Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages)
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This page documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
Convention: Languages which share their names with some other thing should be suffixed with "language". If the language's name is unique (as a noun), there is no need for any suffix. For example, English language and Persian language, but Esperanto and Latin.
Programming languages should be disambiguated with the suffix "(programming language)" if the name is not unique enough. For example, VBScript, but Python (programming language).
In these examples, please place a redirect to English language at English (language) and also ensure that it is listed on the English disambiguation page. Similarly, please place a redirect to VBScript at VBScript (programming language) and also at VBScript programming language. These will catch writers using alternative and older naming conventions.
Language families and groups of languages are pluralized. Thus, Niger-Congo languages rather than 'Niger-Congo language', and Sino-Tibetan languages rather than 'Sino-Tibetan language'. In most cases, a redirect from the singular to the plural title is not needed, as normal English usage of the term is always plural. There are even cases where a redirect would be incorrect; compare Kalenjin languages and Kalenjin language. X languages is preferred above X language family because it leaves the actual nature of the grouping (genetic, geographic, or otherwise) an open question, which saves us from picking about the article title in the case of controversial families.
