, unsupported and/or weaselish. Examples: "Tamil is one of the few living classical languages and has an unbroken literary tradition of over two millennia[citation needed]." No citation or mention of this at all in the body of the article. "However, there are many purists who would argue against the use of such characters as there are well-defined rules in the Tolkāppiyam[citation needed] for Tamilising loan words." Who's "many"? This barely begins to describe the woes of this article. Grandmasterka 07:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

  • The infobox contradicts the lead (giving the rank as 13-17; lead says 18, with cite-needed tag). Only four (!) footnotes for the entire article--the scattered {{fact}} tags Grandmasterka mentions don't even tell the full story...because barely any claims in the article are referenced, not just claims with {{fact}} tags by them. It gets worse, though: all four of those footnotes are from one section, "Legal Status"; more specifically, they're all from the second paragraph of that section. Three of them are citing a single sentence. So for all practical purposes the article cites two claims, those two claims being in two successive sentences. Totally unacceptable. As it stands now, I agree the article is clearly not FA-quality. --Miskwito 02:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, there are 7 inline citations I missed, in the form "author (year)". --Miskwito 03:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • If citations are added, it could still be a featured article. Also there is the issue of red links in the languages of the Tamil Family like Kaikadi. Even if these are tackled, think this could only become a Good article. --Agεθ020 (ΔT • ФC) 02:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Please Consider the following references

Tamil has been declared a Classical language by the Indian government. This has been done after an extensive research and a political process. See:

This article assumes some basic Tamil background knowledge from the reader. Continuous literary tradition is well established. Please do some background reading about Tamil literature and, one can understand that statement. The above web site would be of value in that regards.

Counting only the first lanaguage speakers: Tamil is #15, according to the following paper: http://www.frenchteachers.org/bulletin/articles/promote/top%20languages.pdf

If second language speakers are counted it drops to #18, according to Ethnologue. http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/help/top-100-languages-by-population.html

13-17, probably due to uncertainty or same number of people speaking some other lanuages.

I am an editor at Tamil Wikipedia. This article is well researched, and written by informed contributors. Let me know if I can be of more help.

--Natkeeran 05:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


Vandalism

This article has gone under a very calculated vandalism. The article’s primary monitors are not highly active at this moment. The statements are being manipulated to degrade the quality of this article. I urge those with good spirit to compare the actual FA or a stable recent version (before vandalsim), and the current status and revert the vandalism as much as possible.

I can assure that the quality of the article was much better before. But, now it be being down graded little by little. Particularly, the into and history sections have been badly degraded.

--Natkeeran 06:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I responded on the article's talk page. This is the approved featured article version, when the standards were much lower, which still has the more significant problems I pointed out. Grandmasterka 08:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you are probably right about the references not being adequate, but when the content is being manipulated the references can not match. There is vandalism taking place. I can sense by reviewing the edit history. I have notified other contributors, they may be able to help us improve and/or recover the article.

For example, see the contradition in the following two statements:

External chronological records and internal linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works were probably composed sometime in the 2nd century CE.
The earliest extant text in Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on poetics and grammar which describes the language of the classical period. The oldest portions of this book may date back to around 200 BCE (Hart, 1975).

--Natkeeran 07:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Example 2: Why is the following statement necessary in the first sentence? When did UNESCO became the primary authority to declare a language classical or not. It could be a footnote. Not necessary in the first sentence.

"(Recognized by the Indian Government and still not yet recognised by UNESCO)"

Example 3: The below statement is totally opposite to what was before.

The ordinary form of the modern language used in speech and writing, in contrast, has undergone significant changes, to the extent that a person who has not learnt the higher literary form will have difficulty understanding it.[clarify]

Due to continuity, classical Tamil is understandable with some study. The statement before was “The written language has changed little during this period, with the result that classical literature is as much a part of everyday Tamil as modern literature. Tamil school-children, for example, are still taught the alphabet using the átticúdi, an alphabet rhyme written around the first century A.D.”

In other words, the claim that the modern Tamil writing changed significantly is an arguable claim. The fact that school children are able to understand ancient work with little study shows that Tamil writing has not changed that much; relative to other classical languages.

Example 4: Recently added comments...

"But unfortunately the word "Sangam" originates from Sanskrit word "Sang". This throws some light on origin of Tamil from Sanskrit. The "Aa", the first alphabet of Tamil resembles Semitic "Aleph". Tamil words for house, town etc seems to be originated from Proto-Hebrew. Tamil words for king, life, god etc seems to be originated from Sanskrit. Recent researches show that Tamil is a borrowed complex language than a self-evolved classical language."

This article has been vandalized with an intent to demerit Tamil as a classical language, (along with perhaps other motives), and of independent origin of Sanskrit. This is a well established conflict. Please do not engage in this controversy at Wikipedia. Take a 'live and let others live' attitude. Please let your views know in the discussion page before making erratic changes to a FA.

Thank you. --Natkeeran 08:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see here. I have responded to Natkeeran's dubious claims. Sarvagnya 10:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

His respose has be shown to be inadequate. But he has identified the problem as content dispute, and not random vandalism, which is a good thing. I urge a reasonable discussion.--Natkeeran 20:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments by Dbachmann

I might give it a {{GA}} in its present state, but only just. Observations:

There were number of stable versions. I will try to note the versions. So, please reserve your judgment.

  • the 'ஃ' section is completely superfluous and belongs merged into Tamil script
  • You may be right, it can be added to Tamil script. However, that letter has cultural significance, and a special use that can justify its own subsection.
  • a clean presentation of a romanization system is missing. Tamil script gives a transliteration scheme, but doesn't identify it. It is imperative that a romanization scheme is introduced before various romanized forms are discussed. Is it National Library at Kolkata romanization?
  • Is a presentation of a romanization system mandatory requirement for all languages. Please explain.
  • the "Sounds" section has a "Phonology" subsection. This should be re-arranged, i.e. the h2 section should be called "Phonology". Create a main article Tamil phonology to stash the gory details. The "tongue twister" link belongs under external links or "see also".
  • Yes, I agree. This section can be improved.
  • the grammar section is fair as it is, but it discusses morphology under a "parts of speech" header for some reason. Treatment of nominal and verbal morphology is very brief compared to phonology.
  • the merit of the "example" section is somewhat questionable (I would merge it into Tamil grammar), it should in any case be cleaned up to get rid of the crappy ASCII transliteration scheme.
  • the Literature section looks fine, but it should perhaps be broken up in a "grammar/lexica" section vs. sociolinguistics studies etc. (compare Arabic_language#References). Which are the standard works used in academia?
  • Which academia? Tamil Literature is an important conceptual scheme in the Tamil context.
  • the pdf screenshot Image:TolkaappiyamExcerpt.png strikes me as useless and unencyclopedic. If we don't have a nice manuscript image, the section is better off without an image.
  • You ignored the content of the image, which was the main part. If you read it. It is very understable to most Tamils. It is there to illustrate the accessibility, and continuity of the Ancient work. Sure, if there is a better way to present it, that would be nice.
  • the "Vocabulary" section needs its citation requests worked out, and should maybe be merged with "History", since it discusses historical layers of loans.
  • The vocabulary section is under a “Content War”. Reference requests are being used as a weapon. But, you are right to point this out.
  • the article absolutely needs a "Literature" section summarizing Tamil literature.
  • Yes, you are right.
  • ah, and of course the intro needs to be kept free of empty hype. The "one of the most ancient languages of the world" statement has no place here, just say it is attested since 200 BCE and be done.
  • Intro is being highly contested at this point. It is not stable.
Overall, your observations are valuable, and positive. You have concretely identified some weakness in the article. I can help address your concerns. But, the Content War must stop. Otherwise, there is no point in the cycle of insert/delete recover/degrade saga.

I primarily contribute to Tamil Wikipedia. There we are working on a Language Article Prototype. We have discussed the following structure.

  • General Intro
  • Language History History of Tamil Language
  • Classification and Language Family
  • Speakers and Geographic Distribution, including Official Recognition
  • Cultural Context and Language's philosophical and/or metaphysical setting (important for Tamil)
  • Language Phonology (spoken language) - Tamil phonology
  • Language Dialects Tamil Language Dialects
  • Language Writing System (Alphabets and/or other systems) - Tamil script
  • (Spoken and literary variants)
  • Language Grammar Tamil grammar
  • Language Vocabulary
  • Language Literature Tamil literature
  • Language Modernity (Use in Science, Technology, Commerce, Politics etc) Contemporary use of Tamil and/or Modern Tamil
  • Language Learning - Tamil Studies or Tamilology
  • Language Institutions Tamil Language Instituions
  • Language Media (can be included with institutions) Tamil Media

You seems to be an expert in the lanaguage front, I would welcome your comments about the above structure. I can suggest this for Tamil language in enWpedia as well. I was not very involved in the early editing, so I am hesitant to make any significant changes. --Natkeeran 20:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

dab (𒁳) 16:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Content War

Wikipedia allows for multiple view points, but not replacement of view points. The native Tamil view points are being edited out. The purpose it seems to be show:

  • Tamil is not a “global classical language”; which is not true. It is or it can be under any reasonable set of criteria. Please provide the criteria, and one would be able to show whether it is “global classical language or not.”
  • The second attack is from Sanskrit Extremists, who are playing out external political battles in Wikipedia.
  • Why was ranking changed to 20?

If there is a content war, then request for reference becomes a weapon of war. Lets discuss content issues in the talk pages. And not get into insert/delete, recover/degrade cycles.

--Natkeeran 19:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

“global classical language”;..... which is not true. It is or it can be under any reasonable set of criteria.
'Reasonable set of criteria'? Would you mind spelling out what that 'set of criteria' is? Would you first start by providing proper references for Classical languages and answering the concerns of other editors on Talk:Classical languages. And I request you to stop your conspiracy theories NOW! Sarvagnya 20:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
http://www.ciil-classicaltamil.org/ Centre of Excellence for Classical Tamil; [1]
It is the official Indian government's website. It has some best minds in the field. Visit that website. It is in English. You can get a sense of the entire scholarly and political basis and process behind the assertation that 'Tamil is a Classical language'. If you have a bias, or some dispute, please declare. I can try to help you address your concerns. --Natkeeran 20:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, the Indian governments criteria for classical language can be a starting point. --Natkeeran 20:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Both of the articles you cited about are in dispute already. If you can provide credible criteria, I can show whether Tamil fits or not. If I come up with or use a criteria that I put forward, you can still accuse me of bias. --Natkeeran 21:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Unreasonable expectations - The primary readership of this article includes Tamils It is unreasonable to expect that all English speakers should understand completely an article about Tamil without any background study. Wikipedia science or technical articles would not expect everyone to understand complex subjects immediately. Similarly, an article about a language has diverse readership.

A primary source of readers about Tamil are the Tamils themselves. It was written in such a way to provide valuable information to Tamils, alnog with others. It is a reasonable assumption. Why Ayutha Eluthu is important can only be understand in its cultural context.

Of course, Wikipedia is open for everyone to contribute. But, it works because there is certain level of respect shown towards other contributors, and there is an effort to learn the contexts of an article. --Natkeeran 19:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure why you are bringing this up on FAR. Criteria for the Tamil language article are the same as for any other language article (excepting the English language one, of course, since English is the only language knowledge of which is intrinsically required on en-wiki). Fair examples of language FAs are Swedish language, Aramaic language, Bengali language and Russian language. dab (𒁳) 20:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for the examples. I am not sure what FAR stands for, but I must say it is difficult to write articles about a lanaguge. I have tried to address and/or provide some comments about your concerns above. When I say backgrond study, I did not mean language study, but perhaps some knowledge about basic linguistics or and some awareness about the cultural context of the language. --Natkeeran 20:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
FAR is "Featured Article Review", which is what you're reading right now. This is a subpage of the main FAR page, which is getting clogged up by this thing. Grandmasterka 21:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments by Sarvagnya I feel that the article is well short of FA quality. No doubt it is a well written article and lot of effort has been put into it by editors like Arvind and Sundar. But the article badly needs more solid referencing. I get the feeling that the editors have taken lot of info for granted and have failed to think from the lay reader's perspective. In other words, what might be 'common sense', 'common knowledge' to the editors of the article may not actually be so for the lay reader even if he has some background in history and linguistics. This is just genuine oversight and I am sure it can be remedied simply with the addition of references. I have added some fact tags where I feel references are a must if this article is to be FA quality.

In other places, I feel the language sounds a bit confused and I have added some "clarifyme" tags. For example, the article says,

"The origins of Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is unknown..." - Does it mean that origins of all non-Dravidian languages are known?

Then it goes on to say, "...but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, are independent of Sanskrit..."

Kannada is an established literary language in India. Does the above sentence imply that Kannada is NOT independent of Sanskrit? Clarify please and/or at the very least reword.

Sarvagnya, I agree that the sentence could be reworded, but "the other" literary languages excludes Kannada as a preceding clause clubs the Dravidian languages together for exclusion. However, it still would be a problem for an Indian language belonging to a third family. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 14:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

And a request to Natkeeran, please sign every single comment of yours and keep your discussions germane. Please spend some time on making your comments intelligible(indenting etc.,.). Thanks. Sarvagnya 22:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

To all interested/involved editors, please shift detailed discussion/suggestions (or whatever) to the talk page of the article. Hopefully, all these discussions will result in adequate improvement of the article, so that the article retains the FA status. After or during the improvements, summary of improvements done can be presented here in the review. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Sarvagnya that the article as it stands falls short of FA quality. Not all that far, an expert editor could fix it in one or two hours. I am not sure this is going to happen, however, and it may be better to revoke FA status until the concerns voiced above are addressed. dab (𒁳) 07:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the FA standards were lower when this article was promoted. I've added a copule of refernce to address {{fact}} tags. I'm contacting Arvind (the primary contributor) asking for help. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 14:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm in France on a research trip at the moment, and the only materials I have deal with esoteric points of French legal history, but give me a few days and I'll see what I can do to address the points that've been raised. Let's not be in a rush to de-feature it if it can be salvaged, OK? -- Arvind 17:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I've added references and rewritten chunks of the text. The section on Sounds / Phonology still needs a good overhaul. I'd suggest hiving it off into an article of its own and leaving a well-written summary here - any volunteers (hi, Sundar)? The section on dialects could do with a little polish as well, especially re caste-based dialects. Apart from that, are people's concerns starting to be met? -- Arvind 22:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for stepping in, Arvind. I've copied the Sounds section to Tamil phonology blindly and have attempted at a modest condensation. Would try summarising it tomorrow. I hope the article will soon meet FA standards with some help from other volunteers. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 15:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Progressing well

Great job guys, I never would have thought this would be salvageable anytime in the near future, but I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now. I never expected this outpouring of editors to come along and fix it. I'm still not sure it will be a FA when the smoke clears, but it will at least be relatively close. Grandmasterka 22:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is in very good shape to be retained as FA. If there are still areas of concerns, it is best to point them out here- so that it can be reviewed and addressed. --Aadal 13:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)--Aadal 13:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I think most issues identified in this page have now been addressed. As Aadal says, if there're any further issues, it would be useful to have them enumerated so we can do something about trying to fix them. -- Arvind 15:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I think pretty much all the issues have been addressed. The only thing I'm really concerned with is that the grammar section isn't very referenced, but I don't necessarily think that's a huge, major deal right now. --Miskwito 20:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Comments Work to be done. Mixed reference styles; cites in infobox should be converted to cite.php to conform with the rest of the article. The note in the lead has an unprofessional appearance; is there a better way to incorporate that information, for example, in a footnote? Footnotes are not formatted, for example, the first note is ^ Top 30 languages of the world. We need to know at minimum publisher and last access date on websources, and author and publication date when available. Examples are available at WP:CITE/ES. External links should be pruned per WP:EL, WP:NOT. References would be easier to deal with if they were listed alphabetically by last name of author. Pls see WP:DASH; I changed one as an example—there are many more. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC) PS, as an aside, is it possible to combine some of the eight sections above? This review has taken over the FAR TOC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I've tried fixing problems mentioned by Sandy above. Please check out. I'd need someone else volunteer to fix dash style issues. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 08:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Refs still aren't done; I left a few samples which include inline comments that must be addressed (I wasn't sure what date format is used in India, so one date I entered may be wrong, and one of the sources is a Wiki link going nowhere, Wiki isn't a reliable source). Another example of an incomplete ref is a b Statement by George L. Hart Who published it, what date, last access date needed on all websources. What is this ref? the report submitted by Tamil Nadu State Government to Central Government of India to claim the Classic Language status. I'll work on the dashes unless someone already did it. There are empty ISBNs in the list of books (?)—they should be left off or completed—in the infobox on my userpage is an ISBN finder. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC) I think I caught all the dashes; can the suggested merge be dealt with ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm inclined to send this to FARC on the basis of the prose in the lead alone. An article on language, a beautiful and powerful language at that, deserves to be described in the best English, and to be organised logically on the clause level.
    • Second sentence—category problem: " It is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and also has official status in Sri Lanka and Singapore." What's the difference between official language and official status? Remove the redundant "also".
    • Third sentence: "With more than 77 million speakers,[2] an ancient history, a rich and continuous literature, and an international and modern presence Tamil is one of the major languages of the world." What's a "continuous" literature? Is this necessary? What's a "modern presence"? Comma just about mandatory after "presence".
    • Fourth sentence: "Like the other Dravidian languages, Tamil is characterised by its use of retroflex consonants and by its agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class, number, and case, verb tense and other grammatical categories." The problem here is cohesion: "retroflex consonants" vs "suffixes". I'm confused, so most of our readers will be too. Are these suffixes strictly consonantal?
    • "Like many languages with long tradition, Tamil is also characterised by a marked diglossia, with three basic styles ...". Why "with long tradition"? ("a" is required after "long", by the way.) I don't think "styles" is the best term here; are you referring to acrolect, mesolect and basilect? Some linguists use "dialects" as the generic term here. "Di" means "two", so is misleading in this case.
    • "Tamil literature has an unbroken literary tradition of over two millennia." Again, this continuous thing; what does is really mean? One artist took over exactly where one died, in a continuous chain? Who cares?" "More than" is more elegant than "over".
    • "The earliest epigraphic records date to around 200 BCE,[5] and the oldest literary works in Tamil were composed between the 200 BCE and 300 CE.[6][7]" Again, cohesion is at issue. Use the same wording for both; here an ellipsis can be used, and the year range rationalised: "The earliest epigraphic records date to around 200 BCE,[5] and the oldest literary works in Tamil to 200–300 CE.[6][7] Tony 21:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


The terms ‘official language’, and ‘official status’ have legal connotations. Official language generally implies, it is THE language of the government. “Official status” implies that the language speakers have legal rights related to language, but the language is not necessarily the language of the government. ‘and also’ may be replaced with just ‘and’.
The term “continuous literature” refers to the tradition of literary work over 2000 years in Tamil. The term can be replaced by “a rich and continuous literary tradition”. The Tamils continuous literary tradition is not just an empty description, but a consciousness and a conceptual framework. It is understood by most Tamil scholars. It is a very important historical statement to make.
“WHO CARES?” The notable contributors to the article care. I care. Tamil people consider that tradition as one of their important contribution to human civilization. The knowledge and memory invested in that tradition will only become evident when one learns that language, and its literature.
If you want to improve the prose, you are welcomed to provide the alterantive version in the talk pages. If the integrity of the content is preserved, then we can replace the prose.
--Natkeeran 15:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), and weasal words (1d). Marskell 17:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment: There's so much to sift through above, I'm not sure what the feelings are on this one. Moving down to keep it on track. Marskell 17:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The general feeling among the key contributors is that most of the concerns forwarded by FA Reviewers have been addressed, and the article is in stable condition. The content disputes have been mostly settled by the addition of extensive references. The ‘English prose’ can surely be improved. But, that is not a major concern. Thus, I strongly disagree with putting Tamil language as a FARC.
"Moving down to keep it on track" is not a valid reason for FARC. User Marskell was not part of FAR, and it seems unreasonable for him to pull us all into FARC, when the other FA Reviewers have noted the progress satisfactory, and the general feeling among the key contributors is that the article mostly meets the FA standards.
--Natkeeran 19:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

whats wrong with this article theres some mistakes that had to be corrected thats it thats doesn't means its a garbage. let the users to correct those mistakes. but by removing the article your guys going to achieve nothing. --User:74.116.34.117

  • I agree that some of the comments of Tony are valid and need to be addressed, but they need not be used to pull down the FA. Some needs to be clarified for a general reader. For example the Official Language and the official status. Official language pertains to the fact that government business is conducted in that language (in the case of India, in the state of Tamil Nadu) and usually one can see the language represented in their currency (money bills), for example in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore. On the other hand 'the official status' means it is given an official recognition and it means some government services may be available etc. (but usually the language will not be used in their currency -money).
  • Tony's comment about the 'continuous literature' and the related wording simply means that there is an unbroken tradition of producing copious high quality literature of varied sorts. It is a fact. I'm not quite sure how to effectively bringout this. Ideally a century-by-century key literary compositions may have to be documented. About English syntax and style issues, some of the expert editors can help. Some of the suggestions of Tony can readily be implemented. The article is in my view is of FA quality - which does not mean it can not be improved and polished. --Aadal 20:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
"unbroken tradition of" is much better. Or even just "a long tradition of" or "a literary tradition stretching back more than ?two millenia". Tony 23:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I also felt that the word diglosia should strictly mean only two styles. Perhaps referring to formal (written) and informal (spoken), but it practice it is hard to define this and it is more like multiglosia, though I've no idea whether such a concept/word exists and whether it is advisable to use it in WP. --Aadal 20:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The last bullet in Tony's comment had been implemented in the article now.--Aadal 20:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Addal, Tony is mistaken about the dates. The earliest literature work is composed between 200 BCE and 300 CE. The confusion comes in because the earliest epigraphic records date to around 500 BCE. But I do not have solid references at hand, except the Hindu article and a video documentary. --Natkeeran 20:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The fourth sentence that Tony refers to is now modified. The sentence is split and it should be clear now. Please advise if this is okay. --Aadal 20:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Natkeeran, I know that the 500 BCE ref you're referring to is the news item in Hindu with comments from Iravatham Mahadevan. The point is not so much about the dates etc. but it is about the syntax, flow and cogency. Proper referencing etc. The facts should be fully and clearly given with reliable citations. It is important to address the concerns and rectify any mistakes. I don't see anything seriously wanting here, but let the other editors give their opinions and concerns. --Aadal 20:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)--Aadal 20:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
The current statement is wrong. It puts the dates in the current era 200 to 300 CE. --Natkeeran 20:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Addal, I think intro should be general, and provide direct and simple characterization of the language. If the "metalanague" issue bugs a lot of people, perhaps you should considered it including it in the body. The classification section is appropriate for such detail. “but it also uses a unique liquid l (ழ்).” Again, I am not sure how people are going to perceive this phase. Having said that I am not sure whether there can a characterization of Tamil grammar, phonology etc that can satisfy all.--Natkeeran 20:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Natkeeran, yes, I believe the reviewing editors, at least a good majority of them, have to feel that it is good. The point is we have to satisify the highest standards and it should be a fine example of FA. I believe the significance of liquid l (ழ்) and the aytham (ஃ) have to be clearly mentioned, as they are unqiue to the language in the subcontinent, however, they have to be included in a proper way. It should read well and be informative for a general reader, not just for tamils. About the 500 BCE inscription, I think you're referring to the Adichanallur finding. Even if we say that the preliminary findings, based on thermoluminence data indicate a date around 500 BCE, I doubt whether other editors will accept this as epigraphy (for sure it is a writing and an important one, but perhaps not epigraphy. Not sure other words like inscription etc. would fit). I hope Sundar or Arvind or Parthi would step in to fix these simple things. --Aadal 21:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)--Aadal 21:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Whenever there are outstanding issues to be addressed, Marskell and Joelr31 move articles to the FARC phase for an additional two-week period. Tony's comments are examples only, indicating the need for a thorough copyedit of the entire article (not just the examples he gives). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Would someone please let us know whether it is only copyediting the whole article? I'm sure someone, fully familiar with style manual, can help to fix the problems. --Aadal 13:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
It is not clear where additional supporting references are needed and where exactly are the weasel words used as pointed out by Marskell. I'm sure I don't want any such omissions to be there, but it is not clear where such things are wanting.--Aadal 13:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Further comments. Since its move to FARC, some copy-editing has been performed, but more would be good, especially since this article is about language. Why stop at 90% quality?
    • In a few places, it almost falls over itself to be explicit about information that can be assumed. For example: "External chronological records and internal linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works were probably compiled sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 3rd century CE, with estimates of the precise dates varying within this broad timeframe." I'd remove the last phrase ("with ...). You've even provided references.
    • "dated on linguistic grounds to the 1st or 2nd century BCE"—Unsure what linguistic grounds are, in this context. Sorry to nitpick. If it's too complicated to explain, you could just remove "on linguistic grounds" and rely on the reference.
    • "The early Mediaeval Period"—might some readers question whether this refers to a European or an Indian historical period?
    • I see lots of redundant "alsos". Please week them out and the flow will be stronger. There are other redundancies, such as "very" in "do not differ very significantly". Tony 23:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


Thank you so much SandyGeorgia and Tony for your great help. I agree that it needed work. I've implemented a few on the lines suggested by Tony. I think it still needs a bit of work. I hope to complete all that I can do by Sunday. Unfortunately two of the key contributors to this article, Sundar and Arvind are able to participate only in an intermittant manner. Thanks again for your hihgly constructive suggestions.--Aadal 21:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Try booking them up for a couple of hours each, and ask for more time here. A deadline might marshall them into action. Tony 23:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Could we have a few more days to complete any remaining copyedits? The article looks like a fine FA to me, but some of you will have to give your opinions. I'm sure we can fix any small bugs if someone finds them. The article is much more tight now and has much new information including details on epigraphy, a small summary of literary developments, better referencing etc. Please let me know if something can be improved. Thanks again for your help! --Aadal 01:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
This is ridiculous, why should compelling restrictions be made to improve an article. If people are really concerned on the quality of an article, let them edit and improve it. Wikipedia is a community program, where coordinated efforts are required rather than to enforcing restrictions on others. - விஜயஷண்முகம் முருகேசன் 02:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Vijayashanmugam Murugesan, please understand that certain standards will have to be maintained in order that an article remains as a featured article (FA) - an example of an excellent article. At present only 1,342 featured articles exist in English Wiki, out of a total of 1.7 million articles (1,738,706). No one is forcing you or me, but if certain criteria are not met, it will have to lose the status as a featured article, period. It would still be a Good article perhaps. It is actually a great opportunity to review carefully and improve it Please do understand the absolute need to uphold strict standards for such articles. The folks here are actually doing a terrific job! Wikipedia is and should be evolving into a standard bearer, where people can come read reliable information. Should know that all info are well supported and which are being subjected to review etc. I hope you'll understand and help rather than challege the vital needs for upholding the standards. Thank you!--Aadal 04:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Question — what happened? Last time I peeked in, the article was sound and only needed a copyedit. Now the footnotes are messed up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Sandy, these problems are now fixed, I think. Thanks to Sundar and Praveen. --Aadal 19:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Few Comments: I found this ambiguous sentence in the "Sounds" section: Classical Tamil also had a phoneme called the āytam, written as 'ஃ'. Tamil grammarians of the time classified it as a special character (cārpeḻuttu), but which is very rare in modern Tamil. Does the last part of the second sentence say the use of the aytam is becoming rare or is it the particular type of classification that is becoming rare? This needs to be clarified.

Twice in the parts I have read so far, the term "word-initial" is used. It is an uncommon term and isn't Wikilinked so I suggest to explain it in the article or replace it with a better expression. GizzaChat © 23:53, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look and copyedting. The aytam letter is used only in few places (old words). The particular type of classification (carpeluttu) is the same (no new additions or deletions). The second sentence could be written as follows: 'The old tamil gramamarians classified it as a special character, but this character occurs rarely in modern times. ' --Aadal 00:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It's much improved. Can someone fix the spelt-out "twenty-two" (inconsistent in the article), and smooth out the stubby paragraphing in the Dialects section? Tony 10:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Tried to smooth out the paragraphing in Dialects section.--Dwaipayan (talk) 10:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment, I'm close to keep but I see a bit of tweaking/completing needed on the footnotes to fill in missing info, make them consistent, etc. (for example, I noticed things like a speech from the President with missing date - things like that). I can do that if no one else gets to it. I'm still concerned that external links should be pruned per WP:EL, WP:NOT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I worked on the sources — reference formatting looks good now, except someone needs to check this: http://presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/eventslatest1.jsp?id=587 I don't know if it's July 6 or June 7.
    • Since External links weren't moving, I pruned personal websites (like Geocities), an old conference, and several "learn Tamil" websites - Wiki is not a Berlitz school of languages, and one or two "tutorials" should be enough. I might not have chosen the best links to prune, but since no one else did it ...
    • More importantly, what is the disputed tag (factual accuracy) about, and what's being done about that? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply: Sandy, about your last point re factual accuracy. I have sought input from the person who had added this flag. I think the information in the article, as far as I know, is accurate. The minor confusion is due to a lack of consensus even among the linguistic experts (see the material I've quoted from two well-known experts - Andronov and Bh. Krishnamurti - who have written numerous research articles and recent books). There is a certain variability in the pronunciation among speakers and this is refelcted in the chart I believe. If the person who had added the flag would come forward to repond to my explanations I can work with him to modify it as needed. I personally feel it does not require any revisions (but open to make revisions if there are compelling evidences). --Aadal 05:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Concern over pics

I have some concerns over the copyright status of couple of pictures used in the article. I have detailed them here. Please comment there. Sarvagnya 00:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This has been satisfactorily explained by Arvind. See the talk page here--Aadal 15:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.