Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics

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Linguistics portal

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Portal:Linguistics

I've spent quite a bit of time revamping the portal, adding date-based rotating content, and adding a few new secitons. I have just submitted it for portal peer review, and invite everyone to participate, here: Wikipedia:Portal_peer_review/Linguistics/archive1. --Msanford (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Chinese exclamative particles

Hi, I just created Chinese exclamative particles, should this be added to WP Linguistics? -- 李博杰 | —Talk contribs 11:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources and language articles

Hi, I asked the following question at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy), but it might be better to ask it here.

Articles about language belong to the category Linguistics. I have noticed that many editors are not aware that Linguistics is a distinct academic field. That is, they naturally assume 'Linguistics' is the domain of Literature professors, Educational bodies/Boards of Education, or published grammarians. This is understandable, since modern Linguistics doesn't hit 50 until next year.

How best to redress this in the policies and guidelines, and what is the process for getting it done?

I left out common knowledge ("I speak English, so I know what the vocabulary is/how English works" etc).

I think it's partly a matter of adding a page or section to the Reliable Sources sections of Policy and Guidelines for where to look for reliable sources for the category, and so being able to reference it. This might cut down on unnecessary discussion. I don't see it as a problem with the technical articles, naturally, but there are many more articles concerning (English, particularly) language and language use than these.

Thoughts appreciated.

Ddawkins73 (talk) 17:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you give some explicit examples of articles you've found with problematic sourcing? —An gr 17:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure.

This sort of old chestnut (authority of the grammarian):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_and_British_English_differences&diff=269043616&oldid=268914581

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_and_British_English_differences&diff=267706881&oldid=267706214

and associated talk comments like this:

In what way is a book by Dr Paul Brians, from the English Faculty at Washington State, not a reliable source?

Individual edits and some dubious sourcing on lists like these (authority of the speaker):

List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_British_and_American_English

Completely unsourced lists similar to the above (now deleted).

Did a search for dialect just now and the first article I looked at was completely unsourced:

List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language

Comments on AfDs, such as the below re The_six_traits_of_writing

Comment - it turns out that this concept is used throughout the us as a Teahcing Tool for the education of writing. For example, it smentioned here at the Edina tteaching website, here at the Center for Teaching Advancement webpage, against a Teaching That Makes Sense training website, again here at the Reynolds Institute, a prestigious institutaiton, and it even has a book atout which is avialable on this lit website. I am reviewing WP:RS to determine whether or not htise constitute reliable sources; if anyone can help me decide or adjucdicate this matter it may help to inform this debate, thank you for your consideration.

Ddawkins73 (talk) 19:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, now I see the sort of thing you're talking about. I've been having trouble too trying to keep personal observations out of Northeast Pennsylvania English and Non-native pronunciations of English. I don't know how to solve it other than on a case-by-case basis, reminding people that WP:V and WP:NOR apply to articles on linguistics too, and assuring them that academic sources are in most cases out there somewhere if they know where to look for them. —An gr 20:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been looking through the guidelines. I suggest a page on "reliable sources for language related articles"

Science and other subject areas have these pages. Linked to from WP:RS.

Mention which topics are covered by Linguistics (anything about language itself - word lists etc)

Say what aren't reliable sources.

Remind that WP:V and WP:NOR etc apply.

Suggest some places to look for sources.

Mention change (keeping sources up to date)

I'm happy to draft it, because - even to the extent it has to be dealt with case by case - having an authoritative page to link to is very handy.

Ddawkins73 (talk) 00:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea! —An gr 08:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Consternaton over Wikipedia's format for phoneme tables

I am astonished that a standard arrangement of phonemes has become institutionalized at Wikipedia. I refer to putting nasals on the top row. If I have ever seen this in the literature, I can't recall it. How did this happen, and how can it be undone? Dale Chock (talk) 05:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

See File:IPA chart 2005.png. This is the official IPA phoneme chart. Regards --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC) Oops, my mistake --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 10:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that isn't the official IPA phoneme chart. It's a phoneme chart made by User:Kwamikagami. The IPA chart in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association puts the plosives first, then the nasals. Even that strikes me as odd; it's much more intuitive to put the obstruents together (first plosives, then affricates, then fricatives) and then put the sonorants together. +An gr 10:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That was my thinking, 'cept the nasal stops are also (articulatory) obstruents, with ties to oral stops in many languages. (Okay, you get n~l a lot, but not much more than r~z, and it would break up the laterals.) So it's stops, then running down the lenition cline, then rhotics, then laterals, repeating the above. Sonorants aren't a coherent group the way obstruents are. Placing the nasals at the top isn't original with me, and when I saw it, it made a lot of sense as a more intuitive arrangement. kwami (talk) 10:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it seems quite counterintuitive to me! At any rate, it isn't really true that the nasal-first listing has become "institutionalized" at Wikipedia; lots of articles list plosives first. And there's always some wiggle room for language-dependent reasons; at Irish phonology I merged fricatives and approximants together into one row because /w/ and /j/ pattern phonologically as voiced fricatives in that language. +An gr 10:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

We should probably start laying out phoneme tables here in the same way as the IPA chart, for consistency. Irbisgreif (talk) 10:23, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Prithee

Notable? ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely WP:notable. I'll have you know it's the most notable dictionary word I've seen up for deletion today. Fortunately being notable is enough to keep it in an encyclopedia (oh... wait... it has to meet all the policies doesn't it?)- Wolfkeeper 02:41, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, since the article isn't a dicdef, it does meet all the policies. +An gr 10:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Wolfkeeper believes, and keeps trying to add to policy, the idea that "Articles are not about words and phrases". He refuses to acknowledge that this is a subjective interpretation of the WP:NAD policy, despite many editors here and at Wiktionary trying to explain the various problems he isn't understanding.

He also believes: "It's probably also the case that etymology should be minimised also in most articles."

See this edit for example, where he added a {{dicdef}} tag to Gay (word). He clearly doesn't agree with, or understand, something critical. I'm not sure how else to make clear to him that he is stating a not-widely-shared perspective.

He has stated that "the principle in WP:NAD states that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, not that it is not Wiktionary." (here). He is advocating the idea that we should remove content from Wikipedia, because it belongs at a dictionary - but seems to be claiming it is irrelevant if Wiktionary won't accept it.

He has been deleting&soft-redirecting many articles (or excising, or afding), a few of which I've reverted (eg Mad as a hatter). He has started compiling a list at User:Wolfkeeper/todo that includes thou (currently Featured) and moonies and fuck.

Perhaps if some more people from this project explain to him that he is making a mistake in reasoning/judgement/something, he might start to realize he has a subjective understanding of the policy, and should stop trying to force it on everyone? -- Quiddity (talk) 19:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

If he's been told this on numerous occasions and continues to do it, it's time to consider an RFC. +An gr 21:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Or should I be RFCing Quiddity given that he is apparently following me around the wikipedia?- Wolfkeeper 22:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, the policy is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a dictionary. The question then follows, what are they then and what's the difference? However, since both encyclopedias and dictionaries are standard types of works which have been extensively examined by scholars over centuries. I have actually looked at the literature on this, and are able to cite my justifications, whereas it seems to me, you only have your opinions, which are statistically much less likely to be correct on the differences than textbooks which have been through a peer-review process.- Wolfkeeper 22:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

He clearly won't listen to me (having banned me from his talkpage for this), and probably won't listen to anyone else that disagrees with him ("All I know is there's only two kinds of discussion I get into in the Wikipedia; one's I win, and one's I haven't won yet [...]"[1]).

However, I've placed some rough notes here, if someone else would like to start investigating and create one. Or just for diffs to help explain to him the problems. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the arrogance is a big problem, especially considering it is certainly not the case that he wins every deletion discussion he takes a side on (most recently WP:Articles for deletion/Pissing contest). And of course his crusade to rid Wikipedia of articles about words hurts not only Wikipedia, but Wiktionary as well, since he keeps trying to foist encyclopedia articles on them. +An gr 13:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I did say, eventually... Sometimes it takes more than one year. It's not really a question of win/lose either, it's a question of sorting out a problem when I find one.- Wolfkeeper 17:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

As your newest attempt to rid Wikipedia of linguistics articles at WP:Articles for deletion/Voseo shows, it's pretty obviously a question of creating a problem where none had previously existed. +An gr 22:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Linguistics Wikibooks

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'm looking for assistance in writing the Linguistics Wikibook, and I had heard that Wikipedia might be the best place to ask at. The book looks promising, but I don't feel like I have the time or knowledge to work with more than the first few chapters. Mo-Al (talk) 06:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of -ium

Input from those with expertise would be much appreciated at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Elements, where the proper respelling pronunciation of -ium is being disputed. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposed userbox

This user is a member of WikiProject Linguistics.

I see that WP Linguistics is currently without a userbox, so here's a simple one that you might like. Suggestions for improvement are most welcome. Thanks, MuffledThud (talk) 09:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice one. I've added it to my user page. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I like it. Added to userpage as well. — æk ^Talk 00:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. If there are no objections, I'll make it into a template and post it to the project page. MuffledThud (talk) 01:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, done. The new userbox is {{User WikiProject Linguistics}}. I'll copy it to the project page: you're all most welcome to place this userbox on your user page: this will automatically add you to Category:WikiProject Linguistics members, which I hope will help publicize the project. MuffledThud (talk) 23:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

New page: Positive anymore

I have created the page Positive anymore, as requested on the project page. Your additions, changes, etc. are most welcome. I've also added the project banner to the talk page, if anyone would care to suggest quality and importance ratings. Cnilep (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm the one who requested the article, so thank you for starting it! +An gr 21:40, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Informant (linguistics)

I've created the stub Informant (linguistics), but it needs expansion. Please add, chop and flame as required. Thanks, MuffledThud (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Dagger

Is correct way using dagger like this "†Tyranousaurus" or "† Tyranousaurus" or both? For more infomation see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology#"Extinction dagger" guideline needed. Thanks. --Snek01 (talk) 14:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Languages world map

I have some concerns about the file 'Languages world map.svg', which was recently added to the {{Linguistics}} template. The color-coding seems to represent an odd mix of language families, sub-family groups, and ad-hoc groups containing multiple families. For example, the Western hemisphere has three colors representing "Germanic languages", "Romance languages", and "Native American languages". As contributors to this project probably know, Germanic is a branch of the Indo-European family and Romance is a major division of the Italic branch of Indo-European. Native American languages, on the other hand, do not comprise a family but encompass many families including Caddoan, Chinookan, Iroquoian, Muskogean, Na-Dine, Siouxan, Uto-Aztecan, and many others (and those are all represented in North America; the map uses the same color for South America). The map also shows "Australian Aboriginal languages" as a single color.

I realize that color-coding by family and mapping the most commonly spoken language in a region (I assume that is how the map is drawn) would make most of the world look Indo-European, which would be problematic. An alternative might be to map presumed areas of origin by family, or an estimate of (say) pre-1500 distribution, but each of these has its own controversies and problems.

I don't know what the best solution might be. But I don't think that this map is very informative as a logo for linguistics-related pages. Thoughts? Cnilep (talk) 16:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think if we use a map in the {{Linguistics}} template at all it should follow the color coordination of the language infoboxes. I think there even is such a map somewhere. +An gr 16:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This one: File:Human Language Families (wikicolors).png? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I like that one better. It shows roughly half the world as Indo-European, but that's the way of the world. It collapses Papuan and American languages into one color each, but at least it notes in the legend that these comprise several families. Cnilep (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it looks fine in the template, too; but the unreadable legend is a bit strange. What about creating a version without a legend? (It could be implemented on the description page.) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Implemented it for now. What does everybody think? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the old map. It looks essentially the same to me, just with a higher level of granularity—for example, looking in East and Central Asia, the old map splits Sinitic languages from Tibeto-Burman whereas the new map puts all Sino-Tibetan languages together, and the old map splits Turkic, Mongol, and Tungusic languages whereas the new one puts all those Altaic languages together. Neither map is "wrong" (at least, not in that part of the world), one is just more fine-grained. (The only possible source of contention I can see is that, in the legend for the first map, Korean and Japanese are categorized under Altaic languages—although they do have their own special colors. The second map just classifies them as isolates. Either way, the first map is fine on the map itself, it's just the legend that boldly puts them under Altaic.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Cantonese/Yue renaming

Cantonese (Yue) (iso3=yue) is being polled again for renaming, because with Standard Cantonese (Canton dialect) now at Cantonese, some feel the article names are too similar. Input welcome. kwami (talk) 12:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Template for making diacritics more legible

When you need to illustrate, and especially distinguish between similar, diacritics in an article, you can now do this really easily with {{Huge}}. It even compensates for the increased font size's line height also increasing. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC) Media:Example.ogg

Fine, but in IE8, the diacritics shown in the example display about a line below the text line. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Article alerts

Any reason why this project isn't subscribed to WP:AALERTS? (See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics/Archive 2#Article alerts). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, no one was BOLD enough to subscribe for us. Now I have. Obviously if anyone objects, they can revert, though I can't imagine why anyone would object. +An gr 11:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Cool. See also User:JL-Bot/Project content if you want to have something like WP:WikiProject Physics/Recognized content. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I set up a temporary page at User:Cnilep/WikiProject Linguistics project content using JL-Bot/Project content with all project parameters. If other members of this project like the look of it, it might be moved to a subpage of the project page. Cnilep (talk) 22:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Mutual intelligibility

Because of a lot of problems with original resource and factual disputes, I've pretty much eviscerated this article; it used to have a long list of mutually intelligible languages, and I removed everything without a source (essentially the whole list) and added notes saying not to add anything to the list without a source. Further explanation is here. If anyone knows of languages that can be re-added to the list, you are welcome to make sourced additions; hopefully this way we can gradually get the article built back up, and at a higher quality than before. Thanks, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Euphemisms

I've been populating Category:Euphemisms and started Category:Dysphemisms recently. I'm wondering if we have any editors who are knowledgeable about such things that can bring their perspective to Enhanced interrogation techniques. I'd like to resolve a disagreement on the talk page over placing that article in the euphemisms category. Thanks, Gobonobo ^T ^C 23:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Interactional sociolinguistics

I've just noticed that the page Interactional sociolinguistics was deleted last November as copyright infringement. Rather than getting an admin to review the old page, I've created new content based on Gumperz (1982) and description of the subfield by Deborah Tannen in an intro textbook. The page is quite short now, so (well-sourced, non-copy-vio) additions are requested. Cnilep (talk) 16:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

"Finnish numerals" on AfD

The article titled Finnish numerals has been nominated for deletion. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Finnish numerals and don't just say Keep or Delete; give your arguments. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:46, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Borean languages

An editor is questioning notability as well as altering presentation in ways I feel are unhelpful. Would appreciate your input at Talk:Borean languages. --JWB (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of German cognates with English

Members of this WikiProject may like to contribute at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of German cognates with English.

Knepflerle (talk) 09:52, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Thou's FAR

I have nominated Thou for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Sanity check please

I have "prod'ed" Classifiers with Number Morphology. A sanity check from a member of this project would be most welcome.

--Cje (talk) 17:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Portmanteau in Spanish

Hi there,

The term Portmanteau is attached to the Spanish term Parasíntesis in Wikipedia. This link is not correct since they refer to different things (both are word formation processes, however parasíntesis does nos imply the shotening of two words - as in a+el=al - but, roughly speaking, the union of a lexeme and a prefix and a suffix in which the group prefix-lexeme and lexeme-suffix separately have no meaning as in a-naranj-ado). Portmanteau is though correctly attached to the term "Contracción".

Could this link be eliminated, please?

Thanks,

Margaritas a los cerdos —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.121.231.182 (talk) 17:29, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question. The page Portmanteau includes reciprocal interlanguage links with es:Contracción (gramática). If there is a problem with es:Parasíntesis, that issue should be raised at es:Discusión:Parasíntesis. This WikiProject is dedicated to maintaining linguistics-related pages on the English Wikipedia. Cnilep (talk) 18:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Missing linguistics topics

I've updated my list of missing topics related to languages and linguistics - Skysmith (talk) 12:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for maintaining that list! I found several red links that I made into redirects. +An gr 13:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Italoamerican Italian a dialect or a creole?

The Italian language in the United States page does not talk about the differences with standard Italian, but it is often called a dialect I saw by Googling, but it is a mix of some bastardized English words (non basic words) and all the basic Italian words, which would make it a creole, but only a single google book calls it as such though. Is it? And could someone who knows add it there? Thanks --Squidonius (talk) 02:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Having a few English loanwords tossed in doesn't make it a creole. To be a creole, it would have to have developed out of a pidgin, and to be a pidgin, it would have had to be spoken for restricted purposes by people who had a wide variety of different, non-mutually-intelligent, native languages. +An gr 07:25, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European root for GA

I nominated Proto-Indo-European root for GA. Comments welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:46, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Abuse of language

The page Abuse of language was apparently created as a translation of the French stub fr:Abus de langage in March 2009, substituting English examples for French ones. An anonymous user attempted to add some sources, but they consist only of surnames and dates; I don't know how to access the supposed sources. I'm not even sure I understand what points these sources are meant to support.

I don't quite know what to make of the page. It seems to be so much linguistic peeving, veiled as a discussion of the preferences of unnamed people or groups (e.g. "Abuse of language is using a word in an... often criticized sense"). The French page is clearly a collection of judgments:

Appeler un manchot un « pingouin » est un abus de langage très répandu, bien que les deux termes désignent en principe des espèces différentes d'oiseaux. Ou "Une vidéo" pour un magnétoscope.

Calling a manchot a "penguin" is a common abuse of language, since in principal the two terms designate different bird species. Or "a video" for a video cassette recorder. (Mon dieu!)

(Note that manchot is the French word for penguin, while pingouin is, at least according to my French-English dictionary, used for either penguins or auks.)

I'm almost inclined to propose deleting the page, but wonder if it can be somehow cleaned up and saved. Does anyone know of work under this heading? Or can anyone suggest a proper target for a redirect? Thanks, Cnilep (talk) 21:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Would a redirect, perhaps with selective merge, to Linguistic purism or maybe Linguistic prescription make sense? Cnilep (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I redirected the page to Linguistic purism, but was then informed of a specialized usage in mathematics that I was not aware of (and that was not described on the page). User:Sławomir Biały changed the page to a DAB linking to Linguistic purism, Misnomer, and Abuse of notation. I agree that this is better, but it's still not quite satisfactory. Cnilep (talk) 21:14, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge of Word and Word (language)

Word (language) is an import of the Citizendium article, and needs merging into Word, as they are the same subject. I thought someone with knowledge of linguistics could give it a go. Fences&Windows 15:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Philology

I can't edit the Linguistics page, under the subject Philology. An online dictionary is quoted, to the effect that the term "Philology" is first attested in the eighteenth century. This is inaccurate. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first English occurrence of "Philology" ("Philologie") is in Chaucer's "Merchant's Tale" from the Canterbury Tales. And of course the word has a Classical background, e.g. Martianus Capella (5th c.) and his "Marriage of Mercury and Philology". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garciala1 (talk • contribs) 13:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Japanese diphthongs

There is was a very juvenile argument going on at Japanese phonology, but one which raises an important point, whether Japanese has diphthongs. Various sources hint at what they might be, and how they differ from vowel sequences, but nowhere can I find a clear account laying them all out. And of course there's the traditional description of Japanese having no diphthongs. I don't know how well supported these approaches are in the community. This also ties into what exactly is a diphthong, and how one determines whether s.t. is one. — kwami (talk)

Aspect templates

An editor has suggested (at Talk:Grammatical aspect#Intuitive Description of Aspect) to explain aspects and tenses with something like a ball-and-stick model. I went ahead and created two templates ({{Aspect line}}, the "ball and stick", and {{Infobox aspect}}, an infobox for use in articles about aspects/tenses). A usage example is at the mentioned discussion. The templates certainly need to be expanded (e. g. a colour scheme could be installed to distinguish between action and result, the present moment could be marked etc.) Suggestions welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Rosetta Stone

The rosetta Stone article, a FA candidate, has a fairly long section on languages and decipherment. If anyone would like to read and comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rosetta Stone/archive1, all such comments would be welcome! Thanks -- Andrew Dalby 14:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Reflexive verb

The talk page for the above article has a lot of interesting unanswered questions. I managed to answer two, but added one. :) Can anyone from the project help there? I'm particularly interested about sections 4 and 9. Also, it would be nice if someone could add Lithuanian uniformly to all the examples. Balabiot (talk) 18:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Admiralty Island languages

RfM based on the claim that there is a field of Admiralty Island linguistics with its own terminology, that's independent of the Loyalty Islands or Solomons or any other subgroup of Oceanists. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Kwami has made a rather biased statement of the issue reflecting his own POV. A request has been made to move the Admiralty Island languages article to Admiralty Islands languages. The arguments for and against are placed there. --Taivo (talk) 00:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Loyalty Islands languages

A move request has been made to move Loyalty Island languages to Loyalty Islands languages. --Taivo (talk) 15:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Expression (language)

We need an expression (language)/expression (linguistics) article, and it looks like Sentence (linguistics) should be its basis. Propose a move. Talk:Sentence_(linguistics)#Move_to_"expression_(language)" - -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 01:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Requested move: Manners of articulation to Manner of articulation

Manner of articulation was recently moved to Manners of articulation. I have requested that it be moved back. Comments and suggestions are welcome at Talk:Manners of articulation#Requested move. Cnilep (talk) 18:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Aorist

A discussion on Aorist has taken place on whether the article should remain essentially as-is, or should be rewritten the replace Greek-related grammatical terms like "aorist" by other terms. Input would be greatly appreciated at Talk:Aorist#RfC. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 00:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I never suggested we eliminate the term "aorist", only that we explain it in non-provincial terms, either as perfective or past perfective. (There is some debate as to which it is, and it may have changed over time.) Also that we eliminate the terms "aorist tense" and "perfect tense", since they are not tenses. If those phrases really are ubiquitous in the lit as something distinct from the aorist and perfect (and from my reading it appears they are not), they can be mentioned in a footnote, or we should at least make it clear that they are not tenses. — kwami (talk) 05:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

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