Talk:Wagiman language

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Good article Wagiman language has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
December 8, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
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Contents

[edit] Wagiman language

I've signed up to do the GA review. I'm not a linguist, and I'm fairly busy, so process may be slow - if either of these is a problem, let me know and I'll withdraw. Jimfbleak (talk) 11:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

A few first thoughts.
  • There are a good number of red links, some of which seem quite important. Any chance of fixing some of these?
  • I appreciate that an article like this has to use technical terms, but some of the more important ones could do with a brief gloss, so the non-expert doesn't have to keep linking to explanatory articles
  • Your referencing system seems a bit odd, with very short in-line entries followed by a bibliography. Why not use standard in-line referencing?
  • There needs to be some careful copy-editing to pick up the odd grammatical error/typo.

Jimfbleak (talk) 18:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The referencing system is like that to make the text easier to read. Having long blocks of ref tags makes texts difficult to read. Could you list any grammatical errors, I didn't see any, the same goes for spelling errors. I'll ask the guy who wrote this to take a look at the red links when he has some time, and ask what he thinks about adding some glosses. - Francis Tyers · 12:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I think there was only one typo, but some funny capitalisation and strange phrasing - I've copyedited antway. I'll wait for a bit before further review. Jimfbleak 13:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as red links go, besides semblative case (for which I'll concede the point), they are all languages from the area, and for most of them I'm absolutely not qualified to create such pages. In fact, this page is being publicised to other linguists working in Australian languages and as such, the prevalence of red links for language names might encourage them to start pages for languages which they know.

"Like many Australian languages, Wagiman does not categorically distinguish nouns from adjectives. These form one word class that is called nominals." Categorially is a word in the linguistic literature, it's just uncommon enough to warrant a red squiggly line. It means (in this context) that there aren't two 'categories' such as nouns and adjectives. Categorically surely originally meant something along these lines, but it has since undergone enough semantic shift meaning that we have to devise a separate term. It doesn't mean 'absolutely' as categorically tends to mean these days. I'm changing this back to 'categorially'. I'm prepared to fully accept all other edits. I don't see what's odd about the referencing; there's not a great deal of literature on Wagiman, as you might appreciate, there are less speakers than books that have been written about the language. As for glosses, I'll gradually go through and add some in, but it strikes me as odd that "intervocalically (between two vowels)" would be changed to merely "between two vowels". Offering glosses is one thing, but to obscure the common linguistic terminology is quite another. Aidhoss~ngili-ma 13:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC) (forgot to change my signature with my username) Jangari~ngili-ma 02:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, some more style concerns
  1. most of the bibliography does not have isbns
  2. The table have a centred LH column, rest are left aligned - looks odd.
  3. Do you need the Wilson chapter numbers, if No can collapse refs, which I think would justify putting them as proper in-line, if Yes, presumably ref 6 should have a chapter?
I'll lay off for a couple of days so you can fix semblative and add a couple of glosses. Jimfbleak 15:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
That's the wikitable template I'm afraid, and I don't know how to internally format is so that all row and cell headings are left-aligned. At least, all my efforts have been unsuccessful. It can either look like:
bilabial alveolar retroflex palatal velar glottal
plosive p [p], b [b] t [t], d [d] rt [ʈ], rd [ɖ] tj [c], j [ɟ] k [k], g [g] h [ʔ]
nasal m [m] n [n] rn [ɳ] ny [ɲ] ng [ŋ]
trill rr [r]
lateral l [l] rl [ɭ]
approximant w [w] r [ɻ] y [j]

Or it can be all left aligned and lose the rest of the wikitable effects and look like:

bilabial alveolar retroflex palatal velar glottal
plosive p [p], b [b] t [t], d [d] rt [ʈ], rd [ɖ] tj [c], j [ɟ] k [k], g [g] h [ʔ]
nasal m [m] n [n] rn [ɳ] ny [ɲ] ng [ŋ]
trill rr [r]
lateral l [l] rl [ɭ]
approximant w [w] r [ɻ] y [j]

I think the wikitable looks better, despite the center-alignment of the row and cell headings.

I've inserted ISBN numbers for all books that have been published, Wilson 2006 and Cook 1987 are only available through the respective institutions as it stands; they haven't been published commercially and therefore haven't been assigned isbn numbers. I'm personally looking to getting Wilson 2006 published online in pdf format, but it may take a little while. Jangari - ngili-ma 01:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

"Do you need the Wilson chapter numbers, if No can collapse refs, which I think would justify putting them as proper in-line, if Yes, presumably ref 6 should have a chapter?"

You'll have to excuse me, I don't understand what you mean by 'proper in-line'. The references are of the form "Author's-surname, Initial/s. (year: page-number/s)", I haven't used chapter numbers. The page number is missing from [6] because when I put it in, I didn't have Wilson 1999 with me and couldn't find the specific page reference, although I know it's from somewhere in the opening few pages of the book. I'll fix that when I get home tonight and have a look at the book. What is the other method; collapsing the references? Jangari - ngili-ma 03:40, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Final concerns

OK, I've been through again, and I'll make this the final set of comments before doing a formal GA review later in the week. The article is interesting and reads better now, but there are some significant concerns:

  1. At present the introduction is way too short - it should give a general overview of the main points of the contents.
  2. The use of external links as in-line references is deprecated, and is not consistent with the style you have used for books - use cite web or similar format - if you are not sure, its probably best to look at a featured article like Georgetown University to see how it should be done.
  3. I don't like the style of the book refs, but it works, so once made consistent it will be OK. By collapsing the refs, if you have multiple references to the same book, you can use the format <ref name = example>book details</ref>, and then subsequent references to the same source are just <ref name = example/> - see the Turner ref in Barn Swallow if that's unclear.
  4. Cook is in the bibliography, but not the reference list - referencing systems should be consistent, so should be both or neither.
  5. There are several repeated links, like Mayali - each item (red or blue linked) should only be linked the first time it occurs.
  6. I accept that the language red links will have to stand, so that's OK
  7. Have a look at the goalscorers section of Bristol Rovers F.C. season 2006-07 - those tables seem pretty good.

As things stand the main issues are MOS. The introduction must be expanded, multiple links delinked, and the referencing system made consistent. I'll do a final assessment later in the week, let me know here if any problems/queries Jimfbleak 07:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to address your concern about unpublished sources: I said they weren't commercially published, which means they aren't issued an ISBN number. They were published as academic volumes and are accessible, though not very easily. Most importantly, they exist as works and in many catalogues; it just so happens that amazon.com isn't one of them. I am the author of one of them and am trying to have it web-archived, I don't foresee its imminent commercial publication. The other I am trying to have retrieved from an institution in soft-copy, as it appears to be the only copy around. I have a hard copy. It too, was never published commercially, and, as it was written over 20 years ago, web archiving was not possible. If I can get a soft copy of it, I'll similarly try to have it web-archived for free access, but will have to get permission from the author.
As for the references, I originally had the web links listed as books, as the information comes from a book originally, but the website is the most freely available version, clearly. I changed them to web citations only after seeing such citations in other articles. I'll change them to refs to be consistent, but I would prefer to have page numbers, they seriously come in handy when looking up a reference in a 400 page volume, so I won't collapse them into the book referencing system. For consistency I'll find the book version of ethnologue 15 and provide page numbers as well.
Thanks for your reviewing. jangari - ngili-ma 07:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

In view of this, can you add, for example, a ref to a catalogue or similar to support using your own work. Also I don't think that there is a problem with putting page numbers in, you can always put it outside any template you use, <ref>{{web template}} p123</ref>, or ref to the book version and give an online link to the accessible web version as you have already done with one source Jimfbleak 08:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I thinks the refs are consistent now, they are in the same style, retain the web links for accessibility, and are not external links - I don't know if you want to tweak the dictionary ref? Jimfbleak 09:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
One other point, the long grammar section is virtually unreferenced. I appreciate that you have probably used a single source for this, and you won't want to ref every paragraph to the same source. I think, however, it would be a good idea to start the section with something like This section is based on the treatment in Smith, (2001)[1], otherwise it's unclear where it all from Jimfbleak 09:40, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

I've had another read through, and I can see you've addressed most of the remaining problems. The main issue now is repeated links; I fixed Mayali and Arnhem land, but there are others (English is one). I'll do the formal review on Thursday - If that doesn't give you time to sort out the repeat links, let me know, and I'll make it Friday. Jimfbleak (talk) 06:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Could the authors put inlines in the bottom half of the article? Because the expectation at GA nowadays is to ref everything throughly. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Second opinion

In view of the comment above, I'm going to ask for a second opinion on this - I feel that you have addressed the main concerns, but as a relatively new GA reviewer, I think I need another view on the referencing of the grammar section. Jimfbleak (talk) 08:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

No second opinion forthcoming, so following my own judgement, Jimfbleak (talk) 06:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)