Talk:Mayan languages/Comments

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[edit] 1. Overall

  • (a) Article is outrageously underreferenced. I'm only giving examples from the "history" section
  • (b) A number of overly short sections (detailed below in the order they appear) are overloading the table of content. One-paragraph sections and one-sentence paragraphs are unacceptable violations of criterion 1(a) and 2
    • 1(a) just says "compelling prose", nothing about headers. 2 says "complies with manual of style" - also very general. The manual of style itself has little to say on the size of sectons. 2(b) says "proper hierarchical headings" - clearly not violated. 2(c) says "substantial, but not overwhelming, table of contents".
I have removed all the 3rd-level headings from the Grammar section. "Syntax" is still just one paragraph. Does that resolve this issue? --Homunq 22:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • (h) Overuse of needless bolding in the "overview" part.
The language names are bolded. This is a consistent convention and helpful visually. Besides, "Overuse" and "needless" are redundant :). (That's a joke, no offense.) --Homunq 22:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Consistent? With what? Let's look at the rest of the largest families according to List of language families...
Interestingly, I can find 6 (out of 14) out of fourteen that do
  • They don't do it consistently
  • It's never quite clear WHY they do it (except for Dravidian)
  • They only do it in lists.
Doesn't look like either something "consistent", or a "convention" to me. Also, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) says "Use boldface in the remainder of the article only for a few special uses", and whatever this is supposed to be (emphasis is totally uncalled for),it's not one of them.Circeus 19:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Right there, in the MOS you pointed to: Definition Lists (the example the MOS gives is David E. Kelley). Yes, the prose format of this one is unconventional, but the formatting is within MOS guidelines. --Homunq 21:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Problem is, the sections we're discussing are neither a list (Which most of the bolding in the language family articles actually involve), nor definitions.Circeus 23:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd call it a prose list, with prose definitions. That it's a list is pretty clear. "Definitions" is, I admit, stretching things, but consider: how would you define each language? Aside from the words "mayan language" which are of course not repeated for each language, I'd say this gives pretty much exactly what a definition of this length would. --Homunq 00:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2 (History)

  • (h) Second paragraph of the section has no references whatsoever.
  • (m) "However since the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, the influences of Spanish upon Mayan languages have not been as substantial as has been the case, for example, in Nahuatl."
    • Why is only the first part of this statement sourced?
  • (n) Same for the rest of the paragraph: Where's the source?
  • (p) The last 2 paragraphs? No citations. Where were you when we wrote Wikipedia:Attribution?
      • This is a serious issue and still unresolved.

[edit] 4 (Subdivision)

  • (b) This section is... One paragraph and one image. No, actually, it's one image and comment on the content of the image. An image whose content is not available via text, too. (an issue that lead me to force Timeline of Apple Macintosh models to include text: it was originally nothing more than a timeline image, see the peer review)
      • Well, I disagree. If necessary, this could be linked to a subpage which consisted only of the equivalent table in text, using the {{Subclade}} template, as visible on the talk page. That would mean going over the subclade template for accessibility. But I feel that this "picture is worth a thousand words". --Homunq 02:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • (c) There is nothing about the history of Mayan languages scholarship. Compare with the detailed historic debates detailed in FA Triceratops and current FAC Iguanodon.
      • Does every scientific topic need a history of the scholarship? There have been many fascinating debates through history which are best left uncovered in the main articles. Even more boring ones.
        • Am I the only that sees issue of criterion 1b) here? ('"Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details.') Circeus 20:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
      • But Mayan languages are not Triceratops or Iguanadons, known only through scholarship. They are in daily use by millions of people who know them intimately. What scholars believe now is relevant; what other scholars used to say about them is not, necessarily. The article is pushing the size limit as it is - what would you remove to make room for this?--Homunq 21:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I still think the "geographical overview" bit can be simplified to 3-4 paragraphs. Also, 66kb might be in the upper range, but is not that long. Recently featured Peter Jennings, Houston, Texas and David I of Scotland all reach over 70kb. I don't think adding a short historiographic outline would add more than 2-3 kb.
        • I am not familiar with Mayan languages. But if it is anything like the situation in Africa, East Asia or North America, a wide range of differing organizations have been proposed. Just listing the key ones that were widely believed to be correct at different points in time would probably be enough for me. In the end, it wouldn't be much different from the 3 short paragraphs in "Relations with other families," and I consider that section to fill its role just fine. Circeus 23:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 5. (Overview)

  • (a) This section is way overdivided and overdetailed. Also, the subheader structure should be text in the "Internal subdivision" section.
    • Disagree. --Homunq 02:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
      • ... That is not very constructive an answer. Circeus 20:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 7. (grammar)

  • (c) Despite being half of the meaningful part of the ToC, it contains 6 out of 51 citations.
    • That's because the same few works cover this whole section. --Homunq 02:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
      • There's nothing wrong with citing the same work more than once, y'know. Circeus 20:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
    • OK, moved to unresolved. --Homunq 21:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 8. (writing)

  • (b) The transcription has poor legibility. Using phonetic tables would be far more useful.
    • Huh?
      • It is an extremely poor use of a table, and by such, it is one extremely un-user friendly table.Circeus 20:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean something like this?:

ALMG orthography for the phonemes of Mayan languages
Vowels
ALMG IPA ALMG IPA ALMG IPA
a [a] aa [aː] ä [ɐ]*
e [e] ee [eː] ë [ə]*
i [i] ii [iː] ï [ɪ]*
o [o] oo [oː] ö [ʌ]*
u [u] uu [uː] ü [ʊ]*
* Only used in Kaqchikel

... Or do you mean we should try to model our chart on this one:


View this table as an image.
Place of articulation → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical (none)
Manner of articulation ↓ Bi­la­bial La­bio‐
den­tal		 Den­tal Al­veo­lar Post‐
al­veo­lar		 Re­tro‐
flex		 Pa­la­tal Ve­lar Uvu­lar Pha­ryn‐
geal		 Epi‐
glot­tal		 Glot­tal
Nasal    m    ɱ    n    ɳ    ɲ    ŋ    ɴ  
Plosive p b * * t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k g q ɢ   ʡ ʔ  
Fricative ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ
Approx­imant    β̞    ʋ    ɹ    ɻ    j    ɰ      
Trill    ʙ    r    *    ʀ    *  
Tap or Flap    ѵ̟†    ѵ†    ɾ    ɽ          *  
Lateral Fricative ɬ ɮ *    *    *       
Lateral Approx­imant    l    ɭ    ʎ    ʟ  
Lateral Flap      ɺ    *    *    *    

... The latter seems like overkill, but, if you say so... (Also, I've seen ALMG lists many times, the convention among native speakers is to do them vowel/consonant alphabetically, as we've done here.) --Homunq 21:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

An IPA table would end up being much simpler than that, but something like that vowel table would definitely be far more legible. Anything that separates the letter and sound into separate cells will be better. Circeus 01:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 11. References

  • (a) Where did these small caps cam from? Consistency is good, and almost no wikipedia articles (much less featured ones that I know of) use small caps for their references.
    • It is extremely common both in print and on the web for bibliographical listings to use some sort of visual cue which makes it easier to pick out the keyword (ie authors' names) from the alphasorted list of references. Frequently it's by outdenting them; capitalising or bolding them are other methods often used. While optional, the use of smallcaps here is a simple method intended to do just that. Even if this method is not widely encountered in wikipedia, I don't think that invalidates it. We already allow for several referencing styles to appear in wikipedia, no particular one is mandated. So long as the refs presentation is consistent within the article itself then I don't see this to be a problem.--cjllw | TALK 02:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
      • But it is extremely uncommon for Wikipedia articles to do so. It actually makes the name less legible on a screen. Circeus 20:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Just for the records, I'm very iffy about it, but if it was the only issue, I probably wouldn't oppose over it.

[edit] List of unresolved issues

[edit] Addressed, but you be the judge.

1a, 1b, 1g

2e

6e

These tend to relate to prose quality, a subjective matter.

[edit] Contested.

1h 4b,c 5a 7c 8b 11a

[edit] Unresolved, uncontested.

3h,m,n,p These all have to do with sourcing in the history section. Needs work.

7c Another sourcing concern, but an easier one of adding page numbers of existing sources to cite individual facts throughout the grammar section.

I've removed most of the resolved (or marked as such) content in preparation for a second reading. Circeus 01:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Second reading

About citing: The trick is generally that every fact in the article should be traceable to a specific source, which is why FAs tend to have lots and lots of footnotes. As such, it is reasonable that every paragraph has at least one citation covering the entirety of it.

Intro
  • [The corpus] provides a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history that is unparallelled in the Americas.
    • I think the sentence is not super clear. It means that pre-columbian history in that area of the Americas is the best-documented, right?
History
  • In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), loanwords from Mixe-Zoquean in particular seem to have entered the Mayan language
    • It's not clear whether there were many loanwords as a whole, or just many Mixe-Zoquean ones Maybe the sentence can be improved.
  • Eastern Ch'olan Maya family
    • Is it the actual name? I suspect "Maya" to be slightly redundant. (I've dropped "language" because it's really unnecessary here)
  • It is gaining a growing recognition as the authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples themselves.
    • Is it "THE" be-all and end-all authority, or merely the official regulatory authority (e.g. much like the Académie Française)?
Subdivisions
  • whereas other linguists classify these as two distinct branches emanating from the proto-language.
    • I think an example of the opposite position would be a good idea.
  • I'm still convinced that this section should be merged with the "geo-demo overview." Most likely, I will first copyedit the article, than see if I can produce a satisfactory section.
Overview
  • [Ch'orti] was previously also spoken in Honduras and El Salvador but these variants are considered moribund.
    • "Moribund" does not really imply that it is extinct in these areas...
  • They may have served as prestige languages
    • Does "they" refer to Ch'olan languages as a whole or to the language of the inscription that has just been mentioned (dixit the prestige language hypothesis mentioned in "history")
  • This helps explain the geographic anomaly of the Ch'orti' zone, far from its relatives.
    • The explicative relation is really not all that clear to the casual reader. Maybe this paragraph could be rewritten with shorter sentence and clearer links between the ideas?
  • The extensive content notes in the Q'anjob'alan section should probably be worked in the text instead. Maybe a small section about Mayan speakers outside of mesoamerica proper would fit?
  • Image:Idiomasmap.jpg can probably be reproduced better by Wikipedia:Graphic Lab.
  • which also springs directly from the Quichean-Mamean node
  • The Poqom languages are most closely related to Core K'ichean and forms a Poqom-K'ichean subbranch with them on the Quichean-Mamean node
    • These bits are probably somewhat too technical. Especially "node"
  • "Sign languages" is still in an inappropriate place. If you have to explain why material is included in an article, it probably should not be included at all, and linked from the "See also" section instead.
  • I'm stopping here for now. So far the writing is indeed much better than on my original read, but I keep seeing statements that scream "references!" Circeus 02:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Phonology

  • This section is still a mess of poorly presented information. The list needs to be prosified. I'd suggest giving a development organized by sound type (consonants/stops/fricatives/others/vowels), and using one unified table (with possibly more examples) to give an overarching sense of the differences.Circeus 21:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Glyphic writing

  • This section appears to contradict itself. A Logosyllabary has elements that are explicitly used either as logograms or syllabaries. However, the way the section is written makes it seem as if there are symbols of both type that do not overlap (closer to the mixed system of Japanese than to Egyptian Hieroglyphs).