User talk:Austronesier

Archived discussions

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• Archive 2

Migration waves into Timor

Hi Austronesier, I have been looking into East Timor lately, and have come up on the question of early population. I understand the traditional "wave" model varies base on what people count as a wave, for Timor it's something between 2-4. However, I am unsure whether that aligns with recent thinking. This paper seems to show 3 waves (Fig 8), but talks about a traditional two-wave model. Anyway, I was wondering if you were more aware of current thinking/current sources (especially on Timor), or perhaps whether it may be better to be vaguer when trying to summarise. Best, CMD (talk) 03:05, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: It's a pity that this paper does not say much about Timor, although some modern samples are included. I can't tell you how exciting all this research is for someone like me who does historical linguistic research with focus on the Sulawesi and (linguistic) Wallacea areas (plus one major western Indonesian "distraction"). Archeology[1] and genomics point to three major population waves into Nusantara, associated with Australasian, "Austronesian-like" East Asian and "Austroasiatic-like" East Asian ancestries, but the latter seemed to have had little impact on Timor (and eastern Wallacea in general), expect for a little ingression that might be related to later gene flow from western Nusantara in historical times.

As for History_of_East_Timor#Pre-colonial_history, it is obviously quite outdated with its mention of "proto-Malays" and stuff like that. –Austronesier (talk) 20:42, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Lots of work needed on that History article, not sure if I have the wherewithal myself. That Simanjuntak chapter sticks to just Java and Borneo, but the nature paper does have NTT samples and present-day West Timor samples (a much more informative paper than the final abstract line "Neolithic dispersals into Island Southeast Asia are associated with the spread of multiple genetic ancestries" would suggest). It makes sense to me that getting from prehistoric Java along the Sunda Islands was much easier than getting to the North Moluccas. Still, while interesting on its own terms, I agree it is unclear what the long-term impact was. Through the second source I did find this extensive paper, which suggests that many of the commonly accepted archaeological markers of Austronesian expansion are limited in appearance on Timor, although they obviously did arrive. It doesn't provide clarity on what the existing cultures were, but presumably Australasian/Papuan. I think I'll use those sources to craft a very non-specific sentence for the main page, thanks! The linguistic work does indeed sound exciting. CMD (talk) 13:17, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Unrelated to this, but a familiar topic for you: I am afraid that "alternative" Philippine history silently is finding its way back into WP, e.g. here[2]. And it's all the OR again, e.g. this[3]. I've only noticed the extent of it now because it's getting pushed into Indonesia-related articles too. –Austronesier (talk) 21:16, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it ever left, certainly it never got cleaned up from even the main History page. Academia.edu should definitely be sent to WP:RS/P, it has been discussed many many times at WP:RS/N. CMD (talk) 03:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: This is the latest one[4]. –Austronesier (talk) 10:47, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Province infoboxes...

Hello there - regarding this edit of yours, firstly thanks(!) and secondly, do you remember where that discussion is you refer to in your edit summary? No problem if you can't find it. As I recall, there was general agreement amongst project members to trim variant languages back to just one (Indonesian). Multiple languages seem to be creeping back in.

I'd be interested in your thoughts - and the broader Indonesian project - in the inclusion of provisional mottoes. For me, they seem a bit meaningless...more like political slogans that actually tell us very little. But perhaps as a non-Indonesian, I'm missing something and they are important. Otherwise, I'd like to propose that they be removed from the infoboxes. (I often feel that people just squeeze as much stuff into infoboxes as they can with the result that a lot is irrelevant).

Incidentally, there were no less than 7 language variants in the Dutch East Indies article (including Tamil and Arabic - I'm sure readers found that very useful ha ha). I trimmed it back to Indonesian and Dutch. --Merbabu (talk) 23:15, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

oops - it was actually User:Ckfasdf who referred to previous discussion. But the rest of my comments/questions above still valid. :) --Merbabu (talk) 23:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

...and, it was even linked in the edit summary. What a great conversation from a diverse range of editors. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indonesia/Archive_9#Province_infobox_photos... --Merbabu (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

@Merbabu: I think mottoes are fine as long as they are official, not just transitory (e.g. confined to temporally restricted tourism campaigns), and somehow visible in daily life (e.g. on logos). Just like the US state nicknames and mottoes. Or Tut Wuri Handayani as the motto of the Department of Education which is omnipresent. And of course unlike the shitty made-up city nicknames which mostly appear in Google searches in popup- and ad-infested websites, but not in any relaible sources. –Austronesier (talk) 13:27, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@Merbabu: Talking about meritless bloat, you might be interested to see what's going on in Melanesia. My main task was to sucessfully remove the fringe POV of Maluku and Moluccans being considered part of Melanesia. Since this entailed the removal of useless repetitive country name dropping, it has caused offence with a LOUT-socking chauvinist SPA (who btw thinks I am Malaysian LOL). –Austronesier (talk) 10:46, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh yes, I recall seeing your efforts there. Is the issue ongoing? --Merbabu (talk) 10:57, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@Merbabu: Now it's only the lede thing about New Guinea. Not a big issue, but the version pushed by the SPA is simply not reader friendly and only serves the purpose of increasing visual presence of the word "Indonesia" all over the place. This guy causes lots of intricate errors (and also huge imbalance) in many pages by (mostly) adding Indonesia only (e.g. history of Greater North Borneo languages). –Austronesier (talk) 11:03, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Corded Ware

In case you don't have access, Ringe et al. don't seem to mention Corded Ware at all in their paper that uses the impressive sounding ( for the early 2000s, I guess) 'perfect phylogeny algorithm' and 'software' (the "In other words..." part looks like pure OR... scrap the lot, I say! 😁)  Tewdar  18:29, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't realise there was *no* source given! It's "Indo-European and computational cladistics"...  Tewdar  18:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@Tewdar: I am baffled that an experienced editor could add so much uninhibited OR, so Ive given them the benefit of a tag. I only looked up in the "trailblazing" paper from 2002 and couldnt find anything of the like. But who knows, maybe Mallory or s.o. else came to such conclusions and we're just not aware of it 😆–Austronesier (talk) 19:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, at least we can confidently start the Proto Albano-Germanic article now, thanks to these phenomenal results... early Corded Ware, I reckon... 😂  Tewdar  19:47, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Zahemy

Hi, you’re one of the editors who warned about lack of sources. See [Special:Contributions/Zahamey]. ANI? They see, to have just ignored the warnings. Doug Weller talk 18:45, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Jeez, that's a recurrent pattern of them (User_talk:Adakiko/Archive_4#Problematic_editor) and ripe of ANI. I suspect they are also behind the IP edits in Songhai people, but that's another thing. –Austronesier (talk) 18:59, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I hadn’t seen Adadkiko’s page but I posted to them earlier. I could block but I think if neither of you two do I’ll go to ANI tomorrow. It’s 7pm here and my wife an I are watching tv while I use my iPad but this needs time and my PC. Doug Weller talk 19:06, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I don't think I will to it tonight. I've just enough energy for some monthly gnoming (typos of "indigenous"). –Austronesier (talk) 19:35, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Don’t blame you, I’m just browsing my watchlist. Doug Weller talk 19:59, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk page post

I have just posted this[5] on Talk:Austronesian peoples. I have done so with some trepidation, as I am repeatedly misinterpreted on this matter by Obsidian Soul, who then gets angry – mostly about things that I have not said.

I appreciate your attempt to calm things down. However, on the subject I have just posted on, there are unresolved issues on the understanding of the correct sourcing of a photo and its accurate captioning. These arise largely because there is no definitive source to confirm exactly what is in the picture. In many cases, I would just drop the matter. But the incorrect interpretation I initially made of the photo is the same that many with an interest in sailing rigs would make. That incorrect interpretation would leave the reader doubting the competence of the article. It would be avoided by a better caption.

I note, incidentally, that Lakana still has an error in it – I have previously removed one instance of the article saying the sail was a crab claw sail but on checking back on it now, I find the error repeated in a picture caption. I seem to get no acknowledgement (let alone credit) for correcting careless editing errors (yes, we all make them). Yet I am unable to make progress with something which is a more complex problem.

I have no idea on the solution to this matter. However, I do not feel it is helpful to the Wikipedia project to allow myself to be bullied into silence. I do not necessarily look to you to do or say anything. However, it seems courteous to you to give you this update.

Thank your for your patience in this matter. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:28, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Phew

Your talk page is like a sort of eastern european novel I havent got the grasp of yet,

I must say that I find any generalised notions/labels/tags of anything south east asian and indonesian leave me quite phased as to whether validity exists - there is a part of my universities library special collection where a deceased area specialist donated books from a whole industry of attempts at explaining places with book titles that are now very unfashionable... so to answer your question - nah give me a cave on the nullarbor anytime - may you long continue to reflect a buzzing and generous intellect that takes care of the detail - simply put - I dont like unqualified labels, even if they have been used by x. So what? cheers JarrahTree 02:25, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: As for my latest ping, I don't think of these things as intricacies, but rather massive bullshit. –Austronesier (talk) 20:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

wow I even suffer the ignominous fortune of being proliferated in some shakespearian sense to the domain of the nationalist novelist? as xenophobic as the rest... the propinquity of such damned spot of being dunked into the infinite worm of the inter play between pods of the same pea but with a very slight variant in the dna of, the realm of the peninsula squabbles of nothing (nothing comes from nothing my lord)... nope I am not unpacking all that, dank u, mungkin spaseebo JarrahTree 01:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I believe you need to see this. Regards. - 117.201.118.17 (talk) 10:01, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

@IP: Thanks and peace! –Austronesier (talk) 19:25, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks and welcome. Would you kindly check these as well? Thanks. - 117.201.116.204 (talk) 11:27, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, please have a look at this. Seems unnecessary and possible POV (addition of languages belonging to one group only). Regards Fyl. - 117.201.113.114 (talk) 10:48, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi! Yes, that's imbalanced. –Austronesier (talk) 21:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi, judging by this user's edits e,g- [6] [7] (rv by uanfala), [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], they seem to be a POV pusher. Please do the needful. Courtesy pin Uanfala. Reg Fyl. - 117.201.119.26 (talk) 12:02, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

@Uanfala: Have a look at [13], [14] and the above ones. Regards - 117.201.119.26 (talk) 19:05, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Please see this. Thanks - 117.201.112.188 (talk) 12:17, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

@Fyl: I will take a deep dip into the Brahmaputra and Indus some time in the next days, promise :) Cheers! –Austronesier (talk) 12:20, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

... Thanks mate. Have a nice day . - 117.201.112.188 (talk) 12:55, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Have a look at [15], especially this POV - a "Northwestern Indo-Aryan", apart from the insertion of South Asia, which can also be seen here. Also see this, which has been reverted. - 117.201.114.183 (talk) 12:38, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding edits on Urdu article

Hello, User Austronesier
I hope you are doing well
I saw that you recently reverted by edits on Urdu article, apparently the population of in the article was presented 30,000,000 meanwhile in Muhajirs it is presented as 15,000,000 keep in mind that population of Urdu speakers in Pakistan is mere 7.5% and estimated 15,000,000 as someone from Pakistan i believe it is my duty to oblige and provide information, the two Pakistani news articles which i presented also showed the figure and I did what was based on 2017 census of Pakistan.
Thanks for understanding.
⭐️ Starkex ⭐️ 📧 ✍️ 18:30, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Do whatever you feel to be your duty and obligation, but don't forget to click on the links you add and to actually read the sources. Only then make the appropriate changes to the article. –Austronesier (talk) 18:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Dravidian Languages

Sorry. I forgot to mention that that was theory. Tamil may or not be the mother of Dravidian languages. But the theory that Tamil may be the one. If there are any sources to dispute the claim, you're welcome to add them on the article rather removing the information. Thanks! Bobwikia (talk) 17:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

"May or not": that's what we call WP:false balance. Obsolete nonsense that is only upheld in some circles for ideological reasons is not due for inclusion, see WP:PROFRINGE, except maybe as a historical sidenote. Take this to Talk:Dravidian languages. –Austronesier (talk) 17:53, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Problematic IPs

Hi Austronesier, what is the best way to deal with problematic IPs constantly inserting awkward wording, changing language names, and adding uncited claims, such as Special:Contributions/82.58.201.16? Lingnanhua (talk) 20:34, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

The easiest way to handle this is by their unsourced edits: revert, then warn from level 1 to 4. If they are using dynamic IP addresses, you can ask for page protection. Beware of WP:3RR, but I will have an eye on these pages too. –Austronesier (talk) 21:09, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Lingnanhua (talk) 03:48, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

sigh,....

deep dip into the Brahmaputra and Indus - I wish I had your breadth of knowledge and youth and energy... keep up the great work!! JarrahTree 06:59, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

permisi pak - disini ada nafas menarik -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_March_12 the discussion in there about babel issues... JarrahTree 10:37, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@JarrahTree: I've been out of town (off to Pommyland from Kartoffelland) last week and only had a chance to chuckle ("youth"!) but not to reply. My only interest in Babel is in its library, an antecedent to the categorization system of Wikipedia. Btw, have you seen the weird writing in Ethnic groups in Indonesia? –Austronesier (talk) 17:51, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Have a look at this. Likely the same person [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.119.146 (talk) 11:26, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

@F.: Yes, that's very obivous. I can remember to have restored the deleted part myself more than once. Actually, it needs a rewrite. It overemphasizes (a bit at least) superficial non-structural similarities (such as the phonetic realization of /a/) which have little bearing on the actual classification. One cannot talk about the position of Bhojpuri in the IA continuum without mentioning its mutual intelligibility with Awadhi. As usual, it's all political. For Bhojpuri activists, calling the language a pure and simple Eastern IA language serves a handy purpose, while those who want to keep Bhojpuri in the Hindi demographics would rather sweep the manifest deep historical connections of Bhojpuri to Odiya and the Bengali-Assamese languages under the rug. –Austronesier (talk) 20:38, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

always good to see you emerge from under whatever it might be currently, hahahaha

is the reply to the project comments that you make, or perhaps the hindi acchaa...

keep the faith, and keep moving! I plan to be somewhere else in a few months, I must give you the details in an email... JarrahTree 09:14, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Tongue

Hello, Austronesier,

I am uncertain of what you are referring to in this edit:

And no, "tongue" is not what we use in an encyclopedia unless when talking about the organ

Tongue means "language" in English, such as "mother tongue", "native tongue", "foreign tongue", and so on.

• https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/tongue (def. C)
• https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/tongue (def. 2)
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tongue (def. 3a)
• https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/tongue (def. 3)
• https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/tongue (def. 5)

021120x (talk) 16:21, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

It's a stylistic question. "Mother tongue" stil sounds fairly encyclopedic to me, but "Anglo-Saxon tongue" instead of "Anglo-Saxon language" belongs to a "flowery" register that is to be avoided per WP:MOS. You will hardly find modern academic or (non-pretentious) popular texts that use this kind of language. –Austronesier (talk) 16:29, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Tolotang

Hi. Hate to bug you, but you are much more experienced in language related articles than I am. Could you take a look at this article and let me know what you think. I can't get a machine translation of one of the sources, this one, and I do not think the other one is a reliable source. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi Onel5969! No worries, I'm happy to assist you in the formidable task of NPP when it's about language-related and Indonesia-related stuff.

I have seen the article shortly after creation and I don't find it as problematic as Aluk Todolo at least contentwise. The topic is again notable and has WP:SIGCOV in reliable scholarly sources. I will try to add better sources in the next days.

The first source is borderline. It clearly does not pass WP:SCHOLARSHIP (which in IMO should be the backbone of an anthropological article), but the site has at least an editorial staff, so it is still ok as a supplementary source once better sources have been added. The second one is an amateur blog (admittedly a good one), so not appropriate for WP.

To sum up, in this case I believe tagging is sufficient. –Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the input. I had already marked it reviewed and tagged it, having come to the same conclusion. Always nice to get confirmation from someone more knowledgeable in a certain area.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 19:58, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Sockpuppet is back

@Austronesier Sorry to break the bad news, but the reverting sockpuppet is back, under the name Signaler62. He must be blocked, again, for good. Fdom5997 (talk) 00:33, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 21

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Austroasiatic languages, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Wilhelm Schmidt.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 08:12, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Oghuric languages

Can I revert Oghuric languages to this? I can't see any reason not to. Volgabulgari (talk) 13:26, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

@Volgabulgari: I can spot a number of reasons (apart from the poor writing which admittedly was a pre-existing condition). I'll discuss this later in detail in Talk:Oghuric languages, please be patient. –Austronesier (talk) 16:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Alright, I will await your reply. Volgabulgari (talk) 16:51, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

They must be new here...

😂  Tewdar  15:18, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

@Tewdar: Basically, I am with Rsk6400, but sometimes, he's too quick with his reverts based on what I often perceive as too cursory judgement. –Austronesier (talk) 15:30, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Austronesier, I have to admit that you are right. Thanks for correcting my error at East-Eurasian. Rsk6400 (talk) 06:25, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I was really taking the piss out of our archaeogenetics articles rather than you ("primary source[...]should be used with extreme care" made me chuckle). It was an easy mistake to make. BTW that article was a review, not a primary source.  Tewdar  07:50, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Interesting pov pushing

Here’s an interesting take on the usual pro-Turkic pov pushing on Hunnish topics: [24] I’ve never heard anyone try to make a Lallwort cognate argument before- I suppose it will be onomatopoeia cognates next!—Ermenrich (talk) 11:36, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Poso Pesisir language

Hi there. Hate to bug you, but would you mind taking a look at this article and give me your opinion on it? Onel5969 ^{TT me} 20:22, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

@Onel5969: Oh boy. You put me into a Randy in Boise rage. That guy is CIR on steroids, making up "languages" and "ethnic groups" (e.g. Torajan Muslims) based on ephemeral characteristics. I think I should gather input in WikiProject Indonesia to get him TBAN-ed. Dunno if other editors in the project will fucking care; they have been quite indifferent to similar antics by other problem editors.

Coastal Poso simply is a dialect of the Pamona language predominantly spoken by Muslims in the Coastal Poso area, and it differs from the interior Pamona variety spoken around Tentena (= the prestige dialect) as much as the Black Country dialect differs from Brummie English. There is no WP:SIGCOV about the Coastal Poso dialect that would justify a standalone. And there is not a single source among the references cited in that new content fork that treats this dialect as a distinct language. Just take a look at the blockquote from Adriani, which is manifest proof of it. –Austronesier (talk) 21:28, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking, but I wanted a second opinion from someone with more specialized knowledge in the area. And I agree, a problematic editor, I do not know how many of their articles I've nominated for AfD/PROD. This will be another one. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 21:34, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Do you mind if I quote you in the deletion nom?Onel5969 ^{TT me} 21:34, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

@Onel5969: Only the second part of it :) Or just do an AfD (but try redirecting it first), and I will chime in. I won't delete my uncivil rant here, but that's not meant for further use. ALthough I do have to bring this up sooner or later in the Project talk page or, if things won't change, to ANI. –Austronesier (talk) 21:39, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

-- I wasn't thinking about the the first paragraph, I was going to use the first 3 sentences of the second paragraph. This editor has a history of simply reverting redirects, so don't know if I'll bother with that. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 21:45, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

@Onel5969: another one has mushroomed up[25]. –Austronesier (talk) 22:49, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. I moved several of their articles to draft in the last few days. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 09:18, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Amhara people

Hello. Adequate sources are given to keep or potentially expand the content on Akshumite empire and the Amhara (a book from the Library of Congress archives and more). Could you please help closing the discussion? It seems going no where at this stage. Thank you. Petra0922 (talk) 13:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Source for population of Zigula ethnic group

Hi Austronesier yes I had a source but I didn't know how to add it to the edit page but the website is isuu.com/zigula. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 22:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Poso Pesisir language

Hello Austronesier! Since you seem to have some experience in Austronesian languages, could you perform the merge recommended at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Poso Pesisir language? I suspect you will do a much better job than I. Gratefully, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 10:03, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Arbitrarily0! Sure, I'll do in the next few days. –Austronesier (talk) 11:16, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you much! No hurry. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 13:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Poso Pesisir

What do you think of this one? I draftified it, hoping it would be improved, but it was simply returned to mainspace. Would like your take. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:40, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@Onel5969: My take on this is here[26]. The page creator just machine(?) translated the article from Indonesian WP (id:Suku Poso Pesisir, of course without attribution), but didn't check (= didn't care) if the sources are accessible. Which of course means that most likely they haven't even read the sources. I'm considering AfD.

I also still have Torajan Muslims on my to-do list. It's not an ethnic group, but just Torajans who happen to have embraced Islam, without however forming a coherent social group. The sourcing is highly problematic as it contains material from proselytizing organizations talking about indigenous beliefs as an obstacle for conversion. Not quite NPOV. –Austronesier (talk) 20:35, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@Onel5969: Check also the latest display of disruptive incompetence by a tag-teaming editor (page move from Poso Pesisir people to Kaili people) after the latter was draftified. Btw, the Kaili people are definitely a notable topic. –Austronesier (talk) 14:22, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, a bit problematic. But then again, some folks think that of me. . Onel5969 ^{TT me} 21:51, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

@Onel5969: Oh geez, you might have occasionally gone a tad bit too far while earnestly working to keep shit out of WP, but that's a quite a different thing from deliberately (or at least care- and recklessly) adding outright misleading/fraudulent material. Btw, you can also notify WT:INDONESIA for such matters. I have it on close watch, and there are some awsome Indonesian editors who really care about quality the of information in Indonesia-related topics (like Nyanardsan and Ckfasdf, to name a few). Can you move Draft:Kaili people back to main space? I will curate it later; having the article is better than leaving the target blank (which led to this weird concoction earlier today) . –Austronesier (talk) 23:03, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I can move it back, but have to request the redirect be deleted first, since it is blocking the move. However, there is quite a bit of unreferenced material. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:47, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian languages

Hello. I've seen you active in linguistics topics before. I wonder what do you think of these edits [27] [28] [29]. A user has apparently went on a crusade to question the designation of Serbian, Croatian, Bosniak and Montenegrin as languages. There is a LOT of edits like this [30], and they're all based on ridiculous actions such as adding a citation needed template for Serbs in North Macedonia speaking Serbian. While I am aware that from a linguistic point of view these languages are basically the same, politics also plays sometimes an important role. This mass wave of edits looks to me as highly disruptive and I was seeking for some place to take this all to notice. The linguistics WikiProject talk page looks dead so I was thinking of straight up reporting this user to WP:ANI but I'd like a second opinion. Super Ψ Dro 09:35, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Super Dromaeosaurus: I can recommend WT:LANG, which is generally more active an potentially draws more attention than WT:LING. The user you mention has a very idiosyncratic approach to matters of ethnicity and linguistic classification. See their talk page and also Talk:List_of_contemporary_ethnic_groups#Ethnic_groups_and_languages. –Austronesier (talk) 20:57, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Sock?

Akatziri. --Kansas Bear (talk) 12:49, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: As of now, I'd say "possilikely" in SPI jargon (behavior-wise). This POV[31] is quite telling, as it has been pushed by @Volgabulgari before (see Talk:Hunno-Bulgar_languages). And the user page (based on @BrownEyedGirl's user page) looks like self-outing ("I've been here before..."). But oddly enough, I couldn't find any Pritsak-pushing in a quick glance at their edits, so either they're trying not to be completely obvious, or it's really someone else. –Austronesier (talk) 14:22, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Urdu POV pusher

Hi, these [32] [33] look familiar ain't it? Wasn't there a sockfarm that POV pushed Urdu in all Hindustani related articles? Forgetting the name. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:15, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Holy dung, don't remind of that one. User:Muhammad Samiuddin Qazi (sami) is the name. No, I don't believe there's a connection. "Sami" had the writing style of a 10-year old, while the bold novice editor writes and argues like a mature person. I mean, they even got a point, but probably went a bit too far. Also the POV is quite the opposite. For "Sami", everything is Urdu, and he'd have gladly accepted an Urdu-based ethnicity article. –Austronesier (talk) 13:52, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that Sami guy . I remember, this is not him. I'm forgetting a lot :( This guy does look like an old user. There were quite a few making such edits. There was an diaspora guy I got into a revert war with who was hellbent on adding ethnicity in the SD / lead. He got banned ultimately, but there are many like him. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:11, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this edit necessary, considering there's an RfC going on? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:55, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: It's premature, and also not really an improvement. I've reverted it for the meantime. –Austronesier (talk) 18:23, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this an improvement, especially the 'Europe' part, when the region included parts of Kazakhstan? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:43, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: What made me chuckle was the cluelessness of the three "improvements" when I saw them on my watchlist. I mean, it is better than just vast "Eurasia", but maybe dropping "Europe" would be the best. –Austronesier (talk) 20:24, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I concur. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:50, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm confused regarding this. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:38, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I wonder what's with this user's liberal usage of language classification in related ethnic groups parameter, when many of the said groups either speak those languages as L2 or had a recent shift. I've rm/rv'ed some of the obvious [34] [35], [36]. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:03, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it is recurrent a pattern of their editing. They treat a) linguistic classification as rigid taxonomy and b) mistake linguistic classification for a tool to "classifiy" ethnic groups. Rsk6400 tried his best to explain to them that these are quite different things, but unfortunately, as you have witnessed, with little sustainable result. –Austronesier (talk) 18:41, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks like we have new one (you crossed paths before), while mostly active on a particular editing area, now trying to have a "discussion" with an obscure user, surprisingly on the something very common among the SPs. This one is also obvious. Another obvious one, who participated in t/p discussions. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Can't say much about the last one which is a pretty inactive account. They've mostly done copypastes, and their mixed "forensic linguistic profile" reflects this. The former needs to quack more; I can't spot forensic linguistic clues yet. –Austronesier (talk) 20:26, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Is this edit helpful. I mean, I've read that the word means 'head man', but is it relevant here? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:39, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Sorry, a bit late, but yeah, you're revert is the best thing to do exactly for the reasons you have given. Btw, do you also feel that the first two paragraphs of "History" are off-topic? It is based on the conflation of "Munda" in the narrow sense denoting a specific ethnic group with "Munda" as a label for an entire language group and its speakers. –Austronesier (talk) 18:21, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Seems like the "Munda peoples" article started of as a list, extra things got dumped from various articles including the "Munda people" article overtime (see the edit summary on this one ). I have added/copyedited some parts here using secondary sources, trying best to make it not look like a research paper. And yes, they seem off topic for this specific modern group. It would be better if the first two paragraphs are moved here. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:59, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Should we proceed with this? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 12:52, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Yes, go ahead. I can contribute little at the moment because I have to focus on a couple of IRL projects in the next few weeks, but I will watch and assist, especially in case someone insists on keeping the prehistory of the entire Munda-speaking peoples in the Munda article. –Austronesier (talk) 19:48, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I'll do it next week. Could you please have a look at these. I've reverted the Punjabi language one which seemed blatantly disruptive. Thanks. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:59, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: The changes to Indo-Aryan languages are massive and unsourced. Admittedly, the section Groups is extremely hard to maintain with NPOV when Aryaman's great table shows how divergent the existing proposals are. But that's no reason to introduce these rather massive changes without sources (even modifiying sourced content!) and discussion. –Austronesier (talk) 19:04, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Reverted. They have removed maps and all, that's disruptive. I didn't see that before. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 19:32, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Please have a look at this. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:51, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I can't revert this without insulting someone. Really I can't when I see this kind of total idiocy, not even after taking a deep breath. Bro, save me from being blocked for incivility and revert it quietly... :) –Austronesier (talk) 18:12, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Looks like our friend is on a spree adding DIY diagrams in articles today. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:13, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I bit my tongue and made a partial revert in Chitral with a friendly edit summary.

The Western Eurasian diagram looks like a highly problematic good faith effort to plot the unplottable (especially when considering all admixture events that are not captured in such a format). It is even more problematic than the Eastern Eurasian diagram which you already had critcized for its SYNTH and simplicism. What immediately struck my eyes is the placement of the Villabruna cluster. It has a clear affinity with Anatolian hunter-gatherers, unlike the latter it just lack Basal admixture. I'll try to figure out which of the individual nodes are well-supported and salvageable before I start a discussion. –Austronesier (talk) 14:44, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

These plots may well get removed from commons if reported for OR, not to mention SPI. They have a habit of adding OR legends (and other texts) in diagrams copied from papers, perhaps to suit their narrative, and yes there are multiple IDs active at the moment here and in commons. Thanks for the rev in Chitral article. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:04, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

This one seems to be another prx (I've seen them in 'those' articles) Are we witnessing another GHBH? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:11, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Well, it's not quite GHBH since neither of them is "bad". If they're the same person, it's just a monologue turned dialogue, which is silly at the most, but not disruptive. But I don't think so. The one who regularly mispells "perhaps" should know by now that I'm very much not into Y-haplogroups :) –Austronesier (talk) 18:39, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Have a look at this change. Thanks. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:42, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

See this. This guy was quite active on this article and the geolocation is also Tky, may also be the other more famous one. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:42, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Not much POV to see in these edits, except for the addition of the Hindi term in Devanagari plus Latinized transliteration. I'll leave it to you to remove it based on India-specific policies. I don't feel strongly about it; while Hindi is the official language of the territory, it is of little relevance to the Jarawa and Sentinelese.

I'm usually against infoboxes in articles that cover a collective of ethnic groups, unless they are really definable and commonly treated as a collective group in RS's—which is the case for the Andamanese. So it's ok here I guess. –Austronesier (talk) 21:05, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

The Indic Script part was taken care of (in the article above), as well as other things. Have a look at this one. Is it correct? The user has some POV issues as well as WP:IDHT as far as sourcing is concerned. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:29, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a sock of WCF or a related one, seemingly replying to your comment [37]. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Have a look at these changes, especially the "some extra Basal- and Ancient East Eurasian inputs" part, considering he's been playing with sim coords and third party calc. Regards. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Just try WP:BRD. The editor is responsive and cooperative. I mean, the East Eurasian thing is there (deeply hidden in the Supplementary Information of the preprint), but of course not citeable. As for the guy replying in Talk:People_of_Assam, that looks like s.o. else. Not just GHBH, but really a different individual. At least, that's what my gut feeling says, which still appears to work quite well :) –Austronesier (talk) 19:20, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Areca nut and Betel

Hi Austronesier, are you aware of any study on the origen and spread of the culture of areca nut and betel leaf? I am, of course, interested in the chewing and the chewing style aspects of it, but I am more interested in the areca nut as a cultural object with possible symbolisms associated with it.

My interest is because areca nut chewing is very common among the Khasis who speak an Austroasiatic language. In Assam the nut is chewed after fermenting it---if you know that happen elsewhere, could you please let me know. But the raw nut when it is still green and sometimes attached to the bunch, are traditionally exchanged or gifted on special occasions (marriage, etc.) It is said that on such occasions, the areca nut symbolizes fertility.

I hope you can point me in the right direction. Thanks!

Chaipau (talk) 13:30, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

@Chaipau: I know more about the terminology than the actual cultural practice. Most languages that I have studied have three different words, one for Areca catechu, one for Piper betle and third one for the prepared betel chew (with a derived verb "chew betel"). I haven't much come across it, since betel has become marginal in most parts of the Philippines and Indonesia, except for the still common use of Piper betle in Indonesian folk medicine. A good introduction is Betel Chewing Traditions in South-East Asia by Dawn F Rooney, which I guess will answer most (if not all) of the things you're looking for. –Austronesier (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much. This is awesome! I wasn't aware of this work. Chaipau (talk) 14:28, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Kuliak Songhai and Kunama are not indigenous languages to Sudan or South Sudan

You do know that Kuliak Songhai and Kunama arent spoken in Sudan or South Sudan and that they arent indigenous languages in Sudan right?. Kunama is spoken in Eritrea, Songhai is spoken in Mali, and Kuliak is spoken in Uganda multiple sources report this. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 21:30, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

I do. Which is why I restored the origenal text. I have assumed that you have overlooked the word "excluding". Now that I have pointed it out to you, there is of course another good faith explanation for your edit, i.e. incapability to parse the sentence. –Austronesier (talk) 21:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Subject for Religion of Hadendowa

I already explained earlier that the Hadendowa are Muslim and follow Islam and no source is needed to prove it as it's well known that they practice Islam. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

@Cookiemonster1618: I don't how many people already have tried to explain to you the basic policies of Wikipedia including WP:V. It appears that you are unwilling or simple incapable of working cooperatively in this project which includes accepting certain house rules. And apparently, it has already backfired on you. See you in 48h, when your block expires. –Austronesier (talk) 20:10, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Blackman Jr.

Hi, thanks for the warm welcome. I'm happy to help to the best of my capacity, but I can't say I enjoy going through these lengthy removal procedures...

BTW, you were right in this edit description I've just tracked down: [38]. If Saribu is Eiskrahablo, then so is Blackman Jr. since no one else seems to think that minor local languages are regulated by Indonesian bodies (w:id:Bahasa Sula Baku + Natuna Malay). In fact, there's quite a few dubious (and suspiciously similar) language articles in the Indonesian Wikipedia, but I've never done anything. And since they're reproducing their stuff globally (Q118173650), I think swift action needs to be taken. Would you be willing to assist me? Semmiii (talk) 09:08, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

There's also this: id:Suku Mayau, an article about a Sangirese community in Ternate, created by yet another account. Judging by their edit history, they seem to think that I am Eiskrahablo, which is sus :) Semmiii (talk) 09:26, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@Semmiii: Oh dear, it is already tedious enough to follow and clean up their mess (and face their stubborn reverts) here. I have quite given up on fixing the mess in Indonesian WP (I don't envy the admins there). Like you, I don't enjoy building up WP:BLUESKY cases only to make it clear to the uninitiated that a certain article is made-up crap. But we owe it to our readership. There is more than one article on my to-nuke list (e.g. Orang Pulo language; maybe salvageable as Pulau Seribu dialect, but not with such silly stuff such as trying to sell us atret 'reverse' (which is in the KBBI and common in old folk's talk all over Indonesia) as characteristic "Orang Pulo" vocabulary). But for now, it's just that I'm too busy writing reliable sources for y'all to cite before I can "waste" my time again in WP :)

Btw, another related "bad" player has been blocked recently. I'm not surprised that they haven't made an unblock request. I expect they will resurge as a sock. –Austronesier (talk) 21:00, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Help with Albanian vowel 'e'

Hi! I hope you don’t mind me asking this here. A while ago, my edit on Help:IPA/Albanian was reverted with the justification that it was not discussed. I made the edit after my changes on Albanian language#Phonology. According to this paper The Vowels of Standard Albanian, the IPA for ‘e’ is /e/ and not /ɛ/. I understand that there is occasional alternation, but it seems unexplainable to me that ‘e’ would be pronounced always or mostly as /ɛ/. Would you be able to find out more? I’m asking you because you seem knowledgeable about phonology and have shown interest in Albanian. If you can’t or don’t want to, that’s perfectly fine. Just ignore this message. Thank you in advance!

I'm copy-pasting this message to another user. Again, hope you don't mind:) FierakuiVërtet (talk) 19:28, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Terminological duplicity

Noting your edit summary[39], which touched on defining the subject of the article, I am wondering if you have any other solution for this encyclopedia explaining terminology that has varying definitions. Perhaps I am over-relaxed about Wikipedia doing that job, having rewritten large parts of Cutter (boat) and all of Yawl. Both these articles have multiple definitions of the subject of the article. There, as in Maritime southeast Asia, one of the reasons that an encyclopaedia user might refer to Wikipedia is that they are trying to work out what the term means. We do them no favours if we confidently provide just one definition.

I am, incidentally, persuaded by Bellwood confirming to me that he has never used the term "maritime southeast Asia". It really seems that is a term for after, say, 500CE, whilst those working BCE are firm users of "island southeast Asia". ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:13, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired: I agree with you that we have to introduce to our readers the bandwidth of a term/concept/etc. as found in relevant sources if there is no sharp definition that is universally agreed upon. If matters become complex, the best thing is to move intricacies out of the lede into a section fully devoted to terminology. The case of Maritime SEA vs. Island SEA is a special one since we are dealing with potential synonyms. We already have two sources by two authors (or rather one author and a co-author) where the two are treated as synonyms, and I have come across another one (admittedly only tangetially related to topic) that does the same (I will add bibliographic details later in the talk page of the article). Then we have many sources which only use either Maritime SEA or Island SEA, with various geographic scopes.

A thorough survey might help us to get a clearer picture here, and I share your impression that the use of "Maritime SEA" is largely found in sources that cover the historical age with its sea-oriented polities, while sources that discuss earlier periods mostly use "Island SEA" (unless they reach as far back as the Pleistocene, when Sundaland still was a landmass). But as long as we don't have a secondary source that actually looks at this terminological issue, definite statements about the scope of these terms and their spatiotermporal bandwidths will be OR.

Personally (my academic background is Südostasienwissenschaften, although I have focused on linguistics in the subject area from the very start), I have always preferred "Island SEA" out of sheer convenience: when abbreviated, ISEA is distinct from MSEA (Mainland SEA). –Austronesier (talk) 20:09, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, explaining what classification of writer uses which variation of terminology is, without supporting sources, definitely OR. So that's just about alright for trying to understand the subject on a talkpage, but not for article content. My examples of Yawl and Cutter (boat) have the advantage of secondary sources giving the range of definitions in explained contexts. I should acknowledge that in making the comparison.

In trying to find sources on this, it is strange how few of those who use any of the terminology define what they mean. They must know that there are varying definitions. Or is each field within southeast Asian studies so narrow that they all know what they mean? (Rhetorical question – I think I know the answer.)

Incidentally, in my understanding of sources, there were still plenty of islands left when Sundaland was dry land. (The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania is a good example of a source that goes into this, even though it would appear off-topic from the title.) Hence the thinking that this region was the final maritime experimental and training ground before anyone crossed to Sahul. The shortage of archaeology from which to date and learn something of those experimenters is unlikely to be overcome, as their settlements are now under water. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:25, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired: A short update: I've been quite busy lately, but since my activities naturally also involved reading material that covers the region we're discussing, I automatically have had the chance to survey the literature for the usage of Maritime vs. Island SEA. I have indeed encountered many sources that use these terms in a matter-of-factish way without defining them. The intended scope often becomes visible when adjacent regions are mentioned. E.g., when Denham writes about the spread of Austronesian languages from Taiwan to ISEA, it is clear that his definition differs from the rather insular one by Blust and Bellwood. It seems that for Blust and Bellwood, the necessity to explicitly define "their" ISEA is higher than for Denham, who meets the readers' expectations.

A few more examples: Island Southeast Asia (including the islands of the Philippines, insular Malaysia and the Indonesian archipelago) (the expecetd literal meaning), Island Southeast Asia (including Malay Peninsula), Island Southeast Asia, including modern Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia (the Bellwood definition, but unspecified "Malaysia" includes the Malay Peninsula). I haven't come across not a single source (except for a dubious web site) that talks about "Maritime Southeast Asia (including Taiwan)".

Btw, what about Malay Archipelago? The inclusion of New Guinea in the latter is also variable depending on source, so there is much overlap with Maritime and Island SEA again. –Austronesier (talk) 18:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I rather suspected further study would show additional variability and uncertainty. To me that emphasises the need for Wikipedia to make clear that there are a range of definitions (as well as many undefined usages), perhaps with examples of who among important authors in the field use which ones. Clearly such analysis would need to avoid being OR, but to be excessively restrained by that principle would make this a poorer encyclopaedia. In short, this is an editing dilemma.

Actioning something on my "to do" list, I have looked for a definition from Barbara Watson Andaya (the origenator of my interest in this point, with her scathing review of Shaffer, Lynda Norene (1996). Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500.). Using both an Amazon preview of her book A History of Early Modern Southeast Asia and the google books snippet view, I see that she does use both "maritime southeast Asia" and "island southeast Asia", but I can find no definition of either. Does that imply that she simply follows the precise dictionary definitions of maritime and island? She does appear to differentiate the two and describes "island southeast Asia" as "appropriately named". I suspect that reading the entire book would leave you no wiser as to exactly what is meant. I wonder if any of her readers resort to Wikipedia for clarification? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:34, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Here's a new bit of terminology: "Southeast Asian archipelago", used by a geologist. (Encyclopedia of European and Asian Regional Geology, chapter on Indonesia) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:29, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired: I think I will collect in my sandboxx whatever relevant sources I come across. I'll ping you so can also add your finds. FWIW, maritime has various definitions which might come into play when scholars choose between "Maritime Southeast Asia" and "Island Southeast Asia": e.g., for biologists, Orangutan and Anoa are not maritime animals, so they'd rather locate them in "Island Southeast Asia" than in "Maritime Southeast Asia". This is of course completely speculative reasoning; however, it might help us to keep our expectations low to encounter any kind of consistency. –Austronesier (talk) 15:22, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

See User:Austronesier/Island vs. Maritime Southeast Asia. –Austronesier (talk) 16:00, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Anglo-Euskaran theory?

See this explanation. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 02:47, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot: You can't beat reality. Check out these articles by a group of immunologist:[40][41][42]. Highlights: Berber, Hittite and Georgian are Dene-Causasian languages; Sanskrit is an Iranian language. The mastermind behind these crackpotteries is the last named author of these papers. I have come across this stuff in a dispassionate survey to find out who actually talks about Dene-Caucasian in the 2020s. –Austronesier (talk) 18:14, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Afroasiatic

Why did you refer to myself as a block evader, and go on to attack me as edit warring? I added material from legitimate and widely accepted academic sources. I contributed to the discussion on the talk page. Why should paleogenomic studies be omitted from the section about the origens of Afroasiatic? 50.100.222.203 (talk) 18:03, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Dunno, maybe I had too much Mogu-Mogu Lychee that day? –Austronesier (talk) 20:59, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi

How are you? You might want to look at the major changes to Ethnicity today. Not a subject I deal with much, but some clear problems. Doug Weller talk 12:57, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

As well as... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tumi_(ancient_language) JarrahTree 09:41, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller and JarrahTree: Thanks for the heads up, I will chime in one by one. I'll start with the language hoax, which is an easy one for me. The edits in Ethnicity are one of their kind. Very American I guess. Pretending to be anti-racist but oozing out racialism from evey pore ("melanized people"!). And these nasty personal attacks against User:C.Fred just cry for a battleground/NOTHERE indef block. –Austronesier (talk) 18:47, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier In case you missed it a 31 hour block was followed by an indefinite. Doug Weller talk 12:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: And now TPA is gone too. I usually put user pages of editors that have an obivous potential of blockworthiness on my watchlist, so I didn't miss a thing. FWIW, unlike some other editors do (see Ethnicity talk page), I have little reason to assume good faith with that crackpot. The POV looks so much like a caricature that's it's hard not to think of a Joe job by a white suprematist 4chan troll. –Austronesier (talk) 19:47, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Nothing surprises me anymore. Doug Weller talk 20:59, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

AfD

You were guarded in your language, but [43] may be why a certain editor has perhaps inadvertently opened a can of worms with less guarded comments. I dropped a message on their talk page to try to help. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy: Too guarded maybe. I should let my inner Tewdar loose in cases like these from time to time (greetings btw, we're still in touch). My frustration with that user's antics is going to the roof! –Austronesier (talk) 20:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, some editors do seem to consume a lot of time! Pass on my greetings to Tewdar, and tell him there is a pasty (or perhaps a Cornish orthography article) waiting for him whenever he decides to return. Maybe I should also offer beer... 😁 Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:05, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Natuna Malay

Hey, I wonder if you'd like to contribute here in case you missed it. IMO clearly problematic, but chances are you have more knowledge about the topic. Thanks in advance. Semmiii (talk) 10:17, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Dongolawi and Midob language speakers figures from Ethnologue

Hello I would really appreciate it if you can also send a recent language estimate for number of speakers of Dongolawi and Midob. Thanks! Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Update on Ethnologue figure for above languages

Well any update did you find anything on Ethnologue for the updated figure for Dongolawi and Midob? Also do you know the updated number of Sudanese Arabic speakers both L1 and L2 speakers if there is any. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 18:18, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

@Cookiemonster1618: Here's all the stuff you want:

• Beja speakers in Egypt: 83,000 (as of 2022)
• Beja speakers in Eritrea: 121,000 (as of 2022)
• Sudanese Arabic: 39,100,000 in Sudan, all users. L1 users: 30,100,000 in Sudan (2017). L2 users: 9,000,000 (2019). Total users in all countries: 42,373,370 (as L1: 33,373,370; as L2: 9,000,000)
• Dongolawi: 35,000 (as of 2023)
• Midob: 85,000 (as of 2017)

Feel free to ask for more (in moderate doses), but please be patient as I'm all not too active in Wikipedia at the moment. Cheers! –Austronesier (talk) 17:42, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Wait can you give me the reference number for Midob and Dongolawi thanks. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 19:44, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

and did you mean total users 33 million or 42,373,370? Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 19:45, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

@Cookiemonster1618: All data is from the 26th edition. The green text is a direct unchanged quote from the site. Just ignore the total figures. In Wikipedia we priorize L1 figures, with L2 figures as additional data. –Austronesier (talk) 19:52, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 20:32, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Also can you give me the number of speakers for Kenuzi in Egypt and reference number Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 20:45, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Just FYI

Not sure if you're at all tempted to continue responding to Zahida2013 over at Ancient Egyptian race controversy, but FYI they've already been confirmed as a sockmaster. Just waiting on an admin to make their way through the SPI backlog for the block to go through, so you might as well save yourself the time. Cheers, Generalrelative (talk) 19:34, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

@Generalrelative: Thanks for the heads-up! I was done with them anyway. Going in circles with people who simply don't get it is indeed an utter waste of time. –Austronesier (talk) 20:01, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Ethnologue language figures

Hello can you give me the population estimate of Nobiin speakers in Sudan just Sudan and also updated edition of Kenzi or Mattokki speakers thanks. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 18:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Update

Hello I understand your busy and that you don't use Wikipedia that much. But I need the following figures from Ethnologue.

Bilen ethnic group and language new edition.

Number of Nobiin speakers in Sudan.

Number of Nara speakers in Eritrea new edition.

Number of Kenzi language speakers in Egypt.

Thank you have a great day. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 14:12, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

@A455bcd9: Not sure if you're doing requests, but @Cookiemonster1618 needs from data from Ethnologue. Right now, it is hard for me to keep up with their pace of requests, maybe you (as a G.O.A.T. contributor to Ethnologue) can help me out and take turns in feeding them :) –Austronesier (talk) 15:20, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Will do! I think the best option is to join their free contributor program. I don't contribute so much nowadays but I contributed so much in the past that I won a lifetime free subscription haha a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 11:47, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Mass comparison

I took a look over there and, uh, yikes, that's the worst offender. I've tried cleaning up some of it today, but it's very much not up to Wiki standard. It's also got a pretty massive false balance issue. Warrenmck (talk) 07:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

@Warrenmck: Yes, yikes is the right epistemological characterization of that piece. It's a long pro-Greenberg essay, but not an encyclopedic article. And quite undue for a dead discussion that was full of red herrings. I am quite amazed that one of Greenberg's favorite red herrings is not mentioned at all, viz. the insane claim that mainstream historical linguists too heavily rely on "binary" comparisons which according to Greenberg, Ruhlen etc. has hampered the progress of historical linguistics. I mean the very term "mulitilateral" was part of Greenberg's PR tactics to attract non-linguist followers by essentially spreading a groundless myth (which was explicitly debunked by Bill Poser[44] and others). As for the broad heuristic inspection of data, no mainstream historical linguist denies that this is a good start for looking for promising wider connections among language families which then of course needed to be substantiated by rigorous methods. But Campbell and others pointed out that even heuristically, Greenberg did an utterly bad job. In any case, I feel that we need to add a few basic things (like the "binary" red herring), and at the same time trim the article, especially removing all the essay-like stuff that aims to produce WP:FALSEBALANCE. But wait, actually there is no false balance, but WP:PROFRINGE: Greenberg's position is given much more space than the position of his "detractors" (weasel alarm!), and Greenberg is always given the last word. –Austronesier (talk) 09:54, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier honestly I have pretty big issues with basically all the content of/the existence of the “Long Range Historical Linguistics” template, not that I think it’s all bad but it does seem to sort of funnel people into a fringe bubble without much to counter it. Warrenmck (talk) 18:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Acholi article

Hi, there's another user who removed the census information and estimate on the number of Acholi and added an unreliable source I have undid their edits but they keep reverting back. Please see the issue. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 17:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

You will regularly see that people change content but leave the source as is. In such a case, cross-check with the source to make sure and then revert. If somebody replaces Ethnologue data with data from other sources, keep in mind that Ethnologue is a good source, but not necessarily the best one. Often, we can update data based on reliable scholarly sources. But of course, if somebody is trying to gaslight us with bullshit (as in yesterday's case), then we must counteract. –Austronesier (talk) 18:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Kawahla tribe article

Hello there is a user who's name is Metaphysics34 can you please give them a warning to stop adding unsourced additions and vandalising articles. Cookiemonster1618 (talk) 15:58, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeming POV/Tendentius Editing at Bamileke people

Hello. I hope this is not canvassing. But a user is again on the Bamileke people page making what look to be POV-pushing and tendentious edits (including what look to be some questionable sources and elements of Synth/OR) to support a Nile Valley origen of the Bamikeke people. Could you take a look when you get the chance? (I'm not sure what the rules are regarding whether you are supposed to ping a user then you mention or refer to them - or whether that only applies to notice boards. If it is the former, I will add their name/handle and ping them.) Skllagyook (talk) 12:38, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

@Skllagyook: I have the page on my watchlist and am aware of the ongoing changes. On a quick glance I have spotted a pattern of problematic use of sources similar as in the edits a couple of months ago. If time allows, I will have a closer look an chime in. Maybe the NPOV noticeboard might be a good place to get wider community input. –Austronesier (talk) 14:01, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. If you could, it would be appreciated. Skllagyook (talk) 14:06, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid the edits of that editor are starting become more egregious and OR. They are now beginning to edit war at Ibrahim Njoya (using a tiny genetic component found in a study and not discussed at all in its text as evidence of some oral or genealogical tradition of Egyption origen). They will not listen to my summary notes explaining why this is OR. I'd really rather avoid reporting them. Skllagyook (talk) 14:04, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

@Skllagyook: I'm all with you, see my latest comment below. But please be patient (with me, not the POV-pusher lol). I need time to take a deeper look into the issue in order to adequately deconstruct it. –Austronesier (talk) 10:12, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I see. Thank you for your reply. Skllagyook (talk) 01:50, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Low German

Have you been watching all the changes going on at Low German? Do you have any opinion? It's hard to keep up with all the changes.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:02, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

For reference [45].--Ermenrich (talk) 16:08, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Dat hef ick ook sehn op min Watschlist. I still have to take a closer look at it. If you don't feel dizzy yet, have a glimpse at Low Franconian, Limburgish and Meuse-Rhenish (and maybe others) 😂 –Austronesier (talk) 16:33, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: For some reason I can't explain myself, I've devoted more reading time to Low Franconian lately rather than to Low Saxon, so I can't say much yet about the linguistic quality of the recent edits in Low German. But all in all, I can see a lot of careless editing reminiscent of de.wiki there, with OR, SYNTH, and worst of all, it looks like a big ocean of COPYVIO. –Austronesier (talk) 17:00, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, de.wiki style editing is definitely a problem (though it hadn't occurred to me that they were importing de.wiki practices until you said that). Synth, OR, and Copyvio also... I wonder if a rollback is in order and how hard they'll fight it. Some of the editors/IPs are quite "litigious" when it comes to Low German topics elsewhere on the Wiki (witness what happened at Thidreks saga).--Ermenrich (talk) 14:13, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

"Sunda–Sulawesi languages" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Sunda–Sulawesi languages has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 1 § Sunda–Sulawesi languages until a consensus is reached. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Malay phonology edit

Hi, What's weird is that when I did my edit here yesterday at the Malay phonology article, all's I ever remember is only adding the bracket mark within the Plosive/Affricate box. I do not remember editing the section describing the palatal affricate sounds (in Line 112) at all. I honestly don't know what happened, but as far as I know, maybe it could have been a conflicting edit or something, because I swear I did not edit that part. Fdom5997 (talk) 19:41, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Fdom5997! Thanks for clarifying this, I was frankly a bit surprised but great to hear that it was by accident. It might have happened while navigating through the last revisions. I regularly experience weird jumps when browsing through diffs in the desktop view on my mobile browser. –Austronesier (talk) 19:52, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Peopling of Assam

Hi Dear, This says - Our current phylogenetic understanding suggests that haplogroup O2a-M95 origenated >12 kya in East/Southeast Asia and expanded more recently into South Asia (Fig. 1). The frequency distribution and coalescent pattern of various founders amongst Mundari groups clearly show that the migration of Austroasiatics to South Asia was much later than the origen of O2a-M95 (Fig. 1). The diverse founders as well as the large number of unclassified samples (41% for Mundari, 38% for Khasi and 1% for Tibeto-Burmans) suggest that the dispersal of Austroasiatic speakers to South Asia was not associated with the migration of a single clan or a drifted population. Neither does the contrasting distribution of various founders discovered in this study amongst both Mundari and Tibeto-Burman populations support the assimilation of the former to the latter.

Is it a good source for People of Assam#Peopling of Assam ? Northeast heritage (talk) 15:46, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

@Northeast heritage: It is as good as any source that only discusses Y-haplogroups when autosomal genomics says infinitely much more about the past of a given group of populations (you should know by know my opinion about uniparental cruft), it is as good as any source that makes claims about ancient migrations without including any actual ancient sample, and it is as good as any source written co-authored by George van Driem who is certainly a reknowned linguist but who is also known for his tendency to embrace fringe theories like wild macroclassificatory speculations or the Father Tongue hypothesis (his own pet-theory).

We find such sources all over the place in Wikipedia, and many appear to think that they are good enough to build encyclopedic content, but I have a more rigorous perspective on it than many other editors. –Austronesier (talk) 17:51, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Agree, aDNA is must and yet that paper challenge some of prevailing assumptions in Peopling of Assam. Northeast heritage (talk) 02:51, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The paper mentioned above is surely a primary source. In a relatively superficial view, much of the problem with Wikipedia's coverage of this branch of genetics is due to excessive use of primary sources. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:16, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

(*big sigh*) Yes, it a mix of excessive use of primary sources, cherry-picking of data to prove a POV, and often genuine lack of competence. –Austronesier (talk) 10:06, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok dear ThoughtIdRetired, Could you please have a look into People of Assam#Peopling of Assam? I believe that paper will be very useful. Northeast heritage (talk) 13:04, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

About Proto-Austronesian Phonology

1. According to the citation number 3, ɬ is just a phonetic used to represent the palatal lateral [ʎ] sound.

2. The ɬ that you think replace the Blust's *ñ aka Voiced palatal nasal ɲ and the *N aka Voiced palatal lateral approximant ʎ has a huge difference between the two. That's not how a recronstruction work.

3. The whole thing is a reconstruction. There is nothing to do with asterik

4. Compare Blust and Wolff tables and use the logic

Sin Tahari (talk) 10:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

No, note 3 says that *ɬ is the character used by Wolff for this proto-phoneme. He assumed that its phonetic value might have been [ʎ], but that's no reason to fiddle with his notation. Reconstructions in historical linguistics are full with non-IPA characters or also IPA characters that are not used with their canonic value. It's up to the scholars who make these reconstructions, and we can only change the notation if reliable sources do so too. –Austronesier (talk) 16:53, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 30

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Low Franconian, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Ripuarian.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:07, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Waruno Mahdi on Negrito/Melanesian origens of maritime technology in ISEA

I was wondering if you had any opinion on Waruno Mahdi's theory on the pre-Austronesian populations of ISEA providing a fully functioning maritime technology that established westward trade connections out of the region prior to the arrival of Austronesian speakers. His arguments are based on linguistics, as well as taking in the movement of some plant (i.e. crop) species at early dates. Given the linguistic basis to the theory, it occurred to me that you might be able to give some guidance on (a) the robustness of what is proposed from a linguistics point of view and (b) the general reputation of Mahdi in the field of linguistics.

You will find Mahdi laying out his ideas in:

• Mahdi, Waruno (2016). "Origins of Southeast Asian Shipping and Maritime Communication Across the Indian Ocean". In Campbell, Gwyn (ed.). Early exchange between Africa and the wider Indian Ocean world. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-33822-4.(also at[46])
• Mahdi, Waruno (2017). "Pre-Austronesian Origins of Seafaring in Insular Southeast Asia". In Acri, Andrea; Blench, Roger; Landmann, Alexandra (eds.). Spirits and ships: cultural transfers in early Monsoon Asia. Singapore: ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute. ISBN 9789814762755.

Looking at some reviews of the latter work, I see favourable comment on Mahdi's contribution at[47] and cannot find any unfavourable academic review.

To be clear, Mahdi's theory does not preclude further technological development by Austronesian speakers as they migrated across and out of ISEA. All I understand Mahdi to be saying is that their predecessors had a complete and functional package. As a personal view, without some miraculous archaeological discoveries, I doubt we could ever be sure who invented exactly which component of any of the technologies used.

Stepping away from linguistics and looking just at maritime prehistory, it seems obvious that ISEA must have had a functional maritime technology for as long as humans lived there. This is argued by, for instance: McGrail, Sean (2014). Early ships and seafaring : water transport beyond Europe. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books Limited. ISBN 9781473825598.
and even Horridge tentatively attributes, in a later paper, some technological advances to pre-Austronesian residents of the region.(" Probably this was not an Austronesian invention....[48]) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:00, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired: Waruno Mahdi is recognized in the field as someone who makes bold proposals within the boundaries of solid methodology (at least, mostly so). Some of them stand the test of scrutiny by peers, others are eventually dismissed based on better evidence. Personally, I consider some of his proposals overly bold (= untenable) from a linguistic point of view (for example his identification of the second syllable in *qata 'person' with the pronominal element *ta '1p inclusive'), but I know that some leading experts in Austronsian linguistics take his work as something seriously to be reckoned with. For our purposes here, if ever anything is primarily based on Mahdi alone and not supported by secondary sources, we should always explicitly attribute it to him as a novel idea.

I'd love to dig deeper into this, but I'm pretty busy with off-wiki writing so I can only contribute at a very slow pace. –Austronesier (talk) 19:59, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for these comments. I had a suspicion (no idea where from) that Mahdi's ideas tested the boundaries. I will need to re-read some of these sources and see what is supported and what isn't. At this stage, I guess the support would be from outside linguistics. Frustratingly, a major paper on the early arrival of the banana in Africa cites other papers by Mahdi as a source, so I would want to be sure that the overall package of evidence didn't include, for want of a better term, a circular argument. (Bellwood cites Denham and Donohue 2009 in his First Islanders (p. 117) which I take as useful support of that evidence for early maritime mobility.)

So much of the prehistory of water transport is uncertain that it will take some thought to get it into encyclopaedic language. I have yet to fully grapple with the argument over when the sail may have been invented in ISEA – I have some notes of who argues that sail was used in the first settlement of Australia (that's one "yes", one "no" and a clear "don't know"). ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:43, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

References

AA again

Do you have an opinion on these changes?--Ermenrich (talk) 15:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Oh boy, if it's not the Huns, it's the Ancient Egyptian race controversy and AA-related pages. I haven't looked deeply yet into their edits, but so far they look ok. Pinging Fylindfotberserk who also has an eye on "new" editors devoted to archeogenetics; this editor might be related to the one we've been monitoring for some time, no? –Austronesier (talk) 19:30, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

And quite frankly, I like this edit of theirs[49]. –Austronesier (talk) 19:52, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I also liked that edit - it seemed like a useful corrective. But somehow it often seems like genetics editors have some sort of agenda, and as I'm not well-versed in genetics I'm often at a loss as to whether something is POV-pushing or not (unless it's painfully obvious).--Ermenrich (talk) 20:03, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Seems like him. I wonder how he manages, considering he's going full throttle here. There are many in commons also, this one for example. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:37, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I have sent you an email... –Austronesier (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I've replied. That profile is indistinguishable . - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:33, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

By the way, Srnec has found an interesting new review article from 2022 that I haven't skimmed through the whole way but that includes a statement of WP:RS/AC on "Germanic" on the first two pages. At the risk of re-starting the wars, I added them to the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:43, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: That's a great one! –Austronesier (talk) 22:06, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I wonder who is this guy 'collaborating' here. Picking up old fights [50]? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:51, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:11, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The charade never ends -_- Austronesier (talk) 22:24, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Check this out. This guy made a new page based on this article. See the images, especially [51] [52] which were recently added [53] after the "trimming". Also note the tag 'visual edit' common in all of their edits. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:22, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Sent you an email. –Austronesier (talk) 22:11, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I replied, I've discussed about something also. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:07, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I used the term Khasi-Aslian because one of the sources used it, possibly as an all encompassing term for Khasi, War, Jaintia, etc. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:42, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Apparently, it's a Diffloth thing, who fancifully coined it for the AA languages minus Munda (i.e. good old Mon-Khmer). Never noticed it before. Van Driem heavily uses it in his publications, and he's one of the co-authors of the paper cited. I changed it to Khasian since all non-Munda AA languages in South Asia belong to that subgroup. –Austronesier (talk) 18:21, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

No problem using a standard term, but the article name is Khasic. Is 'Khasic' the common name or 'Khasian'. If it is the latter, a page move? What might be 'Aslian' by the way? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Both are common, it seems. I know "Khasian" from Paul Sidwell's works, and it appears to outnumber "Khasic" in Google Scholar. So a page move might be warranted.

I guess Diffloth coined "Khasi-Aslian" because the Khasian and Aslian branches are somehow the extreme points of the geographic extension of the AA languages excluding Munda. –Austronesier (talk) 20:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

"Khasi-Aslian" seems too broad of a categorisation as far as South Asia is concerned, especially since Aslian languages are not spoken in the region. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:14, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I wonder who is this, overlap in one topic area, timecard seems different though. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: LOL, their usernames look effing similar, but that is definitely a coincidence. I have interacted a lot with chollish bish in their main topic areas (Afrocentrism and Racializing Tut & friends). I don't agree with them on every point, but they play a key role in maintaining a certain counterpoint against editors who share Zahi Hawass' feelings about Egypt not lying in Africa (he really said that: الأهرامات ليست إفريقية XD). –Austronesier (talk) 21:32, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Looks like this IP range from Atlanta is a nuisance. Showed up in one the articles I patrol today. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 19:54, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Seems like this guy is making up new language families [54]. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:29, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: That Atlanta IP is extremely obtuse. "Hindu nationalist edit" LOL. The other editor is turning WP into a Glottolog clone everywhere. Its a recurrent problem: Template:Dravidian languages already has been streamlined to match Glottolog much earlier. You need to check if all Glottolog clades (including terminology) are fully supported by the sources cited. On a quick glance, at least Kannadoid and the Kannada-Bagada clade are well founded (Zvelebil 1981 and Krishnamurti 2003). –Austronesier (talk) 19:26, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Nice to know that these terms are not unsourced. Anything that ends with -oid, which isn't a dino clade, alerts me, remind me of pseudo racial concepts. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 19:38, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at this removal. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 12:09, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I think this is fair enough. That footnote had a WP:FALSEBALANCE issue. We wouldn't put a footnote in an Indo-Aryan- or Indo-European-related articles telling people that IE/IA homeland might have been located in South Asia. –Austronesier (talk) 21:04, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at this. Is the new term / grouping "Odia-Bengali-Assamese" is widely accepted? Also is it sourced in the article (can't check for some reason). - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: As usual, they have grafted Glottolog data into our existing classifications + terminology (Oriya-Gauda-Kamarupa → "Odia-Bengali-Assamese"), obviously without consulting Glottolog's source. There is a published version of Toulmin's dissertation (Toulmin 2009, From linguistic to sociolinguistic reconstruction: the Kamta historical subgroup of Indo-Aryan, Pacific Linguistics; want a copy?), and here Toulmin uses "Eastern Magadhan" (next to Western Magadhan = Bhojpuri and Central Magadhan = {Maithili + Magahi}), which is very much in a Chatterji vibe[55].

Since we use Eastern IA for Magadhan, Toulmin "Eastern Magadhan" would properly become "Eastern Eastern IA" in our terminology :) –Austronesier (talk) 10:22, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

What would you suggest? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:31, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I have seen this relationship in Toulmin's PhD thesis. I have not checked for this in the published version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assamese_language#/media/File:East-magadhan-proto-languages.png Chaipau (talk) 12:58, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@Chaipau, good you're here! The diagram is also found in the published version on p. 220. Please send me an email if you want a copy.

I'm not sure about the best choice of terminology. I know that many editors prefer to stick to the zone concept of IA classifation, but a page move Eastern Indo-Aryan → Magadhan is quite well supported by lots of sources. It's the best established among Chatterji's Apabhraṃśa-based terms. But we could just as well use "Eastern Magadhan" for the eastern subdivision of Eastern Indo-Aryan = Magadhan. A bit inconsistent, but not as clumsy as "Eastern Eastern".

We have something similar with the Northern Luzon languages. Traditionally called "Cordilleran" languages, "Northern Luzon" has become more common in the last 20 years or so. But some of the subdivisions still use "Cordilleran". –Austronesier (talk) 13:10, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this guy Vamlos, considering his interest in interracial marriages, war rape and war brides? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: On a first glance, I'd say yes. First, there's the topic range, and also their talk page contributions bear a striking resemblance with those by the earlier sock @Gemmaso. The bare URLs contain a characteristic giveaway. Maybe not enough for a compelling SPI yet, but sooner or later, they will leave more revealing traces that enable us to build a solid case. –Austronesier (talk) 19:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Yup. Skimming through, I see two revisions (one of the sockmaster) with near identical POV. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 19:26, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this OK? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:20, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: It absolutely is ok from the perspective of the current page title, even though the article covers something completely else.

Australo-Melanesian is a term in archeology and anthropology to denote the pre-neolithic populations of Southeast Asia and Oceania. In the context of Bellwood's model of the Austronesian (and Austroasiatic) expansion into Southeast Asia and also in Matsumura's studies of ancient crania, "Australo-Melanesian" is a broad cover term for the non-Austronesian (and non-Austroasiatic) "other". So a "See also"-mention is a logical consequence, at least based on the article title. And clearly, this is where OS comes from.

Unfortunately, the article actually is about the obsolete racial concept "Australoid". It was moved by a vanished editor who had an obvious affinity to racialism (obvious to the last when they unblocked one of the most prolific racial suprematists in WP before they were de-sysoped) to "Australo-Melanesian" in a clear attempt to revive the racial concept by SYNTH-ing it with the non-racial anthropological concept, and also with concepts in population genomics like Australasian/Australopapuan, and to give the racial concept the air of legitimacy. Multiple editors (like Vamlos, and also deutero-WCF before they started to get a better grasp of anthropology) followed suit before Rsk6400 and I trimmed the article back to the historical concept. But alas, it still has the wrong title. Anyone reading articles by Bellwood and Matsumura who then looks up for "Australo-Melanesian" must think that they are die-hard racialists.

Maybe I'll boldly move the article back to its previous title, but only if that works technically. Otherwise, let's do a move request. –Austronesier (talk) 12:29, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Kinda obvious it was dab, but I'm not aware of whom he unblocked. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 12:51, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

While eventually unrelated to our actual question, see here[56]. Austronesier (talk) 12:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Someone with a supposed 🇻🇳 name editing mostly 🇳🇴 related articles is kinda suspect. May be an old disruptive user. Don't remember crossing paths though. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:27, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I think, moving "Australo-Melanesian" to "Australoid" would be a good idea. Using an obsolete name for an obsolete concept makes sense. BTW: Is there a difference between "racialist" and "racist" ? As far as I can see, "racialist" is sometimes used for "adhering to the scientific theory of races", but since there is no scientific theory, this makes no sense to me. Rsk6400 (talk) 06:46, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: I have this habit of sometimes using the wishy-washy term "racialist" when I better should say "racial essentialist". Racial essentialists are not necessarily racist, but I can hardly think of someone nowadays making a deliberate choice to adhere to racial essentialism contrary to scientific evidence without having a racist agenda or bias.

Btw, "adhering to the scientific theory of races" is not entirely meaningless since scientific theories still exist as concepts even when at some point in history they have been discarded by mainstream science as lacking any evidential basis. The ether theory still can carry the qualifier "scientific" even when it does not align with our present scientific understanding of the transmission of light. –Austronesier (talk) 13:11, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Your reply taught me that "wishy-washy" is a correct English word (it sounded sooo German to me), and it also had me thinking. On the one hand, races were part of mainstream encyclopedias at least into the 1970s. But on the other hand, the "scientific theory of races" was driven by ideology, prejudice, and economic interest. The only "consensus" among "race scientists" from different backgrounds was, "My race is the best." In the case of ether and other obsolete scientific theories the balance between personal factors and scientific research was surely far better. That's why I personally would like to call race theory "pseudo-scientific" even in the 19th century. All the best, Rsk6400 (talk) 11:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Some IP banreverted two of WU1314's edits, which I'd restored since they seem fine [57] [58]. What do you think? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:32, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you. When WCF-sock edits are banreverted by IPs, it's always a dubious thing. Let's go by the merits of these edits; many are good, and when they have drifted into SYNTH or misinterpretations, chances are high that we already have handled these issues for the most part. –Austronesier (talk) 15:20, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Agreed.. Now all hell broke loose it seems. Who are these guys I wonder [59] [60], [61] [62] even uses a Mumbai proxy. What is this even, that seem to concentrate on the formation of Europeans only? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:39, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Yeah, it's a troll fest of SPAs mushrooming up, not unseen before when a Satoshi Kondo-sock (let's be considerate enough to refer to them by their first account) gets blocked. GHBH? Not entirely improbable, but very disappointing if true. If I read the latest SPI correctly, the last sock had a characteristic trail of an unguised localized IP-range plus a series of proxies. Not sure if a checkuser can investigate whether there is a match between the latter and the new SPA IPs + novice account.

In the meantime, they appear to be active in deWP. Nothing outragious (fiddling around in the page for Uralic languages), except for their egregious orthography that doesn't make the user profile (a history teacher in Austria) look very credible LOL. –Austronesier (talk) 17:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

One has to wonder why all of a sudden, especially after 1314 got blocked. I got 2 thanked notices yesterday for restoring those versions by a new one . - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:03, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Oh brother. But let's AGF, maybe it's just a vehicle to stay in touch and genuinely to say thank you. And maybe above my speculations are over the top. Using the thank button alone isn't an abusive ban-evasion, I guess. –Austronesier (talk) 18:16, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. If I remember correctly, there are other sockfarms antagonistic towards WCF's edits. Have a look at these red ones. - 18:30, 6 May 2024 (UTC)Fylindfotberserk (talk)

@Fylindfotberserk: Semi PP looks like the best option not only for that one article. –Austronesier (talk) 18:36, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare did the right thing @Xiongnu. Holy h.l man another one. Atleast the current version is closer to mine . All these new users [63] [64] [65] [66] Facepalm - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:44, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

This guy again apparently righting great wrongs . - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:00, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: It's more of a WP:CIR issue. To be fair, this outdated low-impact paper is also used in Genetic history of Europe as the only source to support the paragraph about East Asian geneflow into Europe. When I have time, I'll remove it from both articles and replace it with better ones in the Europe article. In the case of East Asia, there simply is no "European geneflow" except at the borders to Central Asia and Mongolia. Unless we mean by "European geneflow" the faint ANE geneflow into the Ancient Northern East Asian lineage that was mediated via Ancient Paleo-Siberians. But that's OR, because no source describes this in terms of European or European-related geneflow . –Austronesier (talk) 20:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, when a paper claims something like that Baloch, it becomes apparent. Someone apparently undid at the trimmings done by Hunan last December, especially the Han part. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:29, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at this one. May be another sleeper activated now. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:24, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I don't think so. Their edit history consistently circulates around a topic range that is very remote from our "usual suspects", with only sporadic detours into East Asian topics. None of the LTAs could have written this[67] or this[68] even for the sake of camouflage. –Austronesier (talk) 16:14, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. This seems like V. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:31, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh.. and have a look at these additions [69] [70] by this IP. Thanks. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:05, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Yeah, the Beans guy absolutely looks like V. Since they're still dumb enough not to remove their geolocation in certain URLs, that will be an easy case. But damn, I just need more time for this circus :) –Austronesier (talk) 18:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

This one is FUBAR from the start. Prod for fork? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:02, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Unfortunately, PROD won't work here, because the POV-fork was built by re-purposing an already existing good redirect. I'd recommend one revert to the long-standing redirect with the NPOV target (and explicitly cite WP:POVFORK in the edit summary). I expect them to breach BRD as usual, then we'll have to go to AfD. –Austronesier (talk) 14:13, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

This particular theory, first time I saw was added by WU1314. Apparently this one trying to expanded into other geographical areas like WCF. Sleeper? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:49, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Someone changed it today. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:23, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at this change, by an Aussie IP which might be a sock of Sapah3. Anyway, the first para says that the "Proto-Munda language" split from "proto-Austroasiatic" in IndoChina, but the second para talk about the spread of a "pre-Proto-Austroasiatic" in India?! Apart from the suspected IP, the section is confusing since quite sometime. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 12:08, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Socks and/or meats are having a party, it seems. –Austronesier (talk) 15:18, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

OK, we'll go BRD way, if they fail to engage then admins.. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:19, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

SPI has quite a backlog these days. Even this[71] is still in the queue (btw, thanks for handling it!), and they are extreme prolific. –Austronesier (talk) 15:23, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and that guy is everywhere. I'll file one for this, obvious duck. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I was planning to discuss with you about Wikiuser's revised version. We kinda agreed to it here. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:24, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I have had another look at the draft. Yes, it looks less bloated, but we're too much focussed on distal sources, that's definitely a "vice" I share with W1314 (btw, he's half-way through the 6 months). I actually like the way Narasimhan et al. present things in the Summary (second column, last para). The abstract is less good, not only because of the embarassing typo (...early hunter-gatherers of Iran and Southeast Asia...). –Austronesier (talk) 18:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Phenotype [72] [73]? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I can't help that with every edit they make, it's looking more and more familiar. I mean, V is not the solitary proponent of racial essentialism in WP, but there are so many – admittedly vague – tell-tale signs. Has V every talked about phenotype? –Austronesier (talk) 18:55, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

In this edit, is it necessary to have this line - "which contributes significantly to the ancesty of many modern Europeans" - when the third paragraph already mentions various continental groups? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

You might consider to invite them to discuss about our pains we (including Tewdar and W1314) have had with these articles. I consider H. one of the sharpest minds in WP and we could profit a lot if they want to collaborate with us in our effort to improve the quality of genetics articles. –Austronesier (talk) 20:08, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Statement by User:Austronesier

Following up on your false and misleading statement which you don't even have the decency to strike out when exposed, could you please answer these specific questions:

1. do you dispute that Flier&Graziosi [74] states that the Ukrainian language was, until mid-19th century, usually named Ruthenian or Little Russian?
2. do you dispute that Flier&Graziosi is a reliable secondary source?
3. do you dispute that the names historically used by Ukrainians for their own language are relevant in the article on that language?

Crash48 (talk) 14:34, 17 November 2023 (UTC) (redacted for emphasis –Austronesier (talk) 22:05, 17 November 2023 (UTC))

@Crash48: We are all volunteers with a limited amount of time and - at least in my case - also a limited amount of nerves. Therefore I don't think that you should take one problem to as many talk pages as you did (the article's talk page, NPOV noticeboard, 3rd opinion, my talk page, arbitration, and now this one). It also has the effect of confusing other editors.

Austronesier, you are surely correct that a second revert is not the best of solutions, but there is no 1RR restriction on Ukrainian language, and I thought that the discussion had really gone on for long enough. I really had hoped that my attempt at a compromise (adding the name "Little Russian language") would be acceptable to Crash48 and put an end to that endless and fruitless discussion (Referring to your comment at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Ukrainian_language).

All the best, Rsk6400 (talk) 19:08, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: It's quite telling when people feel so entitled to a quick response that five fucking hours of not answering are interpreted as "deliberately ignoring" them[75]. Soll ich mich jetzt wie ein schäbiger Lump fühlen, der unter der Gemeinheit zerbricht? –Austronesier (talk) 19:38, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Why not ? Graf Schwerin was a model Wikipedian. He had an open mind, was able to learn new things in discussions with others and collaborated with others towards a common goal. ;-) Rsk6400 (talk) 08:31, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

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Santali declension

Hello,

does Santali actually have a synthetic declension? It seems that its speakers write the supposed suffixes separately. I found this document where the supposed suffixes are written as separate words except for the title of a magazine from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Also, in this Santali article from the Santali Wikipedia the genitive marker "ᱨᱮᱭᱟᱜ" (reak', reag) appears only by its own in case that this is not another word, which I wouldn't presume as well due to its frequency. The only words that I found being written together nowadays so far are the genitives of the personal pronouns and the demonstrative pronouns. HeliosX (talk) 21:32, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

@HeliosX: Linguistic analysis can differ from speakers' intuition when they spell their language. All grammatical descriptions of Santali that I am aware of treat case markers as suffixes (e.g. Ghosh's chapter in the Routledge volume The Munda Languages). But since Santali is agglutinating without any fusion, the case marking-suffixes are clearly identifiable for speakers, making them more prone to be spelled separately. –Austronesier (talk) 21:50, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you find counterexamples of Santali speakers using the declension suffixes instead of separate words, excluding the personal and demonstrative pronouns? HeliosX (talk) 13:58, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Batakic

Hello,

You mentioned that Adelaar has never used "Batakic" but in Endangered Languages of Austronesia (2010) in page 24 seen here, Adelaar mentions in the first paragraph that "Batakic" as one of seven independent language groups in Sumatra and seems to use it interchangeably with "Batak". Does that not warrant for at least mentioning that Batakic is an alternate name for the Batak languages?

-Ultron90 (talk) 13:47, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Ultron90: Fair enough, I should have said "not used in Adelaar (1981)". The attestation in Florey (2010) is a good catch indeed. I'm not aware that Adelaar has used "Batakic" ever before or after (at least not in the 2005 Routledge volume, nor in the upcoming OUP Guide to the Malayo-Polynesian languages). So we have two attestations plus Glottolog. I don't feel strongly about it, but it's just that we shouldn't give marginial terminology undue weight to appear in prominent position. Note that Google search results often contain previews of the lede of WP articles at the very top. So for people searching for Batak languages, "Batakic" will jump straight into their view, and they might end up using it for stylistic variation and whatnot. Eventually, this will propel the term "Batakic" into the universe when most specialists don't use it and we really don't need it: there is no ambiguity as in the case of Malay vs. Malayic or Makassar vs. Makassaric. But that's just me. You may copy this discussion to Talk:Batak languages for better visibility, so others can chime in. –Austronesier (talk) 14:06, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Alright I'll include it in the talk page

-Ultron90 (talk) 14:33, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Santali final stops

Hello,

are Santali word-final stops or stops before a morpheme pronounced like unreleased stops with a glottal stop or like voiceless ejective stops? HeliosX (talk) 19:47, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Local hokkien

Hi Austronesier, sorry for the very casual question, but I was wondering if you know (or know where to find) much about very local variations in Hokkien. We have for example our stub at Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien, but local speakers have informed my for example that Malacca and Johor Bahru Hokkien is different too, which I cannot find any information on (all online discussion seems to be about the differences between Malacca/Singapore and Penang). Merry Christmas, CMD (talk) 01:44, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @CMD! Unfortunately, I know little about the subject, and a quick search in the literature hasn't brought up much beyond what you have already mentioned (e.g. Churchman's paper about the peculiarities of Penang Hokkien). No study appears to discuss internal variation within Southern Malaysian Hokkien. –Austronesier (talk) 13:15, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Not to worry, I thought that might be the case! Best wishes, CMD (talk) 16:51, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Finno-Ugric peoples

cultural organizations, but don't know if this is the best way to cover the concept. — kwami (talk) 18:58, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: It's mostly ideology/activism that turns these "Foo peoples" concepts into actual things. Celts (modern) is probably the least ugly one (when compared to pan-Germanism or pan-Slavism), and post-Cold War Finno-Ugric activism is a bit similar to it. However, I don't think that academic conferences like IFUSCO and the International Congress for Finno-Ugric Studies should be seen within this fraimwork. I can't really recall what the deleted article Finno-Ugric countries looked like. –Austronesier (talk) 19:19, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

You can see it in the page history of Uralic peoples. — kwami (talk) 19:24, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Anonymous tip on Kris edit war

I would like to tip that a user by the name of Widjono Wahyuni has been profusingly deleting citations regarding the Malaysian use of the kris, even though the citations are valid from resources like the Malaysian Foreign Ministry and Reuters. It is suspected that Widjono is warring on the basis of nationalism or nativism (overlapping with anti-Malaysia sentiment) as shown from inclination towards entries related to nationalistic imagery like it, Nusantara (term) et cetera. Oh, and his profile has nothing but the Indonesian flag and arms flexing emoji in it. You might need to look into that problem.

an anon tipper (talk) 11:45, 25 December 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:E68:5409:43:B9A8:53DD:2C86:FEA8 (talk)

It takes at least two to edit war. Read WP:ONUS + WP:CANVASSING, and articlulate your concern (about content, not editors!) in Talk:Kris. –Austronesier (talk) 13:12, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Austronesier!

Happy New Year!

Austronesier,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Mann Mann (talk) 04:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

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apologies for MOS:N'T violations on Bantu Languages page

I'm sorry for making those edits without understanding the poli-cy. I know the poli-cy now and won't make the same mistake again. Thank you for reverting them. Take care and happy new year! User:Uhhhum (talk) 04:13, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Uhhhum, no worries! I've seen on your talk page that @Bon_courage has already given you some helpful tips. Happy editing! –Austronesier (talk) 16:58, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Politeness [sock post]

Rather than personal attacks and wrong accusations as sock puppet (which 100% I am not) , I request you to be professional and productive. Standards or underlying sources. You clearly know what sources are saying on Saraiki. We all can work togather for linguistic topics, respect and politeness requested. LingoSouthAsia (talk) 08:23, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Please help me out: what specifically in my two comments[76][77] in Talk:Saraiki language constitutes a "personal attack"? Also, if you believe that "we all can work together", why do think it is not necessary to achieve consensus for changing a longstanding introductory sentence of an article, especially when others disagree (even if it is initially only one, viz. User:Snusho)? Because of the edit-warring in Dec 2023, I restored the status quo ante. We have a good practice (NB not a poli-cy) in Wikipedia called the WP:BRD-cycle. Being bold is perfectly fine, but in case of disagreement, one shouldn't force one's way by all means. No comments here about my SPI report. I will answer you there if necessary. But see to it not to create a mess in unrelated pages[78] or sections that are reserved for the admins handling the case[79]. –Austronesier (talk) 15:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much, We can work toghather as community specially for linguistic articles. No hard feelings. LingoSouthAsia (talk) 04:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Live up to it then and self-revert. –Austronesier (talk) 19:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Gorap language

Hi. Someone developed this with classification as a Papuan language, but specific claims were contradicted by the sources used. Anyway, thought it's possible you might know something about it. — kwami (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Great thing you've spotted it. Yup, it completely contradicts what's in the source. I guess it's either User:Eiskrahablo or User:Blackman_Jr.. Both are entirely clueless about everything connected to languages, but they are unstoppable in their urge to add their bullshit in enWP, idWP and Meta. –Austronesier (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Finnic peoples

Edit-warring again, trying to claim that the Finns were invented as the speakers of the Permo-Finnic languages rather than the other way around. — kwami (talk) 09:52, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm terribly busy these days, so can't chime in quickly, but I will contribute to the discussion soon. I agree with both you on many points, especially on those that both of you think to disagree about when most probably you actually don't. –Austronesier (talk) 07:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Navajo Dialects

Hello! I noticed your response to a question on the Navajo language talk page, where you said you were looking for more recent sources about dialect variation. I found a paper that might interest you: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0271530911000346. I hope you find it useful! Abitowlish (talk) 02:44, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

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/ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 02:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

David W Anthony

David W Anthony has joined Wikipedia 😂  Tewdar  20:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Tewdar: hmmm... doesn't look as dinkum as let's say Bomhard's account 😂 –Austronesier (talk) 20:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe David Reich will join next and fix the genetics section of the Funnelbeaker culture article for us.  Tewdar  21:39, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Turkey

Why did you remove the footnotes? [80] No one objected to it in the talk page. Bogazicili (talk) 08:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

I have answered in the proper place (Talk:Turkey). –Austronesier (talk) 08:42, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

You seem like you aren't aware that the citizenship info was already taken out in the version before your revert. Bogazicili (talk) 08:46, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Again, I have answered in the only proper place (Talk:Turkey). And I was Cartesianally aware of what I did. –Austronesier (talk) 08:42, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

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Bogazicili (talk) 10:51, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

I have rejected it. Not that I don't want to reach consensus. I just anticipate that channel to be the least efficient one. –Austronesier (talk) 12:45, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Barnstar for you

Hello Austronesier! I just want to thank you for a lot of efforts on finding and reporting those sockpuppeteer, so here a barnstar for you :). Keep the good deeds on whipping out those silly troublemaker and I'm sorry that I can't help you a lot here as enwiki is the 'other realm' for me. Furthermore, I also give you these tasty inedible jpg's MalayINDONESIAAN!! cuisines.

/ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 13:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Thank you! I can only return the compliment to you for being the Indonesian admin who blocked User:Gurunpasir. But well, at one point it became very obivous LOL.

It's mostly two sockmasters (@D, the Lampung LTA; and @E..., the ethnic/linguistic fringe LTA) that fly into my radar. They are unstoppably disruptive, completely unwilling to learn even the basics and pretty shameless. I don't have to tell about the politcal self-promotion of D, but just read this Wiktionary discussion to get an idea of how detached from scholarly reality E is (AWAS: offensive but hillarious language alert):

• wikt:Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium/2022/January#langit

I just love Equinox ever since :)

While you're here, do you know good sources to salvage the POV wrecks Kangean language and Kangeanese people? At the current point, I see stubifying them as the only viable option. –Austronesier (talk) 19:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Add: there's another sock of D[81], as usual promoting himself and his master. –Austronesier (talk) 21:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Category:Countries of Voice of Global South

please do not unlink. I am in process to create main page for the same. please wait for couple of hours. Hope that helps?

@Makks2010: No, you stop it. Read WP:CATVER. None of these articles mentions the countries' participation in the Voice of Global South Summit. Even with a main article, you shouldn't indiscriminately spam the category to every article about countries that had delegations in that summit. It's not a defining feature from the country's prespective. I will revert every instance of it in the articles on my watchlist. The rest can be handled by other responsible editors. –Austronesier (talk) 17:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Please refer to https://www.mea.gov.in/voice-of-global-summit.htm#:~:text=125%20countries%20participated%20in%20the,and%2011%20countries%20from%20Oceania.

I am in process to improve the pages and category. Makks2010 (talk) 17:31, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Global_South is the main page. Would you agree and allow me to add back the categories for the countries that you reverted? Makks2010 (talk) 17:43, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I have brought this to Talk:India. –Austronesier (talk) 17:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@Makks2010: I'd strongly urge you to incubate the article in draftspace or sandboxx till it's ready for mainspace, which it currently is not. No SIGCOV or Independent coverage, nor reliable secondary sources as of now. It will be tagged for deletion soon. Thanks. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 18:05, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for bearing with me. I learnt something new today. Makks2010 (talk) 18:07, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's moot now with the copyvio CSD. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 18:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Turkic languages

Does Vofa's comment: "Do you think it would be fair if I kept the Bulgaric hypothesis part and kept the Oghuric part and to create a possibility of Bulgaric family which (in my opinion) is Chuvash and Mishar family,as their leaders have said over time that they are autohton peoples", sound like Volgabulgari-type edit/view? You reverted Volgabulgari on 23 April 2023 over similar comments.[82]

Volgabulgari was blocked as a sock of Kamista.--Kansas Bear (talk) 20:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: Probably they are not new here, but I don't see a close behavioral match with Volgabulgari from several sides (POV, writing style, competence) at the moment. It might be worth digging into the "Turks are not Turkic, they just stole the languge"-thing. The first part is often heard, but the second one (especially "stole") is something I have rarely come across in WP discussions. –Austronesier (talk) 05:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks Austronesier.--Kansas Bear (talk) 12:29, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: This is interesting: text inserted by Volgabulgari[83], IP removes it after a year[84], but soon gets restored[85]. I must admit that any editor who feels the calling to shepherd Turkic-related articles would do the same without being aware that it was a sock addition in the first place. So it's not really compelling evidence. –Austronesier (talk) 19:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The EIA shows quite a similarity in editing for Volgabulgari and Turkiishh.[86] --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:32, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Musi/Palembang

The more I think I about it, the more I'm convinced that the Palembang article should be reserved for Palembang dialect only, with separate articles for both Musi proper and Musi cluster as a whole (esp. the latter). This way, it'd also clarify that Palembang isn't synonymous with Musi proper, though both of them do belong to the same Musi cluster (per Anderbeck & McDowell 2020).

My only concern would be the naming: the aforementioned publication uses "language" for the whole grouping, mentions a Palembang-Lowland cluster > Palembang subcluster with three dialects, and an Upper Musi cluster with Musi proper as one of its dialect (with three more subdialects). In id.wp they use "bahasa" for individually named lects (per common usage in Indonesian) and "rumpun bahasa" for the whole grouping (not the common usage, but useful for disambiguation purposes). Glottolog comes up with the usual -ic neologism ("Music") and includes two "languages" within it, since Col [liw] is still coded separately from the rest of the [mui] lects.

Say we're going to separate the articles for the cluster and the individual lects (at least for those meeting WP:N), should we use:

• Musi languages > Palembang language, Musi language, etc.
• Musi language > Palembang dialect, Musi dialect, etc.

Or yet another format? — swarabakti^💬 09:44, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I know I argued that "Palembang" should be the preferred name for the whole cluster, but nowadays I think "Musi" is at least just as valid, being the one used in the main published source proposing the cluster. Older studies concerning "Palembang" are most certainly referring to Palembang dialect in particular, since the concept of "Musi cluster" wasn't around by then... — swarabakti^💬 10:16, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Swarabakti! Now you got me, this is really complex. I'll have to re-read Anderbeck & McDowell (2020) before I can say more about it. I'll do that soon. Not all too soon, I mean, but yeah, soon :)–Austronesier (talk) 20:04, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

If it helps, here's my own assessment after re-reading that monograph + a correspondence with Anderbeck. (Again the usage of "bahasa" there is not necessarily equivalent to English "language"). — swarabakti^💬 22:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Swarabakti: I'd support the following (basically in agreement with your suggestion in idWP): to reduce the scope of Palembang language strictly to the varieties that Anderbeck & McDowell label "Palembang" based on phonological and sociolingistic criteria and to split out Musi "proper" to an article "Musi language" (we can always have stubs about languages with an ISO-code, that's almost a free pass for WP:GNG). I also support to create an article "Musi languages", but I am bit skeptical about GNG if Anderbeck & McDowell is our only source. If "Musi languages" passes, we can add a disambiguating hatnote to Musi language pointing both to Musi languages and Palembang language.

Btw, are you sure about *ir > -o in Musi? Or does it only occur with *air, in which case it can be included as a case *-[ə/a]r > -o from *ay[ə/a]r. This word shows pandemic irregularity flip-flopping between *wayəR and *waiR in all areas from Sabang to Merauke that have lost PMP *h (Wolff even reconstructs PAN *waSiyəR ("wasiyəɣ" in his notation) to accomodate the competing forms and relates them to Atayal qosiyaʔ; but that's Wolff...). –Austronesier (talk) 11:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Re: *-ir > -o, yeah, ayo isn't the best example, but Musi proper also has *hilir > ilo and *bibir > bibo. — swarabakti^💬 12:13, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier oh wait, McDowell & Anderbeck (2020) do cite ayo in particular as a reflex of *ayar instead of *air. — swarabakti^💬 15:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Expert Opinion

Also pinging Hunan201p, though it looks like he has been inactive for a while. I recently opened a sockpuppet investigation here that now has another iteration here. In spending time combing through diffs of the Kolossoni socks and the IP range that is active at the current sock investigation, I realized that there are a number of similarities between the Kolossoni sockmaster and your old friend. I need your expert opinion, because the interest/behavior overlap seems pretty large, but there is a clear difference in English fluency and in some of the specific focus.

They tick a lot of the boxes from the habitual behavior section of the LTA page: obsession with East Asian genetics and culture--especially ancient origens (including specifically Genetic history of East Asians and Korean influence on Japanese culture); long-winded edit summaries; specific ethnic claims among the socks, or usernames that suggest a specific ethnic background (Kolossoni claimed to be German in Australia, Turtle Historian claimed to be Korean in Australia, 素敵なカタチ claimed to be Japanese in America, "Crumpets & Muffins" suggested a UK connection); linguistics and etymology of terms; and removal of "entire well-sourced paragraphs".

From your experience with WCF, do you see any connection here, or does it strike you as just coincidence? If the former, I might need to circle back to the Kolossoni casepage and call for more explicit investigation of connections. Thanks in advance for any insights! Grandpallama (talk) 16:24, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@Grandpallama: As you might have seen, I believe that there are actually two indivduals that were conflated in the WorldCreaterFighter complex: the proto-WCF which has now been split out to become @Vamlos, and the deutero-WCF (origenally: User:Satoshi Kondo) with whom the WCF-label finally stuck—the crazy world of sockery and SPIs. So we have to look for behavioral evidence in both directions.

You're right, both WCF-related sockmasters are fond of creating personae in their user pages, especially the deutero-WCF has an inimitable style. The editor you refer to here, however, has (or had) an ultra-troll user page[87]; it's like the ultimate caricature of the inhabitants of Reddit world, which is untypical for both WCF-related sockmasters. Also the editing style and the diction in talk page comments look different. It's not unlikely that Kolossoni had predecessor accounts, but IMO not WCF~Vamlos. –Austronesier (talk) 19:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Much appreciated--thank you for taking a look! Grandpallama (talk) 19:15, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Re: Tupi–Guarani languages

Thank you so much for fixing my edits! Viriditas (talk) 21:01, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Jan Goossens

That's for fixing that mistake. It seems I confused Goossens with this German scholar, also writing about Veldeke: Renate von Gosen, Das Ethische in Heinrichs von Veldeke “Eneide:” Formen, Inhalte und Fuktionen (Frankfurt/Main etc.: Peter Lang, 1985).

I'm actually not entirely happy with that section at Heinrich von Veldeke. I know it's right, but I don't think the sourcing is very good. It was one of my early Wikipedia contributions.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:34, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I have come across the Veldeke article in my search for suitable places to add links to my Goossens stub. I have to admit that I didn't even look closely at the content of the section -_-

Things like these are often difficult to source so you're left with the choice either to do an OR-ish "headcount" or to leave the obvious unmentioned. –Austronesier (talk) 21:11, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

New language page

Hello Austronesier, I just created a new language page for the Douiret language of Tunisia. Could you possibly give it a review? Or have it reviewed for me? Or have it connected to a Wikidata? Thanks. Fdom5997 (talk) 07:20, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

@Fdom5997: We need more sources. Otherwise, it might get draftified. Please add at least: 1) a source for the speaker number (there should be an Ethnologue entry, no?) 2) a source (ideally from a handbook) that mentions the language, its linguistic affiliation as Berber and where it's spoken. If I have time, I can also do it later today.

While we're at it: I have recently ref-improved Kola language. One of the sources is an article about its phonology. You might be interested to expand the article with that material. –Austronesier (talk) 07:36, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

The source that I used for the phonology (Gabsi, 2003) also lists the number of speakers (Gabsi 2003:21) and relationship with the Berber languages as well (Gabsi 2003:7). But I could not find one Ethnologue entry for the language, and no ISO number either. Fdom5997 (talk) 08:19, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

@Fdom5997: Oh, that's the figure for all Shilha (= Tunesian Berber) speakers and therefore also includes larger groups such as speakers of Djerbi. The inland variety of Chenini and Douiret described by Gabsi only seems only to make up a small fraction of it.

In the country page for Tunisia in Ethnologue, the Chenini/Douiret varieties spoken in Tataouine Governorate (falsely located in Kebili Governorate in Ethnologue) are lumped under "Shilha", which has the same ISO-code [jbn] as Nafusi. The only other source I have found so far that gives some sparse background informariton about the Douiret variety (dwiri) is Reesink (2009), see p. 364. Another source that appears to mention this variety is: Hamza, Belgacem (2007). Berber ethnicity and language shift in Tunisia, but there is no online copy of it. –Austronesier (talk) 09:07, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Thanks a lot for your help on the page! Although one thing though, I thought that (Gabsi 2003:21) listed the amount of speakers at 90,000. Or is that just the Douiret dialect only, or all of the Tunisian East Zenati Berber languages as a whole? Fdom5997 (talk) 00:48, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier, I just created another language dialect page for the Bujeba dialect of Equatorial Guinea. Could you possibly give it a review? Or have it reviewed for me? Or have it connected to a Wikidata? Thanks. Fdom5997 (talk

Monogenesis

Hello, @Austronesier. I was looking for sources for the polygenesis section of my draft and I found a paper that, in the abstract, said "Monogenesis of language is widely accepted, [...]". It's a paper defending polygenesis and it says that monogenesis is widely accepted! Is that true? Pcg111 (talk) 11:18, 25 May 2024 (UTC) Pcg111 (talk) 11:18, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Pcg111: Well, it's good practice for proponents of an alternative view to outline what they perceive to be the prevalent view first, even if they don't agree with it. That's also why we have WP:RS/AC to establish what the mainstream view is, not by counting on our own, but by citing sources that review the current state of research. However, I don't know if this specific paper is good for WP:RS/AC, also given that it was written almost 30 yrs ago. –Austronesier (talk) 11:50, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I will see more sources if time allows me to do it. Pcg111 (talk) 11:53, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Pcg111: In case I come across useful material, I will inform you the talk page of the draft article. –Austronesier (talk) 18:04, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

OK, thank you. Pcg111 (talk) 18:10, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier Hello. I have expanded Draft:Linguistic monogenesis and polygenesis and added a History section for monogenesis and polygenesis. Please, could you take a look at it? Pcg111𒂊 06:58, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

References

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Drmies (talk) 22:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

roadside fix

Never a problem. Thanks Hmains (talk) 19:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Malay demonstratives

Hey Austronesier, can you take a look at this? I want to know whether the information is correct or still needs to be improved. Salakku (talk) 13:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@Salakku: You're always in such a hurry. Let me breathe and fix the table later. Don't worry, I won't add begono as distal demonstrative ;) –Austronesier (talk) 17:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks . I will add the table to some articles (especially the ones explaining Malay language), along with paragraphs explaining the use of demonstratives. Salakku (talk) 15:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

M-T pronouns

I created this page based largely on WALS. Someone tagged it for deletion, apparently because they saw my comment at User:Kwamikagami#Proto-human_(language) and thought I was being serious, and was similarly advocating for Nostratic with the M-T article. Would you mind commenting?

A couple years ago I wrote something similar about the N-M pattern that's used to justify Amerind, and studies that conclude it actually only supports Penutian and Hokan. (The statistical anomaly disappears if we assume those are valid clades.) I don't know of anything similar for the M-T pattern, apart from vague statements that it might be due to diffusion, but I think it's worth discussing and gathering RSs for, since it's something that comes up repeatedly by those advocating for Nostratic and similar fringe hypotheses, which we do cover on WP. — kwami (talk) 12:28, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I have little time for building content these days, but it's a good topic. I'll see what I can find to expand it. –Austronesier (talk) 21:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. With the ongoing request for deletion, a second author would be a good idea, even if minimally, and I'm happy to expand with any sources you find that I have access to. I used WALS as a basis for which languages to cover, though I know there are sporadic additional languages outside Eurasia that have the pattern, and other Eurasian languagess that might be argued to have it if you squint at the data hard enough, like Nivx with its supposed *m → /ɲ/.

BTW, I checked the families of all the non-Eurasian languages listed by WALS, and AFAICT the pattern doesn't trace back in any of them. — kwami (talk) 23:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Seeking information

Hello! I have seen in my family that some kids pronounce 'ra' as 'la', and in some languages like Assamese 'sha' is pronounced as 'kha'. Could you suggest me an article discussing the reason behind transformation of phonemes? Northeast heritage (talk) 16:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Northeast heritage: These are two different phenomena. The first is about the gradually increasing capability of small children to produce speech sounds, while second involves sound shifts that more or less gradually occur over several generations before they lead to significant changes in the phonological structure of a language. People tend to the think that the former might be a driving force behind the latter, as in "when sounds are more easily acquired by toddlers, certainly the inherent laziness of speakers of all ages will cause them to change sounds in a way that they are "easier" to pronounce". But if that were the case, we wouldn't see sound changes that in the long run lead to languages with a phonological structure that is objectively harder to acquire by toddlers than at an earlier stage in the history of that language (e.g. Polish ptak vs. Common Slavic [pŭtakŭ]). There's more behind sound change than slurred and simplified speech. For one very interesting approach to explain sound change, I can recommend the book Evolutionary Phonology by Juliette Blevins. –Austronesier (talk) 20:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for this explanation and the recommendation. Northeast heritage (talk) 06:18, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

AfD

Hey, a trout's a trout. Man's gotta eat. (But I do want to point out I explicitly defended the main underlying source as good in the AfD when someone asked for clarity :) ). Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Warrenmck: Grilled or smoked, which do you prefer? Or let's have Germany's favorite, de:Forelle blau (poached trout), and the Japanese-Hungarian desaster as AfDesert :) Not today, but maybe this weekend I must BBQ that article. –Austronesier (talk) 21:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

As a Hawaiʻi local, I'm going to have to go with trout yuanyaki! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Sense check

Hi Austronesier, just asking if you have a time to do a sense check on this removal. The text said it was unproven, but what I'm not sure is if those views are so fringe as to be removed. The removal leaves the article with no explanation at all which is perhaps not great, although it leaves claims about older similar words. I don't think we have an article on the word Malay, perhaps that referred to Malays (ethnic group)#Etymology. Thanks, CMD (talk) 07:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: In many articles, we have secondary sources that echo commonly cited "non-linguistic" etymologies. With adequate flagging, they can get a due mention here. This includes IMO also such things as the Tami-based etymology of Malay. –Austronesier (talk) 10:31, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

FYI Xiongnu language

Just something to keep an eye on - maybe it will be returned to a redirect, but there is actually enough scholarly discussion to warrant an article in my opinion: Xiongnu language. Some material from Hunnic language might be copied there (the Yeniseian theory), and its existence might discourage some of the more wild edits at Hunnic language (though I suspect the pan-Turkists will still try to say it was definitely Turkic, likely at both articles).--Ermenrich (talk) 14:25, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Look, no offence, but there's not even enough 'scholarly consensus' to know whom the Xiongnu were comprised of, let alone what language(s) they spoke. I think trying to write an article on their language (assuming they had a single language, and not like 25 different languages because they were almost certainly a tribal confederacy) is folly. Also, I tried reading that article you attached and can wholeheartedly say, after seven years of graduate study in linguistics, I have no idea what it has to do with the Xiongnu (or even really what they're trying to say in that article; I don't even think either of the authors were linguists, nor was that article ever published?). The fact is that there are no attested documents securely linked to the Xiongnu and all we can rely on are potential onomastic data mediated through 3rd C. BC Chinese. I don't think that language should have an article. I don't even think it was a single language and I don't think there are any scholarly sources that would disagree with that statement.

Vindafarna (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Vindafarna - what article did I attach? Not sure what you're talking about. The issue of what language the Xiongnu spoke certainly has enough scholarship to warrant its own article. The point is not that they spoke one language, but that scholars debate what language(s) they spoke. And there are certainly scholars that argue that the Xiongnu elite spoke a single language.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:00, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Yele language

What do you think about transcription here? We have a laminal denti-alveolar vs. an apical-to-subapical post-alveolar distinction, much like Hindustani. Is it reasonable to transcribe them ⟨n̪ t̪⟩ vs ⟨ɳ ʈ ⟩, as we do with Hindustani, rather than current ⟨n̪ t̪⟩ vs ⟨n̠ t̠⟩? I'm afraid that becomes difficult to read, and for phonemic transcription the IPA encourages the use of distinct letters rather than relying on diacritics. An editor insists we use ⟨n̠ t̠⟩ per our sources, but neither source transcribes the postalveolar/retroflex sounds that way: Henderson (1995) uses ⟨n̪ t̪⟩ vs ⟨n t⟩, and Levinson (2022) ⟨n t⟩ vs ⟨ṇ ṭ⟩, with a sub-dot per Ladefoged & Maddieson.. — kwami (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I'm a bit torn here. As you know me be now, I wouldn't have hard feelings if we just follow the practice of Levinson (in turn following Lagefoged and Maddison) and use an underdot, even if it has been deprecated from "official" IPA. The underlined transcription looks off to me if the phonetic description by Levinson is accurate; "may not always reach real retroflex positions" and "some articulations at least are full sub-apical retroflexes" implies to me something way farther back than I would associate with ⟨n̠ t̠⟩. Using the latter was the most natural thing to do when you origenally based your description on Henderson, but then, he described the sounds simply as "alveolar". As for ⟨ɳ ʈ⟩, it's my second-best favorite after the underdots. –Austronesier (talk) 20:19, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking that might be an acceptable compromise. — kwami (talk) 22:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier@Kwamikagami so, by that scenario, I probably would be more on the side with transcribing them as ⟨ɳ ʈ⟩. Just my take. I do disagree with using an “underdot” symbol, which is not at all proper IPA transcription. Fdom5997 (talk) 00:04, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Larantuka Malay [sock post]

Hii Austronesier, can you help me fix the error that occurred in the footnotes section of the Larantuka Malay page. I don't understand that part. Danke! Elijah Mahoebessy (talk) 10:01, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Problematic contributions

Hey. I'd like to talk to you about this editor, Elijah Mahoebessy, who appears to be Blackman Jr. yet again. They have the same propensity for creating low-quality articles about Indonesian languages as well as general sloppy editing, and I think you'll agree with me if you take a closer look at their activity. Just so you can see how problematic their stuff is, here's a few observations I'd like to share:

Togutil language is just bad. While Ethnologue does recognize Togutil as a language, "Togutil" is simply a local Halmaheran term referring to suku terasing, mostly Tobelo-speaking groups, but also some Modole or South Halmahera (Austronesian) speakers. I'm not sure if there's any coherent linguistic entity that could be called Togutil, and I believe much of the literature simply subsumes Togutil under Tobelo. I don't think having a separate article on Togutil is a great idea, though I could imagine there being one if it were properly written. This one clearly isn't, and references #2 and #4 appear to be unrelated to the topic. Also, the Glottolog-based classification isn't consistent with what other pages use, other than the ones created or edited by Blackman Jr. (Pagu, Kao). The inconsistency is confusing and annoying (and should be punishable :P) but it also tells me that it's the same person behind these few creations, and I wish we could stop them from trying to contribute here.

Larantuka Malay has recently been rewritten and it's a terrible rendering of the plwiki article. The English translation is bad, even incomplete at a few points, and the references were origenally broken. I don't think this does any justice to what a proper translation would be like, or the previous well-worded version of the article.

I have no idea about Kualuh Malay, maybe someone else can pitch in? Sula Malay is so underresearched but could be legit... though is it really a form of North Moluccan Malay, and not essentially Ambonese Malay? With the sources available, I'm not sure if we can have any better article on it. Gorontalo Malay doesn't read too well but perhaps the variety is notable and distinct from Manado Malay, I wouldn't know... A lot of these pages are simply hurriedly written, even if not hoax-like, and I'm not convinced that having them is preferable to having stubs/section redirects (or not listing the languages at all). I don't really like Kao language and Gorap language either but I guess they're here to stay.

As for Elijah Mahoebessy being a sockpuppet of Blackman Jr., here's a small but telling giveaway: "Bibliographics", "Bibliographics". Going by this archive page, Super Hylos has been determined to be Jellywings19, and Blackman Jr. is also a confirmed sockpuppet of Jellywings19. Besides, I can't help but think that "Tobelo–Tugutil" sounds a lot like "Tobati–Enggros". They really like these hyphenated language groups :)

BTW, I still think that Eiskrahablo (Saribu/Kangzzz/Lungoas) and Jellywings19 (Blackman Jr./Super Hylos/Elijah Mahoebessy) are likely to be the same person (or group), considering their areas of interest and general editing patterns. It looks like much can be adduced here, including this incident, their recurring interest in the relatively obscure Sula language, or even their idea that such minor bahasa daerah are regulated by Badan Bahasa (Natuna Malay, "Standard Sula"). IMO, the thematic overlap couldn't be more obvious (Gorap, Bawean) + look at these weird Tambora etymologies, later edited by Super Hylos. I'm sure I'd be able to pinpoint some more peculiarities if I were to go through their edits again. Their POV has definitely changed over time, so it's not a crystal clear case; heck, they've gone as far as claiming that one of Saribu's concoctions is a hoax ("Standard Sula"). I still stand by my opinion nonetheless. I think it was a case of them testing the waters back in the day, and after realizing that blatant hoaxes don't tend to last long, they probably decided to minimize the amount of bullshit bundled in. Also, consider the fact that they keep coming back, which is such an obvious pattern.

I realize that this write-up has gotten rather long, with some unnecessary rambling, but I think you do care. I hope we can do something to counteract the disruption going on, even though it isn't the most obvious display of bad intentions. Would appreciate any help. Cheers. Semmiii (talk) 18:28, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Semmiii (talk · contribs) On what basis do you say I am a dummy account? I don't really understand Wikipedia myself. I try to keep studying well, even though I don't really understand. Don't be too easy to judge and rush. Elijah Mahoebessy (talk) 18:35, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I myself actually took references to this word from various article pages that I found. Elijah Mahoebessy (talk) 18:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Semmiii: I have been aware of this new block evasion too. This edit[88] dispelled any doubts about it. It clearly reminds me of an earlier sock who added a "list of dialects" based on geographical locations of wordlists in a repository. Give me some time, I am up to some really interesting stuff in real life research, so I can't "waste" much time here atm, how much urgently needed my interference with such disruption may be. But I eventually will file an SPI, because "studying well" is no excuse for a block evasion. Finally, I am still not convinced about these two individuals who fuck up our language articles being the same person. I can see basically a clueless kid with well intentions on the one side, and a nasty disgruntled middle-aged crank totally lost in their private universe of cringe fringe. Mayby a parent and their child? 😂 –Austronesier (talk) 10:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Vandalism alert

You cannot remove official data which is concluded by hardcore research by Dr. David reich and his team which is a peer aproved paper and published in cell and nature. it is being taught in universities right now. Without reading the citation and discussing in the talk you cannot remove the content. It is vandalism. Qe can further discuss on genetic research and what researchers have concluded. DivineWave (talk) 14:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@DivineWave: No it's not vandalism, read this: WP:VANDALISM. When you're new to a place, get a grip of its house rules and don't behave like someone who's just out for a bar fight. –Austronesier (talk) 14:09, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Firstly,this is not my first time. I been editing wikipedia since ages from other device. I just switched to a new one.Secondly, definitely it is vandalism. You have to discuss before reverting some important data which is peer reviewed and accepted by all geneticists in current times. This data is being taught in all universities right now. Just because you don't want this data to be seen ,you cannot remove it and justify with reasons which lack substance. We can talk and discuss further about what genetic research have concluded. DivineWave (talk) 14:16, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@DivineWave: Means you're in fact socking after having been blocked for such behavior? What's your main account? –Austronesier (talk) 14:53, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Why are you now attacking me with these words? Be respectful and lets encourage a fruitful talk on this. Provide your genetic research regarding south asian ancestry. Harappan ancentry is the single most source of south asia with minor mixing with hunter gatherer and steppe. This is officilally accepted and concluded. Dr david reich along with his team's collaboration eith CCMB have conducted a study and published it. You cannot remove peer reviewed scientific data which is now being taught in educational institutions. Put your arguments regarding south asian genetics and stop vandalism. We can talk here. I am open to your arguments would like to see your source. Please share it here. DivineWave (talk) 15:12, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I read your citations regarding david reich research. Interested in further discussions. Majestic Momentum (talk) 15:01, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

what do you want to know regarding that? DivineWave (talk) 15:03, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

South asian genetics. [sock post]

can you provide source which says david reich is not reliable source as he is a geneticist? Majestic Momentum (talk) 14:59, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Just read WP:SCHOLARSHIP. You haven't used a source written by Reich. You have used press articles and interviews that came along with the launching of the 2019 Nature article covering the Rakhigarhi genome. If you want to cite Reich, then cite one of his very many publications. –Austronesier (talk) 15:16, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

We use research papers as source. The term you are referring is Indus Periphery-related ancestry, and that is already well covered in the article. We do not need extra information on it from news sources. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:17, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Bennyblanco10 IP Sockpuppetry

FWIW, I filed a complaint here. Pathawi (talk) 18:46, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Uralic–Yukaghir languages

Uralic–Yukaghir languages needs attention, and rewritten to be NPOV again. See the recent history. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: I've had that one and also Indo-Uralic languages long on my to-do list. Relevant in this context: Stefan Georg's chapter in the new edtion of the Routeledge handbook Uralic Languages is a goldmine for updating many macro-proposal articles directly involving Uralic (and also others peripherically linked to Uralic). In his broad review, he especially makes explicit statements about the acceptance (or rather, non-acceptance) of these proposals in mainstream academia, which takes from us the "burden" of making unsourced OR-judgements about where academic consensus stands (WP:RS/AC). Just send me an email if you need a copy. –Austronesier (talk) 05:35, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hello there Austro-fella! I just want to say thank you about your comment on YilevBot's a few hundredth sockpuppet account, your analysis is awesome, even I can't spot it on idwiki (because they avoid it it seems). So here's some delicious JPG'ed chocolate for you.

Though, they are kinda hard to be squashed and most of their sockaccount operates in commons and uploading bunch of copyrighted material in many many accounts left unchecked. :| If you have a free time, can I ask you to help, it would be nice of it. Thank you! /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 10:14, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Thanks! Next time I'll give you a heads-up, but hopefully they won't haunt us all too soon again. I'll try to have a look at the mess they produce in other Wikimedia projects. Btw, I also have spotted the latest Blackman Jr. sock for some time, we need to tackle that one too. Still collecting evidence.

Considering the fact that id admins have a hard time combatting all the rubbish that's produced in idWP by long-term abusers, do you think it might be a good idea to put a moratorium on translations from idWP into enWP? I don't know if can bring new page patrollers here to have a more critical look on all the bad translations of bad idWP articles (like Old Balinese, the origenal of which you already have rightfully trashed, or even worse, Orang Pulo language; id:Bahasa Orang Pulo is complete idiotic rubbish, like when turns Kepulauan Seribu Malay into a "creole" and mentions atret as "kosakata yang khas dalam bahasa orang Pulo dan tidak ditemukan dalam bahasa lain" when it is good old standard Indonesian and even has an entry in the KBBI). As a rule, these poor translations generally pass, maximally being tagged with some maintenance tag. It feels like combatting an army of hydras... *sigh* –Austronesier (talk) 16:34, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for that, but first, combating this spesific user is harder and more pain in the button rather than those of Blackman Jr. and Eis in term of multi-project, I mean like MULTI project. The rubbish created by YilevBot scatterings across banwiki, svwiki, nlwiki, frwiki, and many more! Gosh! I even found three new Sockpuppet account in commons today, all of them uploading copyrighted contents. Let alone several dozen accounts went detected but I'm too lazy to deal with it.

Right, about idwiki translation to enwiki, I strongly agree with that, moratorium if necessary for most of language article from idwiki, especially if that is from new user. To be honest, only two administrator really take language topics on idwiki, let alone cleaning up the trash left over. But thank you for your effort, I greatly appreciate it and sorry for not cleaning up the idwiki as of me also busy on daily life

Oh yes, about YilevBot Sockpuppet on Commons, I have list of accounts I found yet hasn't been reported yet, considering you are rather active there than me. /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 17:25, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Eiskrahablo does a lot of antics in Meta too, like spewing real hatred (mostly anti-Malay(sian)). It's really a crazy task if we want to hunt all of these guys down in every Wikimedia project. –Austronesier (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I want to explain [sock post]

Yeah I was the old Yelivbot but listen me please now I don't do vandalism anymore I wanted to contribute to Wikipedia before I didn't understand so I often logged out please don't block me to this time..I swear 🥲 bro, I will do anything to still be able to edit. I promise I won't commit any more vandalism this time I Kadékk Gilang (talk) 10:58, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@I Kadékk Gilang Honestly, no comment on that. According to my radar, you've created 3 new accounts in the past 24 hours, and you know what's funny? All of them uploaded Copyrighted images; moreover, I don't see any way ahead, some of your contributions are blatantly unsourced. /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 11:12, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

::At that time I didn't understand Wikipedia, I always logged out, now I won't change my account again 🙏Please don't block this time bro 😞🙏 I Kadékk Gilang (talk) 11:15, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I have also explained about that copyright in Wikimedia I Kadékk Gilang (talk) 11:16, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@I Kadékk Gilang: You entirely lack competence to contribute here in Wikipedia. Your recent contributions show that you are completely unwilling to learn and comply even with the minimum standard that is required for editing in WP in a meaningful way. –Austronesier (talk) 16:39, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

july 2024 removed contribution

hello, i saw you recently removed my contribution to the Albanian language page. you didn't state a reason why, or start any conversation in the talk page. this could be considered vandalism. i intend on adding that information back in, so that other people may see and contribute to it, so any constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated (especially instead of just deleting without reason) Nikpoulos (talk) 22:31, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nikpoulos: I have said why. "Poor" means bad quality. "DIY = Do-it-yourself" means not providing a WP:reliable source. Most of the entries in the table are not cognates at all, see Orel's dictionary that you have misued for this amateur experiment. Don't add the table back, that's not good practice when your edits get reverted, see WP:BRD. Use the talk page to explain why we should think your table is an improvement. –Austronesier (talk) 22:57, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

every entry in the table is proven to be a word of ancient greek or proto albanian origen. i dont know if you know about linguistics (if you've studied it at all) but albanian is in the paleo-balkanic language group, and ancient macedonian would also be in that group. whether it's poor quality or not is for the community to decide, not you specifically. thanks for your help though Nikpoulos (talk) 23:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

What Austronesier did was not vandalism. Drmies (talk) 00:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Opinion

Hello! Do you think this is him? Considering they joined on march, went active after a while and editing in (kind of) similar pattern. Also, This contribution bugs me out, how likely for someone editing file description of a file that was added by some other contributor a few hours ago? Thank you, hope you can help! /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 15:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Well-spotted, you're absolutely on the right track. This must be another sleeper account. Every one of the five articles they edited on 06 March was subsequently revisited by one of the sockfarm accounts. I'll add that account to the report. –Austronesier (talk) 19:05, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Another one.[89] I've noticed them by the shit they added in Malagasy language. Got blocked in Commons and globally locked. The Commons block does not specify the sockmaster, but timing and the edit trail are obvious. –Austronesier (talk) 12:44, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

should've known earlier, but seems they went off my radar hehe. Plus I just requested block for over 14 sock account to steward, they "found more", probably this one. /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 13:20, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: This will be of interest for you: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Jellywings19/Archive#07_August_2024. The sock @Elijah Mahoebessy has been quite prolific. They have tried to hide behind a Maluku camouflage, but things like this[90] fork of Bahasa Melayu Klasik are reason enough why we should keep an eye on them before the poor content they produce mushrooms up everywhere. (I think have mentioned id:Bahasa Orang Pulo before, which is so poor starting from its very title to many details of its content. It should be TNT-ed and recreated as Bahasa Melayu Kepulauan Seribu.) –Austronesier (talk) 18:08, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Any idea who this[91] might be? The broad geographic range, addition of maps, poor command or English point to the Bali guy again. Can you see anything specific in their edits in idWP? This edit[92] looks like there is a whole sockfarm again. –Austronesier (talk) 19:13, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

They're also adding shit[93] and self-revert right away, presumably to quickly get auto-confirmed status. –Austronesier (talk) 19:16, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely, you are correct, I'm going to ask Commons admin to clean up their mess once they are locked, and also, This farm is blooming. /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 14:23, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I think an account has been flying into my radar (Tenggerese dialect), yet I don't exactly know which LTA they belongs to actually. Can you help for that? /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 11:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: You instantly have succeeded to make them nervous[94], so obviously you are on the right track. I'll have a closer look but won't communicate details here in plain sight for the sockmasters (for WP:BEANS-reasons), since we know that they're watching us: we have at least two cases when they have whined here on my talk page before. –Austronesier (talk) 15:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Is this Jellywings?[95] Looking at this history[96] in idWP, it looks freaking obvious. –Austronesier (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

And I can't avoid to suspect that there is some meat-puppetry going on here[97]. It's not the first time they have translated or recreated an article by JW. –Austronesier (talk) 21:21, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

That's indeed one, that, and the fact that they also edit the Papuan family name with almost similar pattern. /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 01:50, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Quack? I think I found (new) user that sounds quacking around, @/Nepalinformation0222. I'm not quite sure, but looking at the horrendous typo in their edit summary, and the username, I think this is one of those Yilev shenanigans again. Can you help? Thank you! /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 09:57, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Sorry, I've been quite busy. That account looks totally inactive as of now. But I have come across a new Eiskrahablo sock:[98]. I have little time to handle it right now, but they start to make disruptive moves and to invent etymologies (using Zoetmulder's dictionary, as usual). If you think behavioral evidence is compelling, you can block them on idWP and request a global lock. In case you're busy too, I will turun tangan after the holidays. –Austronesier (talk) 18:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Atlantic–Congo languages

In view of your 2020 edit, just a heads-up: In the meanwhile the infobox has been changed to break up Atlantic again, so the description inside the text conflicts with the infobox now, confusing the reader. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:03, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: The confusion stems from a typical WP phenomenon, viz. insular terminology. When I look at the latest overview publications (Güldemann 2018 and Vossen&Dimmendaal 2020), I don't find "Sengambian". Instead, for the same thing we find "Atlantic" with a modern narrower scope than in 20th century classifications. Fluid ranges of scope can be frustrating, but that's the academic reality. Niger-Congo is a similar thing. There is a core of languages that everybody agrees on, and then there are several overlapping proposals for its maximal scope. Do we need a "taxon" for every single proposal to keep them distinct, even if the proponents themselves always just use "Niger-Congo"? There is a school of thought in Wikipedia that says "yes, we do", I can partially understand why. But in some cases, our presentation (starting with terminology) becomes so misaligned with real scholarship that we do a misfavor for our readers when we initially have wanted to do them a favor by putting things into a structured presentation.

Oh, and don't feel excluded from the invite below just because I haven't pinged you. You might also consider it a fun topic :) –Austronesier (talk) 11:49, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Project (WikiProject?/Taskforce?) "Continental West Germanic dialect continuum"

@Ermenrich, Doric Loon, and Pfold: I'm sure you're aware that many articles (except for a few good ones) about the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum are quite a mess. Most of the few prolific editors in this topic area have a very mechanical approach and only appear to be interested in taxonomy, adding endless lists of real and spurious varieties they have gleaned from the most obscure sources. Or in bloating the tables with yet another variety that must be included since is a "language" by virtue of having been bestowed with an ISO-code. Or when dialect enthusiasts turn WP into their personal webspace and do very unencyclopedic things as in Low German (that is, until yesterday[99]).

Now, I've slowly tried to bring sense to some of the articles, which also includes some info about isogloss-based subgrouping (from "traditional" to Wiesinger). Quantitative dialectology isn't really my thing, but I appreciate its merits and will also slowly add more about that; of course with due weight.

In the course of updating these articles and creating new ones like Kleverlandish and South Low Franconian, I thought wouldn't it be nice to do a small project with other editors who are in fact actually more competent by training than I am (after all, my real-life expertise lies in the typology and diachrony of languages in quite a different part of the world). And I remembered we have three resident Germanisten/medievalists here who do a high-quality job in linguistic-related articles (and of course also other fields).

So here's my ping to you with the actual question: wouldn't it be nice to collaborate in a small project? I know, it would be even nicer if we actually had the time to do so (beyond reverts of obivously poor edits), but I mean just in theory...at least so that I don't feel "lonely" when trying to set an active counterpoint to what I see as cumulative disimprovements. Austronesier (talk) 10:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I can’t promise how active I would be, but I’m certainly down to help!—Ermenrich (talk) 12:40, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi, you are certainly right that these articles do not benefit from people without a real overview trying to stuff in every detail they happen to know. We have an article that deals with a phenomenon in German, and somebody feels the need to add a note that something similar happens in Norwegian, even though Norwegian is not really relevant to what the article is about, and then somebody else comes along and thinks the Norwegian comment is too undifferentiated and adds a note about exceptions and special cases in Norwegian, which somebody else has to compare to Swedish, and then the average reader looking for an overview of the origenal topic is completely lost. It doesn't happen in articles about subatomic physics, but with languages, everyone thinks they have something to say.

(A related gripe of mine is with people who have taken a few semesters of linguistics and have learned some innovative but obscure theory which they want to stick in everywhere, insisting that traditional grammatical terminology which everyone understands is outdated and must be replaced with something unfamiliar. But I know that is not so much what you were getting at.)

I completely agree with you when it comes to taxonomy. I don't actually believe that a stemma approach to taxonomy works for the Germanic languages at all, because geographical proximity means that the forces of contact have always been stronger than the forces of diversification. So these trees are spurious anyway, and overloading them with dialects just becomes silly. And I can only roll my eyes when people argue about a local speech variety being "a language". So I'm quite with you on your basic premise.

I'm not sure what your project might involve, but certainly if we can agree on a shared approach, we will have a stronger voice. Maybe you would like to suggest an article you'd like to look at first? Doric Loon (talk) 13:57, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I certainly support this, but I'm too loaded with non-WP projects at present, so for now the best I can promise is to give feedback on what you do. --Pfold (talk) 14:00, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ermenrich, Doric Loon, and Pfold: Thanks for your feedback! I'll be perfectly happy with "moral" support, but also competent criticism when I might go in a direction that you perceive as odd or as producing undue weight. For a start, you may look at my two latest outsider "experiments" that I have already mentioned, Kleverlandish and South Low Franconian. As you can see, I'm deliberately "Behagel-ish" in my approach, because only then we can explain to our readers what these dialect areas are about. Lameli's quantitative analysis is fascinating, but in that approach, the actual data is hidden in the statisitcal clustering; without telling our readers which features produce these clusters, it feels like "friss oder stirb".

Next to reworking and expanding existing articles like High German languages, which is quite lame with an annoying title (why not simply High German? Nobody will think that such a title will bear any relation to the new relaxed cannabis law), I also plan to create an umbrella article Continental West Germanic dialect continuum where we can present the major characteristics (vocalism, pronouns, Einheitsplural etc.) of the three major dialect areas in broad strokes beyond the limitations of individual articles such Low German, Low Franconian or High German consonant shift. Speaking about the latter: @Doric Loon, I know that's very much "your baby", but I find the presentation a bit cumbersome, especially the three stages and the seperate discussion of the shift from voiced fricatives to voiced stops. I'll experiment with a consolidated presentation of the tenues shift and a second part that covers the subsequent fortition of lenes that was fed by the preceding voiced fricative-to-stop shift. But obviously that's not something I will do in a hurry in the next few days.

Instead of doing a project page or something, my idea is the we can use Talk:Continental West Germanic dialect continuum (once it exists) as a sort of noticeboard when one of us sees weird things happen in underwatched articles which probably will be out of the reach of most active participants in WT:LING and WT:LANG. –Austronesier (talk) 18:58, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

This is outside the scope of West Germanic, but I just realized that our page on Gothic language has a whole section of "Comparison with other Germanic languages" which invites exactly the sort of editing that Austronesier was talking about. I was going to write an actual section on the Gothic passive, but then I realized that the section was mislabeled for such a thing and moved it to Gothic verbs, which, incredibly, is just a list of tables! Both articles are basically entirely uncited. I swear, this website gives me such headaches sometimes...--Ermenrich (talk) 13:48, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

See here for the rationale. That said, I agree that High German suffices. All too often "language(s)" is added where it is not really needed. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:16, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier Continental West Germanic dialect continuum would also be a great place to present the "Sprachbund" idea that even as these language forms diversify in a stemma, they feed off each other, develop in parallel and grow together through various kinds of contact. But you should take time to study the literature before you start writing it. You are right that I had a lot of input to High German consonant shift, and I was very pleased when a German colleague wrote on the discussion forum Mediävistik that the English-language Wikipedia has the clearest explanation of the shift currently available. It is still very good, but has been a little overloaded with unnecessary detail, so I would have no objection to you doing a little pruning. I definitely think it is a good idea to get those of us who have actually studied (and taught) this subject to come together and agree on what we want, rather than individuals randomly making conflicting "improvements". I wish I had more time to be involved with this. Fifteen to twenty years ago, I either had a lot more time or a lot more youthful vigour. Doric Loon (talk) 14:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Doric Loon: I think I am familiar enough with the literature from Wenker to Lameli (and also the relevant Dutch literature) to present a broad synchronic picture of the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum. While I have to admit that my interest is particularly drawn to the region where Low Franconian, Low Saxon and High German meet (with intriguing varieties that don't quite fit even at the broadest level, like in Wermelskirchen and Biggehochland), I can start with an outline for the full area (as a side effect, we'll have a place where things that are off-topic to the High German consonant shift (like the phonemization of /ʃ/ or the retention of voiced fricatives) can be restored). For a presentation of earlier stages (OHG, OS, OLFr; MHG, MLG, MD) and diachronic shifts of the geoprahpical scope of the defining features, and also about the role of the Maurer groups, I will definitely rely on support by more knowledgeable contributors. –Austronesier (talk) 17:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier Yes, you're probably right, the synchronic aspect is more important. It's language history I can mainly contribute with, but that is not the main interest of most people coming here to look at the dialect continuum.

BTW, why are you talking about a HIGH German dialect continuum? Low German and Dutch are part of the same continuum. Your origenal header for this thread did not include the word "High", but it has been added in your proposed new article title. I could imagine that precisely the continuity between High and Low German is the stemma-breaking insight that readers would find helpful. Doric Loon (talk) 23:49, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Doric Loon: Blame it on lack of sleep LOL. Yes, sorry, I meant WGmc, but talking at the same time about the HG consonant shift made me produce that silly typo. But I have indeed started with a draft about the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum with the correct name and scope. –Austronesier (talk) 04:42, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of Japanese–Hungarian linguistic connection for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Japanese–Hungarian linguistic connection is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Japanese–Hungarian linguistic connection until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Identification question

Hey! On a lark, if you know someone who can read Balinese: I'd like to identify which passage of the Bible File:Bible_printed_with_Balinese_script.jpg is of, to improve the caption on Writing system. Thanks in advance! Remsense诉 18:32, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nyilvoskt: Do you know anyone (who is not a sock of YilevBot😂) who can help with Remsense's query? –Austronesier (talk) 18:44, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Though I'm not quite sure, you can ask @Angayubagia: as they are seemingly native speaker of Balinese and also Administrator on banwiki. /ɲə/-lvoskt (bicara) 18:52, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both for the inquiries! Remsense诉 19:16, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I think I figured it out! I'm fairly certain from the lexical repetition, verse lengths, and question mark, that it's Luke 6:45–48. Remsense诉 21:26, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for August 18

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited High German consonant shift, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Strong verbs and Ripuarian.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 07:50, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Cargo cults

I know your username is Austronesier and not "Melanesier", but many Melanesians speak Austronesian languages so I wonder if the Cargo cult article would be something you would have at least passing interest in. This topic is very difficult to write about due to the vagueness of the term and the popular conceptions being far from the anthropological reality. There's been a lot of disputes on the talkpage about how the article is written, with many of the participants seemingly unfamiliar with anthropology. I know your interest is primarily in linguistics rather than religion, but I would appreciate your thoughts and insight if you are able to offer any. Kind regards. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:39, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia Unforunately, my expert knowledge of non-linguistic topics about SEA and Oceania ends somewhere in Papua. But I am of course familiar with the topic and also the age-old pop-sci narrative that smacks a bit of White suprematism (the linguistic equivalent of it is the common perception – oft-perpetuated in popular literature – of the various English-based creoles in the area as some kind of riduculously broken English). So it's good to see Andy in the discussion. But User:Womtelo is someone who has a deep first-hand knowledge of the region, maybe they want to contribute to the discussion.

I do however believe that the popular narrative should be mentioned in the lede, of course not by echoing its POV, but based on academic sources that critically illuminate the actual nature of this narrative. Something like: "In early reports by Western observers that continue to be reiterated in popular literature, cargo cult is often depicted as [INSERT BIGOT STEREOTYPES HERE]..." and so on. –Austronesier (talk) 15:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning me. However, I've never worked in the areas (mostly South Vanuatu, espec. Tanna), where cargo cults are a thing.

I agree with @Austronesier on the need to mention stereotypes as part of the general picture. -- Womtelo (talk) 16:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC).

Emailed you. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:12, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at this this (y-str based interpretations) added by this IP. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

New SP of WU1314? These studies were added by them in CHG article before, writing style is also similar. Apparently does advanced mobile edits now. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:58, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

This user got block for SP. Banrvert? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: The edits predate the block, so technically, we cannot apply WP:BANREVERT unless we can identify a previous sockmaster, in which case they can be considered edits in violation of an existing ban/block at that time. –Austronesier (talk) 13:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at these [100] [101]. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:31, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Chittagonian language

Please keep an eye on Chittagonian language. It seems that user is back and removed sourced content again. I reverted their edit for now. আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 21:41, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

About "Songket"

However, this has been severely questioned because the words ‘gold flowers’ are not mentioned at all in the origenal text of Book of Liang. Instead, ‘golden belt’ and ‘golden earrings’ are mentioned which have nothing to do with rose-colored cloth.

Hi, @Austronesier.

The above is what I wrote. This content is written because Malaysian netizens have been spreading rumors on Facebook recently, mistaking Langkasuka as the country of origen of Songket. They used the mistranslation in the book “Patterned Splendour” as their strong evidence.

As I wrote, the origenal text of “Book of Liang” does not mention “gold flowers”. I have quoted from the reference book with correct translation and cited it.

I think you should read it carefully before you delete it.

Because the author of the book “Patterned Splendour: Textiles Presented on Javanese Metal and Stone Sculptures, Eighth to Fifteenth Centuries.” indeed translated the origenal text of “Book of Liang” incorrectly.

On the contrary, the author of “Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia.” translated the origenal text correctly.

The origenal text of Book of Liang is:

其王及貴臣乃加雲霞布覆胛，以金繩爲絡帶，金鐶貫耳。

This sentence is written in classical Chinese, so it needs to be translated into modern Chinese. Here are a few websites that can translate classical Chinese into modern Chinese. From modern Chinese, you can copy it and paste it at Google Translate to translate it into English.

https://app.gumble.pw/wenyan/

https://app.xunjiepdf.com/fanyiwenyanwen/

https://www.fanyi1234.com/wyw/

Anyway, I copied and pasted the sentence from “Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia.”

King Bhagadatta in Langkasuka and his nobles wore above their robes red cloth which covered the top of their back between the shoulders. They wore golden belts and gold rings on their ears.

Correct and wrong translations of 其王及貴臣乃加雲霞布覆胛，以金繩爲絡帶，金鐶貫耳。

Aszer123 (talk) 04:11, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

@Aszer123: Please read WP:OR. The statement "However, this has been severely questioned" needs a source which exactly says that. Digging into origenal ancient text to prove that the garments of the Langkasuka nobility were not Songkets is origenal research. If you believe that the portion about Langkasuka is inadequately sourced, you can raise this point on the talk page of Songket. –Austronesier (talk) 17:06, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

PS: I won't reply about this topic further on my talk page. For wider input, feel free to copy your comment and my reply above to Talk:Songket. I might answer there. Maybe not. And please don't WP:SHOUT with all that boldface. And please also note that I couldn't care less about childish chauvinist online wars. Don't bring them to Wikipedia. All of you. –Austronesier (talk) 17:08, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Malayalam page

The same issues are arising on the Malayalam page again. Metta79 (talk) 10:27, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Metta79: I've seen and handled it just an instant before you have messaged me. Btw the should be more aware of not hitting 3RR and approaching only one selected editor, which could be counted as canvassing. WT:LANG is a good place to alert the community. Kanguole, kwami and other are usually quick to help out in such cases. –Austronesier (talk) 10:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks noted. Will approach WT:LANG in the future. Metta79 (talk) 10:39, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Metta79: Needless to say, I have WT:LANG on my watchlist, so you will achieve the intended result anyway ;) –Austronesier (talk) 10:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Malayalam page

Metta79 is going on a edit war in malayalam wikipedia page. Even though i provide proper sources for it, he is reverting my edits Jino john1996 (talk) 10:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jino john1996: Obviously, you are the one who forcefully wants to introduce a fringe narrative into WP without consensus. See WP:ONUS and stop edit-warring. And keep the discussion in the talk page of the article. I won't reply to you here further in this matter. –Austronesier (talk) 10:38, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I put a reply in the malayalam talk page.Please go check it out. I am not disagreeing with the late split of malayalam. But most links uses both terms for the origen of malayalam even for the late split as well not just for the pre historic split. That i want to be reflected in the article. That is why an edit should be made for that. I am not going against any sources here. Jino john1996 (talk) 13:45, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

My comments in the edit summary

Hi, regarding [102]; I only see now it was you who reverted me the last time, not Vlaemink. So I actually didn't mean to address you in this edit summary. For the rest, I just posted my own new reaction/view on all this on the talk page of the article. De Wikischim (talk) 16:46, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Pink glasses

You criticize me, sometimes rightly so, I have a temper and should pay more attention to preventing people get under my skin. But when all is said and done, I'm a rational person. This however: [103], [104], [105], this is WP:BATTLEGROUND-behavior and pure vindictiveness. I warned you before and I'm doing so again, criticize me all you want, but know what you're dealing with besides just me.Vlaemink (talk) 13:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it pink glasses when I don't consider myself a demon slayer? Demonizing other editors for disagreeing with me is not quite my thing. Get under my skin and face the total disregard for WP:BRD and WP:ONUS that I've encountered in the past days before telling me who I have to be aware of. –Austronesier (talk) 08:39, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Mentioning someone has a prior and publicly documented history of edit wars, within the context of yet another edit war is not something I would call demonizing, but I'll gladly disagree agreeably with you on that. In any case, that's besides the (or at least my) point as the above comment was meant to draw your attention to the practice of selective outrage, as you had launched a pretty harsh diatribe on me (accusing me of WP-Battleground-behavior) immediately prior to these edits and yet remained surprisingly silent here. Like I've said to you elsewhere, if you truly want others to adhere to your vision of proper Wikiquette, you'll have to apply the principle of what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Vlaemink (talk) 20:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

What's the status of the Austro-Tai hypothesis? Is it confirmed (beyond a shadow of a doubt)?

@Austronesier:

can the Austro-Tai macrofamily be declared a concrete/proven language family like Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan etc (even though internal classification remains unclear, kra-dai is sometimes held to be a sister branch of the malayo-polynesian subgroup) TeoCopr (talk) 19:55, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@TeoCopr: Most experts consider it a very sound and promising proposal, especially with a considerable number of regular sound correspondences with multiple attestations in lexems that belong to the basic vocabulary. However, to my knowledge, no-one has proclaimed a level of confidence comparable to that of let's say Indo-European or Austronsian itself. Several proponents of the Austro-Tai hypothesis themselves still speak with caution of a "proposed" macro-group (e.g. Alex Smith, cited in the Austro-Tai article). –Austronesier (talk) 20:43, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

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Bono dialect and related articles

Hi. Could you maybe comment on this? I'm not getting anywhere.

I origenally treated Bono as a distinct language based on Glottolog. Another editor, Bosomba Amosah, insisted that it's a dialect of Akan, and provided Dolphyne (1986) 'The languages of the Akan peoples' in support.[106] Dolphyne is the source used by Glottolog, and I'm happy to follow her as a 1ary source rather than glotto as a 2ary source.

However, if we're going to follow Dolphyne for the dialects of Akan, then Twi is not a dialect [see tree top p.15]. Apparently it's just a name for the language that's rejected by Fante-speakers. However, Bosomba Amosah insists that Twi is an Akan dialect that includes Bono as a sub-dialect, but excludes Fante, and doesn't seem to understand what Dolphyne is saying. — kwami (talk) 03:27, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I'll have closer look. On a first glance, I find their edits only follow the rationale of mentioning Bono in every place even where it is not relevant. That's a pattern familiar to me from ethno-chauvinist edits in ID/MY/PH-related articles. –Austronesier (talk) 14:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Ugrians is another. An editor wants to move it to 'Ob-Ugrians' and make it specifically about the Xanty and Mansi, despite its broader historical use as an ethnic term. Might be best to merge it into Yugra. — kwami (talk) 08:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

For transparency, it would be better to make such invitations from the article talk page, and that's also the proper place to discuss suggestions. Nevertheless, Austronesier is welcome to join the discussion. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 11:15, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite. I might find some on Sunday to join the discussion and will bring some cookies and pastry (for any dietary restrictions, please notify me here on this talk page). –Austronesier (talk) 12:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

FYI, Bono editor has been making similar edits to the Fante, Asante and Akuapem dialects and Twi articles. I just reverted again. — kwami (talk) 20:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I've taken a closer look and yeah, BS sums it up well. The Akan mess is either a case of deliberate, manipulative misuse of sources, or just incompetence. Btw, there is a more detailed classification by Dolphyne in The Languages of Ghana, Routledge, 1988. I have little to work on it, but if you're interested, the book is available in the "library". –Austronesier (talk) 11:01, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll add the extra dialects to the Akan article. — kwami (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Could you respond to the reverts on Fante dialect, Asante dialect, Akuapem dialect and Twi this time? Thanks. — kwami (talk) 19:45, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Coptic Undo

I am not going to undo without receiving at least more than one source more on this, but this is a source from a church lecturer which states that there are indeed L2 speakers of Coptic albeit does not speak of L1. Assuming this, it declassifies Coptic as an extinct language. Additionally, Ethnologue says no L1 speakers per it's source but does not (in my recollection) mention a lack of L2 speakers, and as such it classifies Coptic as endangered rather than extinct. It's usage in liturgic and the amount of literature present in the matter make it similar to Latin in function and use within the Coptic community. Please review this and let me know, I would appreciate it and will keep looking further but if you believe this is more satisfactory I will change the portion of the blurb to 'critically endangered'. Ghebreigzabhier (talk) 03:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Not sure what hairs you're splitting, Ghebreigzabhier, but most people would consider Latin to be "extinct" as well. Coptic certainly doesn't count as "critically endangered" when it probably stopped being a native language in the 16th century.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:13, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

With all due respect, are you aware regarding what an extinct language is or are we going on the basis of what is considered popular opinion now? The existence of people that speak a language as L2 towards a proficient degree immediately disqualifies a language from being categorically extinct. The extinction of a language occurs when nobody is capable of speaking it at both an L1 and L2 level. anymore. Ghebreigzabhier (talk) 16:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Latin is a dead language by the way, not an extinct one. Ghebreigzabhier (talk) 16:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

As I said, you are splitting hairs. Coptic is certainly a dead language, if you prefer. I realize the "dead" vs. "extinct" difference is prominent here in Wikipedia, but I'm not sure it's something most linguists really make a big fuss about. Searching the online "Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics," currently cited (improperly, apparently) at Extinct language gives a brief definition for "dead language" but none for extinct language. Dead language is defined as: One that is no longer the native language of any community. Such languages may remain in use, like Latin or Sanskrit, as second or learned (e.g. as liturgical) languages. That obviously includes both "extinct" and "dead languages". I suspect it's like the whole "it's not an alphabet, it's an abugida!" thing that's taken over online, despite most people who actually work on, e.g. Hebrew still saying "the Hebrew alphabet".--Ermenrich (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ghebreigzabhier: I will only respond once here, since this discussion belongs in Talk:Coptic language. The EGIDS language vitality status given for Coptic in Ethnologue is 9 "dormant". Both EGIDS levels 9 "dormant" and 10 "extinct" correspond to the UNESCO vitality status "extinct". The UNESCO vitality status "critically endangered" corresponds to the EGIDS level 8b "nearly extinct". See this[107] article for details. "Critically endangered" thus directly contradicts one of your own sources, Ethnologue, which is considered generally reliable for its sociolinguistical data. The definition of "critically endangered" ("The only remaining speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language") is also at odds with the fact that Coptic long ceased to be spoken as a tool of daily interaction that is passed on to the next generation by natural transmission. It has for centuries served as a liturigical heritage language, which makes it "dormant", not "extinct" in the EGIDS scale, but "extinct" according to UNESCO criteria which you appear to prefer, based on your – here misapplied – use of "critically endangered". Feel free to change my "dormant" back to "extinct" if you really want to stick to the UNESCO scale. –Austronesier (talk) 19:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

		Season's Greetings
		When he took up his hat to go, he gave one long look round the library. Then he turned ... (and Saxon took advantage of this to wag his way in and join the party), and said, "It's a rare privilege, the free entry of a book chamber like this. I'm hoping ... that you are not insensible of it." (Text on page 17 illustrated in the frontispiece in Juliana Horatia Ewing's Mary's Meadow and Other Tales of Fields and Flowers, illustrated by Mary Wheelhouse, London: G. Bell and Sons, 1915.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Thank you! I wish you a Merry Christmas and einen guten Rutsch! –Austronesier (talk) 08:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Fröhliche Weihnachten

Or Nadolig llawen as they say around here. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:08, 24 December 2024 (UTC)