User talk:Taivo

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[edit] Welcome!

Hello, Taivo! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking Image:Signature icon.png or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Gimme danger (talk) 00:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
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Welcome, Taivo

Welcome to Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia you (yes, you!) can edit! Here are some beginning links:

Also, I give you some tips:

  1. Feel free to edit any page. If you make a mistake in your first steps in Wikipedia, don't care: there's always someone that will fix it.
  2. Experiment in the sandbox. There you can test your editing skills without disrupting any article!
  3. Use ~~~~ (four tildes) for signing your comments with your nickname (set it on Special:Preferences) and timestamp on talk pages. If you don't want to add the timestamp, simply use ~~~ (three tildes).
  4. If you don't know where to begin, take a look on the most recent changes or a random page.

With some time here, you'll learn all Wikipedia processes and get yourself an experimented Wikipedians.

Yours! Neigel von Teighen

[edit] Edits to Death Valley National Park

Nice addition. :) --mav 20:52, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help Wikipedia!

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! I saw your entry on the new user log. I wonder if I could enlist your support for some of the linguistcs articles Wikipedia is lacking or need expansion. Wikipedia linguistic articles tend to suffer from an Indo-European and especially English point of view, and many of the articles need to be expanded to encompass all languages. Meanwhile, a few articles are missing entirely, in that they have only been treated in the grammatical sense and not linguistic. Here's just a few examples:

  • Tense (linguistics) is missing, only a grammar article exists.
  • Aryan. A dearth of organization, riddled with apparent confusion.
  • Augment. Probably needs a disambig and another article. Augment can be much more than 'an affix in Indo-European languages' and is used in a broader sense in linguistics.
  • Derivation (linguistics). Could use more international examples.
  • Determiner. Really should be renamed to 'Determiner (English)' or something like that. Interesting things could be said about determiners and definiteness cross-linguistically.

See many more Indo-European-centric articles that need help at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias_open_tasks#Linguistics, and see a general list of requested linguistics articles at Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Social_Sciences_and_Philosophy#Linguistics. Thanks for your help and I hope you continue to contribute!--Dmcdevit 04:34, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Numic Article

I started on a Numic article which you may want to look at, especially because I dared to use the word glottochronology. You certainly won't hurt my feelings by doing a complete re-write.

If we get to vote on what you spend your time on (in the vein of the previous post here), I vote for Great Basin languages and peoples. ;-) Toiyabe 22:10, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Your email

Hi mr. McLaughlin - just a word of caution about having your email written on your userpage: it is a certain way to attract tonnes of spammail. Most people either use wikipedias email option - or mask the email for eample spelling it out e.g. maunus+at+gmail+dot+com. or some such. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 12:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I set this page up a couple a years ago before it was a real problem. (Taivo (talk) 15:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC))

[edit] A way with words

Hello Taivo:

This is the precise comment I came here to post:

"This is why missionaries don't hand out D&C like candy,

You really have a way with words!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

--Now, having read the first few words of your user page, I am "laughing out loud", as the saying goes.

Your discussion on the Book of Mormon is most enlightening. What a history!

I will make a few edits there. Please see what you think. Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 17:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A question about Uto-Aztecan prehistory

I recently stumbled upon an article by Jane Hill in which she argues a southern origin of UA. ( Hill, Jane H. (2001). "Proto-Uto-Aztecan: A Community of Cultivators in Central Mexico?". American Anthropologist 103 (4): 913-934. American Anthropological Society. ) I was wondering what kind of responses (if any) this proposal has received among uto-aztecanists? ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:36, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was one of the peer reviewers for that article when it was submitted to another journal. That journal chose not to publish the article, but Jane is a past president of the American Anthropological Association so publishing in AmAnth is pretty much automatic for her. I think there are serious problems with the proposal of a southern homeland for Uto-Aztecan. (I'm in Ukraine right now so I'm remembering it off the top of my head.) First, it is based on a single etymon--"corn"--that assumes an overblown importance in the argumentation. Second, it actually ignores native oral history. While the use of native oral history must always carry a cautionary note, it should always be addressed and not ignored. Aztec oral history uniformly says that they moved down from the north (in some stories, "the far north"). Third, the most respected historical linguists working on Uto-Aztecan uniformly see a valid relationship among the Southern Uto-Aztecan groups, but don't see such a strong reconstruction for "Northern Uto-Aztecan". Hill is a very good anthropological linguist (she's actually a good friend and was one of my tenure reviewers), but her specialty is not historical linguistics. This particular article sounds much more like linguistically suspect anthropology and less like anthropologically-supplemented linguistics. I think she's trying to prove something about corn--that the Uto-Aztecans invented corn cultivation rather than borrowing it like everyone else has argued. It's sort of a Uto-Aztecan-centrist position. The original theory actually is from one of her former anthropology graduate students (his name starts with a B, but I can't recall it exactly) who has virtually no linguistic training. The arguments he makes in his own work are rather suspect I think. Unfortunately, Hill is very influential and many Uto-Aztecanists who are not historical linguists will buy into this southern origin theory, even though the linguistic evidence points very solidly to a northern origin. (Taivo (talk) 10:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC))
That was exactly the thoughts I got on reading it. Another problem I saw with the proposal was how to explain that only Aztecan has influence from the other mesoamerican languages, and not any of the languages outside of mesoamerica. I cannot see the southern theory would account for this (short of assuming that all the other language families of mesoamerica only arrived there after the other UA braqnches left mexico, which is contrary to research on all of the families). Do you know of any rebuttals or responses that have been published?·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
btw if you have some time to spare, I would appreciate any comments you might have about the Nahuatl article that I have been working on for a while.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Your comment just jogged my memory about another very serious problem with the Uto-Aztecans inventing corn cultivation--it requires the belief that a great number of Uto-Aztecan groups actually STOPPED being agriculturalists as they moved north. It's just not common at all for groups to give up agriculture once they've opened the magic box. It's a lot easier to explain how the Aztecs and Hopi adopted agriculture from their neighbors than to explain how everyone else gave it up. (Taivo (talk) 10:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Ethiopian Languages

Thank you for your recent interest in Ethiopian languages. There are still some articles that need to be created, and you seem to be taking care of this - very good! Also you have definitely improved some of the existing language stubs. I have a question with regard to your edits on Awngi and Xamtanga: You have removed the lowest-level genetic classifications from these - what prompted you to do so? I have no objections to this in principle, because these classifications seem to have very little significance for non-specialists on Central Cushitic languages. On the other hand, these classifications are documented in the Ethnologue, and that is something I would use as a guideline as to what to include in a language article and what not. On the same line of inquiry, you seem to be following the stance that an entry on a language should follow the naming in the Ethnologue - this at least is the message you send by moving Kambata to Kambaata. I agree with you on this, but not everyone does, at least not in the Ethiopian context. If you want to look at a discussion on this, visit User talk:Yom#Wolaytta vs. Welayta language. Do you have something to contribute there? Landroving Linguist (talk) 07:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

  • No worries, it is not that easy to offend me. Your rationale to use only subgroups if they have more than one member makes a lot of sense, so your explanation helped me to understand your move, and I agree with it. In principle, ISO 639-3 and Ethnologue use the same nomenclature, but ISO 639-3 gets updates on an annual basis while Ethnologue gets updated only once in three years or so, even the internet version. The next edition (appears 2009) will show Kunfäl to be a dialect of Awngi. Thanks again for doing all these templates and stubs and categories. This is tedious work, especially when your internet connection is slow, like here in Ethiopia, so to see someone doing this at lightning speed from the US is wonderful! All the best to you! Landroving Linguist (talk) 08:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mormon links

Thanks. Most of the links were barely related to the book in the first place, and one video was posted three times with two rebuttals and even a rebuttal of the rebuttal. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 08:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dalbys

Not quite the same tree. David Dalby and I met and talked a few years ago, and he gave me a copy of the Linguasphere Register which I also use often, but we aren't related. Andrew Dalby 19:29, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cameroonian languages

Hi, Taivo! I've noticed that you're adding lots of articles related to Cameroonian languages, so thanks a lot! There are a ton of them left that don't have articles. I do have a couple of minor requests, though. If you intend to make any more of these, would you mind adding them to Category:Languages of Cameroon, using {{Cameroon-stub}} as well as {{lang-stub}}, and putting a link to them at List of Cameroon-related topics? That'd save me a lot of trouble. Thanks! — Dulcem (talk) 23:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Dulcem. I'm working my way through ISO 639-3 and over the course of the next couple of years I plan to make at least a stub for every language that doesn't already have an article/stub. I'm trying to make some sort of common interface and use of the templates so that all the languages have some sort of common playing field for further revisions. I'll try to remember to do these things you asked, but I can't guarantee I'll be completely successful since I'm sometimes making stubs pretty mechanically (for example, Biu-Mandara A.5 required 18 stubs and Biu-Mandara A.8 required 12) and to keep from going crazy I skip from one language family to another and from one geographic region to another. I hope the stubs are useful. Cheers (Taivo (talk) 02:42, 29 February 2008 (UTC))
OK, whenever you can remember, that'd be great. The ones you forget will show up at User:AlexNewArtBot/CameroonSearchResult, which I monitor, so I can fix 'em up. Thanks for your work! — Dulcem (talk) 14:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moving pages

Hi, I noticed you moving a page by cut and paste. To conform with the GFDL pages must preserve their edit history, so should be moved using the move function - cutting and pasting does not preserve the edit history - please see Help:Moving a page for more information. Thanks.--Alf melmac 07:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I'll reform myself :) At least they all have been done with redirects so people can find the old stuff.(Taivo (talk) 08:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] ... language

A few years ago it was agreed that 'language' should only be added to the titles of language articles that could otherwise be vague adjectives referring to other cultural aspects apart from language. For instance 'Danish' needs to be qualified, so we have Danish language. Sanskrit does not need qualification, so we have it as is. I'm sure this is buried somewhere in Wikipedia:Manual of Style. So, I hope you won't mind if I revert your move to Bohtan Neo-Aramaic, which falls in the latter camp. Thanks. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 00:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, not a problem. I'm working through several geographic areas at once and it's quite common in Africa to find articles that refer ambiguously to "Yaaku", for example. I'm always a little uncertain when dealing with established articles, especially the excellent set you have written that are associated with the Aramaic group. Hope I didn't offend. (Taivo (talk) 05:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] West Chadic A.2 languages

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of West Chadic A.2 languages, and it appears to be very similar to another wikipedia page: West Chadic A languages. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 19:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] West Chadic B.3 languages

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of West Chadic B.3 languages, and it appears to be very similar to another wikipedia page: West Chadic B languages. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 01:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Church of the Assumption-Rivne.JPG

Image Copyright problem

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[edit] re Book of Mormon

I feel most privileged by our several exchanges of comments and information, most recently at Talk:Book of Mormon#Number of Languages. Thank you. Wanderer57 (talk) 05:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] West Chadic B.3 languages

You may copy text from another article, however, in order to comply with GFDL, it is required that you mention the first article in the edit summary (preferably) or on the talk page of the article you are creating. The Evil Spartan (talk) 16:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Something Useful?

[edit] Tradition of Writing Personal Follow-up

I'll try to explain more completely. 1) ALL languages are spoken/oral languages (we'll exclude signed languages) so ALL languages are "historically spoken-only" since writing is a recent invention. 2) Writing is a historically recent invention that has only ever been applied to a minority of the world's languages. Out of about 7000 languages still spoken or spoken until recently, only about 1000 (at the most) have any kind of writing tradition and only about two hundred of them have a writing tradition prior to the 20th century. 3) So, "spoken-only" is actually the majority of the world's languages and is, therefore, the default situation--writing is exceptional. 4) The very phrase "spoken-only" sounds prejudicial, that they are somehow deficient as languages. "Poor Rotokas, it's only a spoken language." 5) As someone who has worked intimately with speakers of a language that has no written tradition, I can sympathize with their sensitivity about "writing" and the extremely high value they place on oral tradition and the poor learning skills of the younger generation "because everything is written down for them--they don't have to use their brains to remember things". 6) The reason that the Book of Mormon is on audio cassette is NOT because of speaking, but because of the lack of writing--writing is the problem, NOT speaking, therefore "spoken-only" focuses attention on the WRONG end of the scale and on the WRONG issue. There is NOTHING unclear about "lack of a writing tradition", but linguists grind their teeth every single time they read ill-advised phrases such as "oral language", "spoken-only", etc. It sounds SO Judeo-Euro-Arabo-Sino-Indo-centric. It ALWAYS sounds like "poor little unwritten languages, aren't they cute?" Even "unwritten" is better than "spoken-only", but all languages can be written, the key element is that they aren't written, not that they can't be. OK, I'm on a roll, but I'm not going to compromise on this. The problem is NOT "speaking", but "writing", therefore the phrase MUST reflect the problem and include the root "write" and not the root "speak" in the solution. (Taivo (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC))

I think you know a lot about linguistics, so I compliment you on that. While not pertinent info for the talk page, I just wanted to note that I found it kind of ironic that you emphasize science's findings on the weaknesses perpetuated by written languages when the Book of Mormon (whose article we were discussing) would argue otherwise. Joseph Fielding Smith also taught, "It was not until after man rebelled and rejected the word of God that he fell into mental degeneracy, and lost the power to converse in written language. Man was intelligent in the beginning, and understood many fundamental truths, but when he refused to receive divine guidance, the Spirit of the Lord withdrew, and then he was left alone and became a savage, for the light in him was turned to darkness." [1][2]) I just found this dichotomy interesting and would be interested in learning your thoughts in light of science and the Gospel (according to the LDS Church). Thanks! --Eustress (talk) 19:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, I don't consider the Book of Mormon to be either historical or a work of divine inspiration, so I have no comment on the unscientific statement that men knew how to write in the beginning and then forgot. Writing was only invented after modern human languages had been in existence for at least a hundred thousand years. (Taivo (talk) 19:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC))
Ah, you're really asking about whether intelligence is greater for people with written languages versus those without written languages. The evidence is that people are equally intelligent whether dealing with a written language or not. There's not a shred of real evidence that illiterate people are less intelligent or capable than literate people. Obviously, testing methods must be different, but the results are the same. Intelligence is channelled in different ways, but the same intelligence is at work. (Taivo (talk) 19:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC))
Let me give you just one example of that intelligence. It happened roughly about 50,000 years ago in Europe. It was an invention that had no precursor in nature. By that I mean that it was an invention of man's that he didn't just copy from a model in nature. But our world changed by the genius of that invention. It was inventing the eye in the needle. Before, skins were basically used in whatever shape they came in and attached together with great difficulty by pushing sinew thread through large holes along the edges. It was not easy to do and the seams were not overly secure. After, people could shape the skins and attached their edges together with great accuracy and tightness because the holes could be small since the thread followed the needle through the material. Skins of different types could now be sewn together--something warm like fox on the inside and something waterproof like sealskin on the outside. The eye of the needle changed the world and allowed men to conquer parts of the planet that were unavailable to them before. Prehistory is filled with examples of invention of these types. Illiterate South and Middle Americans build massive stone cities without writing (Mayan writing only affected a small area). Illiterate Africans forged iron. Illiterate Australians lived in one of the harshest environments on the planet with an astounding level of memory. Literacy allows us to preserve numbers--that was its earliest and is still its primary use. That allows a different type of invention to occur. But it did not change the level of intelligence. (Taivo (talk) 20:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Your language articles

Hi Taivo and thanks for your work on Chadic languages. But please don't list titles that haven't been effectively used: in the "references" section should be mentioned only the sources that are effectively consulted and used to build the article. Also, there is no need to put so many categories: if you put "East Chadic languages", that covers also "Chadic languages" and "Afro-Asiatic languages", as the first mentioned is already a subcategory and sub-sub-category of the other two. Thanks again for your work, and ciao.--Aldux (talk) 20:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I disagree with you about the references section. I often look to Wikipedia articles to locate bibliography. Even if a source hasn't actually been used in the contruction of the article, it can still be highly useful for others starting on their research quest. I teach at a university and many of my students start their research at Wikipedia, so why not include things that can take them to the next step? (Taivo (talk) 20:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC))
I don't think, however, that "everything" needs to listed, there I agree with you. But for a language article it's important for there to be at least a grammar and, maybe, dictionary listed if they are available, even if that grammar was not consulted for the article. In the absence of a grammar, items that deal separately with phonology, morphology, syntax, etc. are appropriate. If there is only one published source for a language (a common occurrence), then it should be listed. (Taivo (talk) 21:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC))
If you feel like offering some titles to a reader who wants to make further research, really there is no problem; but in these cases you should distinguish the sources used and not used, by putting the latter in a "further reading" section. Don't you agree?--Aldux (talk) 21:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Also, please keep in mind the issue of categorization. For example, if every language was placed in a single category, this category would rapidly become of no utility; thus, we use subcategories, and laguages spoken in Chad are as a rule placed in "Languages of Chad" instead of "Languages of Africa", and for the same reason Chadic languages are not inserted in an enormous Afro-Asiatic category.--Aldux (talk) 22:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah! A "terminological" issue--References versus Further Reading. LOL. In my field we just lump them all together under "References"--either "I referred to them" or "You can refer to them". But if it will help you sleep better... ;) I'm actually pleasantly surprised that someone is actually looking at the obscure languages of Chad (and someone else is watching Cameroon--his particular desire is to make sure that enough stubs are in place). I figured 99% of all the stubs I placed would never be seen by another human. (Taivo (talk) 00:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC))
Please observe civility, if you don't mind. Especially from an educator, I would have expected something better.--Aldux (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I am casual here on the talk pages--that means friendly banter. I am from the western U.S. and that means irony, word play, mild sarcasm, etc. There were no insults. If you read carefully, you will note the compliment as well. (Taivo (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC))
Forgive me if I've reacted too automatically; it's probably that I took it bad as I'm not so young any more, and I earn my leaving in a way not very dissimular from yours, even if not through linguistics, of which I admit my great ignorance. I've only covered them in my effort to system and classify Chad-related articles. Sorry again if I offended you, and thanks for the effort you are employing in creating articles on little known African languages, especially since Africa in general is badly covered in wikipedia. Bye,--Aldux (talk) 18:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Buriat vs. Buryat

Hi, is there a specific reason why you use the "Buriat" spelling in your recent related language articles? Both WP:RUS and WP:MON would mandate "Buryat", which has previously been used quite consistently. Unless you have compelling arguments to deviate from the established naming conventions, I'd suggest you use the standard form as well.

I also just noticed that in the running text of Buryat language, "Chinese Buryat" is used instead of "China Buriat" etc.. My guess is that you chose "China Buriat language" as a page title because Ethnologue uses the title "Buriat, China". If so, then I think it would be better to use page titles either of the form "Chinese Buryat language" or "Buryat language (China)". There are other WP naming conventions that cover questions like that, which I could dig up if it helps you understand the motivation for either variant. --Latebird (talk) 08:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't follow Ethnologue, but ISO 639-3, which is quickly becoming the standard (Ethnologue is deferring completely to ISO 639-3 in the next edition). WP should be adapting to this growing standard as well, but I know that there are other, nationalistic issues involved. I don't have any personal preference for Buryat or Buriat, but I think that the template box should read Buriat because it focuses on ISO 639-3 usage, at least in the bottom section. On the pages I created, I used Buriat consistently. Someone else authored the Buryat language page and I simply deferred the text on his page to his usage (although I used the ISO 639-3 standard in the template box. (Taivo (talk) 14:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC))
The pages Russia Buriat language ISO 639-3 usage, Mongolia Buriat language ISO 639-3 usage, and China Buriat ISO 639-3 usage language should remain labelled the way they are since that follows ISO 639-3 usage. Changing Buriat to Buryat is probably OK, but not "China" to "Chinese" or "(China)" since that is farther off the mark of ISO 639-3 usage. As a reminder "IS" = "International Standard". (Taivo (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC))
I agree that when presenting the ISO categorisation in infoboxes, ISO names should also be used for consistency. But I don't think that ISO naming is a good enough reason to deviate from Wikipedia conventions in naming articles. Wikipedia documents established knowledge, not growing standards. Once most other literature has switched to ISO naming, then those names will have become common English use and we'll of course follow as well. But until then, the ISO is just one voice among others. Using a different spelling for 3 articles out of dozens will just confuse readers without serving any useful purpose. Don't worry, I know what their acronym means, but I doubt it is their purpose to redefine the way we use the English language. Their choice of spelling may be just random chance (unless you know more about that). Btw: How established is the "China Buryat" form in literature outside of ISO? --Latebird (talk) 04:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The English literature doesn't distinguish the three Buriats (that's one reason why ISO 639-3 places them in a single macrolanguage), so the only English language standard is ISO 639-3. English-language sources simply refer to a single "Buriat". In actual fact, the three are distinguished mainly by the source of loanwords and literacy traditions rather than mutual unintelligibility. It's basically the same reasoning that distinguishes Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian in ISO 639-3. Thus in The Mongolic Languages (Janhunen, ed.) and Languages of the Soviet Union (Comrie), the two main English-language sources for information about Mongolic, Buriat is treated as a unit. I don't know of any English-language source that distinguishes them other than Ethnologue and ISO 639-3, thus "English usage" is "China Buriat", "Russia Buriat", "Mongolia Buriat". Personally, I would prefer "Chinese Buriat", etc., but that's not what has been used in the ISO, so I have adapted. As I stated above, I don't have any energy on Buryat versus Buriat. (Taivo (talk) 04:50, 21 March 2008 (UTC))
That then begs the question about the justification for three extra articles. Basically, all the relevant information can be summarized in the one sentence of explanation about loan words you wrote above and placed in the Buryat language article. What information do the three extra articles offer beyond that? --Latebird (talk) 06:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
They are stubs for future expansion, just as there are articles for Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. They are there for the future since ISO 639-3 has identified them as three distinct speech varieties. I am creating stubs for future expansion for a lot of languages. Next year there could be a grammar of Chinese Buriat published and there would be a place in Wikipedia for information. For example, the Cyrillic orthography on Buryat language is not appropriate for China Buriat, but only for Russia Buriat where the language is official (I can't speak for Mongolia Buriat on that issue). There are also different sociolinguistic situations and historical, loan word issues which can be addressed for each of the three language varieties, just as there are for Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. There are hundreds of language stubs in Wikipedia waiting for expansion that only contain the paragraph from Ethnologue. I have a huge linguistic bibliography on languages of the world and I am constantly using language stubs to add bibliography to Wikipedia. Without the stub, there's no place for people to add items such as this. In addition, if you look at Linguist List for each of the Buriat varieties, you will find three different lists of linguists working on them--one linguist on all three lists, one linguist on two lists. (Taivo (talk) 08:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC))
Well, it's not like nobody else could create those articles, if they had any actual information to go into them. In other words, they can be merged without loss of information or utility. --Latebird (talk) 12:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I have written a prominent Mongolian linguist friend and asked specifically what bibliography, features, etc. will distinguish the three varieties. He will provide better advice. This is an issue for linguists to decide. I guess I wonder why you are so averse to stubs for growth. They are extremely common in language areas. Over much of Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, there are hundreds of stubs for future growth and linguists welcome them. They point up where the work still needs to be done. (Taivo (talk) 12:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC))
Um no, that's not really a linguist question so far, but a matter of Wikipedia policy. If your friend actually adds individual information to those articles, then that will of course change the situation. My argument is that zero-information stubs don't really foster growth, they only "simulate" it (empty calories in terms of article count). More importantly, they frustrate readers who click a link to find no information over what they already had on the linking page. This frustration is not at all reduced by the fact that there are many such stubs. I understand that some people think stubs would encourage people to add information, but in practise I've seen that happening only in very rare cases, and almost never with such obscure topics. Somehow I also doubt that linguists need stubs to figure out where there is information missing on Wikipedia. Generally put, I'd prioritize convenience for readers high above convenience for editors. --Latebird (talk) 00:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, since these are articles of interest only to linguists.... But let me put it to you another way. I have worked through ISO 639-3 languages in several other parts of the world where others have "vested interests"--both linguists and non-linguists like yourself. You are the first to have a problem. You are the first who does not think that stubs for growth are good. I don't think "Wikipedia policy" is different for Chad as opposed to China. Now, your argument about "more information on the mother page" versus no information on the daughter pages is specious in this particular case--the only information on the Buriat language page is the orthography chart, which is actually only applicable to Russia Buriat. Most of the links are also only relevant to Russia Buriat. The dozen or so grammars of Russia Buriat are not even listed. If the page were even half a dozen paragraphs long, you would have a valid argument, but right now, the Buriat language page is nothing more than a stub itself. But we will wait until a specialist on these languages weighs in. (Taivo (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] An Invite to join Saskatchewan WikiProject

Hi, you are graciously extended an invitation to join the Saskatchewan WikiProject! The Saskatchewan WikiProject is a fairly new WikiProject. We are a group of editors who are dedicated to creating, revising, and expanding articles, lists, categories, and Wikiprojects, to do with anything Saskatchewan.
As you have shown an interest in Western Ojibwa language - Woods Cree language we thought you might like to take an interest in this growing WikiProject.
Please assist with any ongoing requests
You might like to take an extra interest in our To Do list
Another project dedicated to Saskatchewan is the Saskatchewan Roads and Highways Wikiproject
Also, a descendant project for Saskatchewan is the WikiProject Saskatchewan Communities & Neighbourhoods
We look forward to welcoming you to the project! SriMesh | talk 22:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Azerbaijani

No source except Ethnologue says North Azerbaijani differs from South Azerbaijani to a degree where they can be considered two languages. There's a difference in terms of them being two perfectly mutually intelligible dialects. Please provide more reliable sources. 99.226.143.206 (talk) 04:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

And ISO 639-3, the international standard. They are separated in the same way that Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian are separated, but still under a single macrolanguage--by speaker preference and different literary traditions. There is at least one grammar that deals with South Azerbaijani separately from North Azerbaijani: Sooman Noah Lee. 1996. "A Grammar of Iranian Azerbaijani," University of Sussex PhD dissertation. And they are NOT "perfectly mutually intelligible dialects" if there are different writing systems, and different sets of borrowed words (from different donor languages). The whole issue of "mutual intelligibility" is overblown sometimes. Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian have a high degree of mutual intelligibility, but have differing writing systems, so are listed as separate varieties of a single macrolanguage. Urdu and Hindi share a fair degree of mutual intelligibility, but speakers cannot read what the other writes. There are a number of cases in the ISO 639-3 standard where this is the case. Indeed, Ukrainian, Russian, and Belorusian share a high degree of mutual intelligibility and Ukrainian speakers have a certain level of mutual intelligibility with even Polish, but no one would place them in a single language entry. It is not an uncommon linguistic practice to separate speech varieties with as much difference as North and South Azerbaijani--different writing systems. "Spoken Azerbaijanian may be divided into three main groups: (a) northern Azerbaijanian, spoken in the Republic of Azerbaijan, (b) southern Azerbaijanian, spoken in northwest Iran, and (c) east Anatolian dialects of Turkey" (Claus Schönig. 1998. "Azerbaijanian," The Turkic Languages. London: Routledge. Pg 260). And I will ask you, "Who are you?" Are you a real Wikipedia editor, or just an anonymous number? Are you even a trained linguist? I don't mean to be rude, but right now you are an unknown anonymous user. (Taivo (talk) 05:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC))
And from the Azerbaijani language article: "Speakers of various dialects normally do not have problems understanding each other. However minor problems may occur between Azerbaijani-speakers from the Caucasus and Iran, as some of the words used by the latter that are of Persian or Arabic origin may be unknown to the former." This is NOT "perfectly mutually intelligible". (Taivo (talk) 09:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC))
Let me ask you this: how conversant are you in Azerbaijani? Because none of the sources you have provided makes the comparisons you are making (i.e. Bosnian vs. Serbian, Hindi vs. Urdu). There is a high degree of controversy and political propaganda around the current separation of Bosnian and Serbian, and it has only been around since the 1990s, so your example is not apt. As for Urdu and Hindi, they historically developed under differing literary traditions, which trace roots to cultural, religous and political characteristics of the region. Azerbaijani developed as a written (let alone spoken) language long before there were any political borders between the Caucasus and Iran, long before the script in Caucasian Azerbaijan changed to Roman and long before there were any linguistic influences of Russian in the region. It was not until the Soviet period in the 1920s and 1930s that Azerbaijani in the Caucasus officially switched to the Roman script and started acquiring some Russian loanwords (mainly technical and scientific terms of Greek and Latin origin most of which are known to Iranian Azeris via French, i.e. for 'television' Azeris in the Caucasus would say televiziya whereas Iranian Azeris would say televizyon; none of the Swadesh terms differs for Caucasian and Iranian Azerbaijani). The excerpt from the article talks of 'minor problems', and 'minor problems' generally do not make dialects qualify to being called 'languages'. I can talk of 'minor problems' in intelligibility when I compare two English dialects from London. Your own source (Schönig) doesn't even call those 'groups' languages. Even Wikipedia places articles in both Roman-scripted Azerbaijani and Arabic-scripted Azerbaijani in the same project: az:Bakı and az:باکی.
Let's not focus on my 'anonymity'. Being anonymous does not undermine my right to make edits and bring up facts. 99.226.143.206 (talk) 04:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
You need to realize that there are good linguistically-based reasons for separating North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani. There is, certainly, a degree of mutual intelligibility between them--I have said nothing otherwise. They are varieties of a single macrolanguage. The term "macrolanguage" means that there is a level of intercommunication possible between them, but not complete. Complete intercommunication requires two things--first, mutually intelligible speech varieties. This requirement is met by the two Azerbaijanis, that's why you can learn to speak North Azerbaijani (which all the textbooks are based on) and be understood in Iran. But the second part of the equation is that they can read each other's writing systems. The two varieties of Azerbaijani do not meet this criteria since they have different writing systems and have had different writing systems throughout the lifetimes of nearly all speakers of these languages. North Azerbaijani and South Azerbaijani are separated into two varieties of the macrolanguage Azerbaijani by ISO 639-3, the international standard, which is presided over by international linguists who objectively evaluate the evidence for and against merging/splitting speech varieties. Look at Ukrainian and Russian as a good example of how two speech varieties of what is basically one language can be treated individually. They even use the same alphabet (although with minor differences). I live in Ukraine and all the time I hear conversations between one person speaking Russian and one person speaking Ukrainian. You can also look at the different varieties of Arabic--they are separated in ISO 639-3 even though many of them are mutually intelligible. They are not called separate languages, but varieties. Don't get hung up on the "separate language" thing. South and North Azerbaijani are not separate languages, but separate varieties of a single macrolanguage based on different writing systems. Wikipedia is being adapted to address the ISO 639-3 system with at least a stub for future development for each named variety. Azerbaijani is not being treated differently. If you disagree with the ISO 639-3 evaluation of Azerbaijani then you can propose a change to the standard if you have linguistic evidence to back it up. It's a simple process and I have done it for about a dozen languages over the years. My question would be for you to provide the evidence that the differences between them are slight. Look at the dissertation on Iranian Azerbaijani cited on the South Azerbaijani page. In the next few months I will be using that dissertation to spell out the dialectal differences in the South Azerbaijani article. I have no political axe grind here, I'm working with the International Standard. (Taivo (talk) 06:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC))
I'm sorry, but I have reasons to doubt your competence in what you are trying to argue here. I really don't think you have any idea of how dialects of Azerbaijani are perceived by their speakers. Simply because having lived in Ukraine, you make anti-linguistic statements such as calling Russian and Ukrainian "basically one language." What you are witnessing might be instances of people speaking Surzhyk, or even plain Russian, as most of Ukraine has experienced a great deal of Russification. Because being able to speak Russian at a native-speaker level, I have a hard time imagining a functional and lengthy conversation where one speaks Russian and the other one speaks Ukrainian. There is more intelligibility between Azerbaijani and Turkish, than between Ukrainian and Russian, let alone dialects of Azerbaijani.
Azerbaijani is not a macrolanguage. It is simply a language, that has its own dialects, which vary from region to region, just like in the case with any other language. Having different writing systems is just not enough to separate two groups of dialects of the same language into "microlanguages." For your information, in 1939—91 Azeri in the Caucasus officially used Cyrillic script. And right now there's a growing generation of people who can't read it. According to you, we found ourselves another Azerbaijani language within a "macrolanguage." How about we start an article and call it "North Azerbaijani That Uses Cyrillic Script"? Give me a break.
Here's something that might interest you and, mind you, one of the authors of this article from 1993 is an Iranian Azeri, the other one is a Caucasian Azeri:
"Despite the separation into what is commonly referred to as “Northern and Southern Azerbaijan,” the Azerbaijani language has remained basically the same. Azerbaijanis of Iran are able to carry on long conversations with Azerbaijanis of the Republic of Azerbaijan with very little difficulty." [1] 99.226.143.206 (talk) 06:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I never said that there was no mutual intelligibility between the two varieties of Azerbaijani. And you don't need to be getting angry about it. I have much more experience in situations of near-complete mutual intelligibility from around the world than just what I have mentioned here, so don't question my competence at looking at what happens between speakers and how the International Standard is applied based on literacy and mutual intelligibility. You still have not addressed the primary issue--that ISO 639-3, the INTERNATIONAL STANDARD, treats North and South Azerbaijani as two different varieties of the Azerbaijani macrolanguage. Take your arguments up with the ISO 639-3 authorities and propose the merger of the two varieties into a single language and get rid of the macrolanguage. It's a straightforward process to propose a change--ISO 639-3 home page. Get ISO 639-3 to change their evaluation of the linguistic situation between North and South Azerbaijani. Bring your linguistic facts and present your case in a change request. I'm not the person to direct your outrage at. I'm simply bringing Wikipedia into compliance with the International Standard. The next annual evaluation of change requests is in January 2009. At that time, I'll download the new ISO and make whatever changes need to be made to Wikipedia's language articles to reflect the new standard. (Taivo (talk) 10:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC))
And the comment about Ukrainian and Russian was not "anti-linguistic". You don't know the linguistic literature on the subject. It is the usual practice in discussing mutual intelligibility vis a vis language differentiation to count Ukrainian and Russian as a single language (along with Belorusian) (for example, Voegelin & Voegelin 1976, Dalby 1999, etc.). And unless you live in Ukraine and witness the speech patterns here between native speakers of Russian and Ukrainian, your "I can't imagine" doesn't really count as "evidence". The older generation of Ukrainian speakers do not use the mixed variety you mention, that's the people I'm talking about--the "purists". My fiancee is a native speaker of Russian and can communicate with Ukrainians speaking native Ukrainian--it's not perfect, but it's good and functional. Mutual intelligibility is a continuum, not an absolute. And both Ukrainian and Russian speakers report that they can understand basic Polish as well. That's something that they're "not supposed to do" if we go by every language classification ever created for Slavic languages. (Taivo (talk) 13:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC))
And if you are in any doubt about the different identities of North and South Azerbaijani, just look at the revert war going on between a North and South Azerbaijani over what to call the language in Iran in the Azerbaijani language article. It just proves that these two linguistic communities have different ideas about who they are--they may be able to talk to one another, but they don't think of their language as a single monolith. (Taivo (talk) 17:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC))

[edit] To someone well-deserving

The Barnstar of Diligence
For your extraordinary scrutiny, precision, and community service. Cheers! Eustress (talk) 15:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You do a lot of good NPOV work on The Book of Mormon and many other articles. Keep up the good work! --Eustress (talk) 15:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you (Taivo (talk) 18:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni

I have created an article about the Hopi Dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni. I know that you have reviewed the volume in Anthropological Linguistics, a journal that is currently not available to me, so I thought you might have something to add to the article. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 13:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Skill testing question

Hello Taivo:

This little question arises from a article I became interested in.

Considering only languages which have a tradition of writing,

do all those languages have an alphabet?

and are there any of those languages where the alphabet does not have a set order?

Thank you, Wanderer57 (talk) 21:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Not all languages use an alphabet. Japanese uses a syllabary, Chinese uses a logographic system. And some writing systems that are called "alphabets" by the uninitiated are not alphabets in the technical sense (one symbol per consonant, one symbol per vowel), but are abugidas (Ethiopic, Amharic), abjads (Arabic, Hebrew), or alphasyllabaries (Sanskrit and most writing systems of Southeast Asia based historically on Sanskrit). I'm not aware of any language that uses an alphabet, an abjad, an abugida, or an alphasyllabary that does not have a specific order to the system. All the syllabaries that I am aware of also have a fixed order. I'm not sure about how Chinese dictionaries are organized, so I can't speak for the world's only logographic system. We don't know if Ancient Egyptian had a fixed order. Fixed order makes dictionaries possible. (Taivo (talk) 00:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Mehri

I added a tag requesting citations for the article. That was so whoever originally added the info could back it up. If they didn't back it up after awhile, take the tag down and delete the information. -- Al™ 06:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unsigned Posts

Unsigned posts are generally the work of the untrained, unskilled, uneducated, and ignorant. I will continue to delete unsigned malicious vandalism on this page. Facts don't lie and don't need unsigned posts to assert them without reference. (Taivo (talk) 15:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

[edit] You don't delete posts on the Talk page

Actually, you can delete your own comments. Cbdorsett (talk) 04:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course, but you can't delete other's comments. Physcially, you can, but it's not appropriate. (Your own talk page, of course, is an exception, I think.) When I reverted that deletion on a talk page, were you deleting your own comment? It didn't look like it. (Taivo (talk) 08:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Ahem

If you don't still have chaps watchlisted, you might want to. Montanabw(talk) 05:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm getting too pissed off at this whole situation to stay rational without some neutral third parties around to help me keep my cool. Appreciate your willingness to hang in there. Got a giggle out of your "LDS" comment, too, because I simply cannot hear that acronym any more without being reminded of Captain Kirk in Star Trek IV calling LSD "LDS." And being in Montana, well, we aren't Southern Idaho or Utah as far as religious demographics, but yeah, I get it. We have many non-LDS "refugees" from Utah living here! (and a lot of LDS "refugees" too, actually!) LOL! Montanabw(talk) 07:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Book of Mormon article edits

Greetings - My apologies for stirring up the pot. My intention was to add what I thought was a useful bit of information regarding the number of changes to the BoM text compared to the number of changes to the New Testament text. I'll put that up in the article's talk section when I have a free moment. DWmFrancis (talk) 14:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you won't get far because you are comparing apples and oranges. The BOM is a unit that can be traced from a single source in 1830 (the first printed edition). That single source has been subject to X number of changes in 178 years of editing and printing. The NT is NOT a single source. It is composed of multiple copies (the Greek manuscripts, of which there are several hundred) of multiple documents (the 20-some-odd books of the N.T.). You can't even reasonably compare one book of the NT with the BOM because we do not have the original author's copy of any of the books. There is also the problem of time-depth. It is entirely different comparing 178 years of a document's history after the printing press to 1900 years of a document's history, 1400 of which were before the printing press. Any comparison is absolutely meaningless since you are comparing totally different things. I will oppose any such comparison being placed in the BOM article because it is irrelevant. (Taivo (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Your user page (formatting)

Try using {{clear}}. Read about it at template:clear. Cbdorsett (talk) 03:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the compact way my user page looks. That "clear" wiki makes pages look like a third grader did the page layout. (Taivo (talk) 10:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Talk:Maltese language

You started up the discussion of the Lexicology v Grammar sections; do you think it would be possible if you could help us conclude on the discussion there. (See my comment there). Thanks. MagdelenaDiArco (talk) 12:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This was the closest barnstar I could find to what I was trying to find, Lol.

The Rosetta Barnstar
For the rewrite of the grammar and lexicology sections of the Maltese language page. Well done. MagdelenaDiArco (talk) 14:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Literary Arabic

Please see my comments on Talk:Literary Arabic. I see that you have made multiple reverts of certain anonymous authors. Many of your posts advise those authors to discuss the issue on the talk page, but you have not done so yourself. I'd like to see the rationale behind the edits of both sides. Cbdorsett (talk) 03:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization of Language Articles

Hi -- I'm sorting out all the stubs you've created (great work by the way) and I noticed that most of them are listed under multiple categories. Could you please list them under just the bottom level category? My reasoning for asking this is tht categorization works a little bit like a filing cabinet where you open up to the level you want -- file everything under everything and it doesn't organize any longer. Let me know if you have thoughts or objections (my talkpage please). Aelfthrytha (talk) 04:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with your tone. Could you please turn it down a little bit? I can agree with your point about possibly keeping the large language families within the Afro-Asiatic category. However, when the Afro-Asiatic category has within it categories named after the language families that I removed, I don't think it makes them any harder to find. Could you please point to any other cleanup you find problematic? I'd like to fully understand what you disagree with so perhaps we could work cooperatively. Aelfthrytha (talk) 04:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean for the language family or group articles, or for all the individual articles? Haven't been any other categories I edited that I recall, so shouldn't be a problem other places. Aelfthrytha (talk) 05:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't agree that the lower levels weren't affected -- lower levels were affected by my edits because there were individual language articles found in every possible category from Afro-Asiatic down. Aelfthrytha (talk) 14:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Again, I am uncomfortable with your tone. Please be polite. I agree that there were some mistakes, but I maintain that I did more good than harm -- originally there were more than 200 articles in the Afro-Asiatic category referring to individual languages, and every individual language was under everything else. Is there anything left you'd like to discuss? Aelfthrytha (talk) 23:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Akkadian language cats

I created a category for Akkadian language-related articles and moved the article's categories to the new category. It wasn't vandalism. IansAwesomePizza (talk) 16:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between legitimate attempts to organize the confusion and vandalism to promote a point-of-view. In this case, all the category links between Akkadian and the Semitic languages were lost. (Taivo (talk) 16:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC))
The Ak Lang category links to the Semitic languages. IansAwesomePizza (talk) 17:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I think that the Byzantine maze of links that people must follow to go from an article like Akkadian language to Afro-Asiatic is silly. (Taivo (talk) 01:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC))
Well, the first sentence in the article, as well as the infobox all link to Afro-Asiatic. IansAwesomePizza (talk) 15:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of Image:Church of the Assumption-Rivne.JPG

A tag has been placed on Image:Church of the Assumption-Rivne.JPG requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I8 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is available as a bit-for-bit identical copy on the Wikimedia Commons under the same name, or all references to the image on Wikipedia have been updated to point to the title used at Commons.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Sdrtirs (talk) 11:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Wrong "Speedy Deletion"

You performed a "speedy deletion" on Church of the Assumption-Rivne.jpg without even reading my reasons for keeping the image. The image you deleted was NOT a "bit-for-bit" copy of the image in Wikicommons. If you had read my comments on every relevant talk page you would have known that the images were NOT identical (I took BOTH photos) and that the image on Wikicommons was an inferior image to the one you deleted. I demand that you undo the speedy deletion and do what I asked you to do--replace the Wikicommons image with the superior image which you deleted. I don't know how to "replace" images in Wikicommons. (Taivo (talk) 04:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC))

Since you asked oh-so-nicely:
This article is a frequent source of heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when responding to comments on this talk page. How about a nice cup of tea?
If none of those is the "superior image" you were referring to, then I'm sorry but you'll have to learn how to upload things on Commons yourself. Melesse (talk) 05:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
My "oh-so-nicely" is AFTER I had carefully posted a comment according to instructions everywhere that the Wikipedia speedy deletion notice called for and my image WAS STILL DELETED. Image -2 is the correct one to keep. The other two can be deleted. (Taivo (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Reply.

Well, if I understand correctly, perhaps a phrase like this might work: "Though most scholars agree that the Coptic language is extinct,<several reliable sources here> there are some who dispute this.More reliable sources. · AndonicO Engage. 10:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

That would definitely be an improvement, although it's not "scholars" who dispute this. Perhaps: "Though scholars agree that the Coptic language is extinct, there are sources that dispute this." I've never read a scholar who disputed the extinction of Coptic, only these various journalistic sources offered by Troy et al. There have been attempts to revive Coptic, so there may be modern speakers of the language although this has not been confirmed by scholars. What scholars agree on is that there is no continuation from the past even if there are modern speakers. The situation mirrors somewhat the case with Cornish. There are speakers (although the "nativeness" of the speech is debatable) of Cornish, but no one disputes that the language went extinct. I just noticed that there is a speaker number on the Cornish page, but I have the same doubts about putting a number there as I have about putting a number here--verification. At least with Cornish there is a more public degree of verification and analysis than there is with Coptic revival. (Taivo (talk) 10:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC))
Then it would probably be best as: "Though scholars agree that the Coptic language is extinct, there are some who dispute this." Putting "sources" in there sounds a bit awkward. · AndonicO Engage.
Sounds good to me. What's the next step? (Taivo (talk) 20:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC))
Propose it on the talk page of the article (if you haven't already), and see if others agree with you, and if there are any changes they'd like to make. · AndonicO Engage. 01:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] English on Talkpages

I was suggesting that people who actually understand (and have studied) Maltese contribute to the 'Maltese Language' page, rather than remaining aloof of the entire Wikipedia project. I'll keep my comments in English since so many non-speakers seem to have some sort of interest: and as you've said, this is the English (language) Wiki after all. golden bells, pomegranates, prunes & prisms (talk) 06:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)