CZ Talk:Linguistics Workgroup/Archive 1

Linguistics Live category

I think it could be simpler, at least initially, to start a separate category of 'live' linguistics articles. I'm not sure it's completely necessary, but as an experiment I'm going to categorise anything 'live' accordingly (see Category:Linguistics Live) and link the workgroup home page to it, rather than having a manual list. John Stephenson 03:16, 23 January 2007 (CST)

I got rid of this category after a few months' service as we now have categories like 'External Articles' and 'Stubs' which do just about the same job. John Stephenson 00:00, 4 May 2007 (CDT)

Article lists

A back-up of these is here. For the record I think it's a mistake to delete all the non-live articles as for me it's easier to rewrite something rather than start with a blank page; but time will tell. John Stephenson 00:04, 19 January 2007 (CST)

Separate category for languages we know?

What do you guys think, should we set up different categories to organize which users know certain languages? For example, I am learning ancient Koine Greek but wouldn't yet be considered an "expert" on the subject, so maybe something along these lines [[Category:Linguistics Authors, Koine Greek|Major, Tom]] --Tom Major 08:40, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

I do agree it'd be useful to know what languages we all have expertise in, but CZ aims to minimise categories (we delete all the Wikipedia ones when we import articles). For now, this can be kept on the user pages, unless we can get a way of referring to this without creating lots of categories. John Stephenson 06:52, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

So was that a yes or a no? :-) The only way to refer to this kind of data without categories would be if the Citizendium developers installed the Semantic MediaWiki etension. --Tom Major 15:55, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

Further to this, see CZ:International. John Stephenson 22:47, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

Approach

Hello all, I am an editor in Anthropology and we in the workgroup are attempting to build this area and approach the standards that are being reached by your workgroup. As many areas of anthropology overlap with linguistics (we in fact have linguistics listed over there also), I feel that members of your group could assist us enormously in building the Anthropology heading as well as creating fertile cross links between our allied disciplines. I would appreciate if your editors and authors would take a few moments to visit our workgroup page where we are compiling a list of priority topics and sub-headings. I would imagine that many of you might find you already have ideas, stubs or even developed articles which you could insert into our wish list and make this aspect of CZ grow more rapidly and with a sounder biological base. Please feel free to write/edit away! Many thanks in advance! CZ:Anthropology Workgroup

Lee R. Berger 00:38, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Names of specific language articles

When CZ started all the language articles were from Wikipedia so we inherited their titling decisions, e.g. English language not English. I feel this is the best way, but as new authors join us, articles with just the name may become common. Should we create some kind of official agreement on titling? I am backing the use of the word 'language' in all circumstances, even when the language name can't conceivably refer to anything else. I think this makes it easier for people to know what an article is going to be about. If necessary, a redirect can be used from the language name alone. John Stephenson 00:38, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

It looks like I'm quite a bit late to the discussion, but I'll offer my two cents as well. Appending "language" to the title is probably a good practice. English alone is a very broad term, and could be misleading to people who want information about English people, English customs, or even Johny English (Srry, I had to.). Drew R. Smith 12:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

The Editorial Council passed [:I think so, since the EC passed a recommendation about it when I brought the issue to their attention. this recommendation] in December 2010: basically, language articles should be formed from the name plus the word 'language', e.g. English language, unless there is a good reason not to (e.g. Esperanto need not be further disambiguated). John Stephenson 07:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

A specific question about a tribal name

I am copying this question to the Linguistics, Anthropology and History Workgroups' discussion pages in the hopes of finding a definitive answer to a specific question.

My question is this: there was a tribe known as Dal Riata which existed in various extents in north-eastern Ireland and western Scotland. I have seen the name rendered also as Dalriata, Dalriada, Dal Riada and Dál Riata. Which is the correct version of the name? Are the 'riada' versions a simple confusion with another tribe called Dal nariadi? Which form should the name take in an English language forum? --Mal McKee 00:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Language articles

Hi Linguistics members, I have been looking at the Linguistics articles needing definitions and I see there are a lot of short articles like Ainu language, Alabama language, Asturian-Leonese language, etc.

I have two questions. First, is this the naming convention we are sticking with? If so there are a few articles I can rename to suit. And second, are these articles definitely article candidates, or (for some) are they more suited to a section of a main article? David Finn 08:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I think so, since the EC passed a recommendation about it when I brought the issue to their attention. The exception is Esperanto, presumably because it's a unique name. While you could argue that some minority languages might not merit an article, there is so much that you can put in - about the grammar, vocabulary, sound system etc. - that you can probably work any up into a full article given the effort. John Stephenson 09:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing to the EC Motion. When I find a short article like one of these I usually look to other encyclopediae to see if they have managed an article on the same topic - if not then we are unlikely to either. For the language articles it seems like we could if we tried, so I am happy about letting them stay.

You will know of course that the EC removals system does not necessarily agree. Technically nobody has edited these stubs for years which makes them candidates for removal. I am an inclusionist however so my opinion is that they should certainly stay to provide a framework for potential contributors.

Now all we need is an answer to the question about History of... articles! David Finn 09:50, 7 December 2011 (UTC)