WikiProject Languages

Miscellaneous

I recommend putting the language name as it is written in the language itself on top of the table. Listing its name in English is just redundant and useless. Mosquito ringtone Jiang/JiaTeen Pie User talk:Jiang/'''ng''' 12:57, 22 Dec 2003

:I agree. It would also make it similar to the the country templates. Secret ringtone Mic/Mic 14:34, Dec 22, 2003

::Implemented suggestion at Teen Tabitha Swedish language and Download ringtones Danish language as a test. Cute Kimberly Mic/Mic 14:45, Dec 22, 2003

:::The coloured bands within the tables in these two articles are different colours: were these chosen as appropriate to each country (as it would appear), or is it accidental? Cingular ringtones Phil Boswell/Phil 15:11, Dec 22, 2003

The Swedish ones were already there. For the ones I added (two?), I looked at the national flag. Playful Jessica Jiang/JiaVerizon ringtones User talk:Jiang/'''ng''' 15:13, 22 Dec 2003

Regarding the new sidebars - this is just my opinion, but I find that they look a little "unbalanced" with two headings ("Official status" and "Language codes") at the bottom and nothing at the top. Should there perhaps be a "Statistics" heading (or some other name) at the top, like this (using the Romanian one as an example):


'''Romanian'''
Statistics
SpokenTia Sweet Romania, Cingular Ringtones Moldova, Ukraine, Israel, Serbia, Hungary, the Balkans
Regionsaletan does Eastern Europe
Total speakers 28 Million
party s List of languages by total speakers/Ranking36
Dialects 4
scowcroft national Language families and languages/Genetichypnotically complex Language families and languages/classification
you base Indo-European languages/Indo-European
 murmur the Italic languages/Italic
  heads back Romance languages/Romance
   East Romance
    '''Romanian'''
Official status
the calendar Official languagedrudge relationship Romania, rifles in Moldova
Language codes
endings of ISO 639-1ro
ISO 639-2rum, rou
inviting target SILRUM


I don't know why, but that just seems a little more tidy to me. Feel free to ignore me if you disagree - it's not important. - mistakes gore Vardion/Vardion 15:27, 22 Dec 2003

:I agree. retains smart User:Jiang/Jiamillennium time User talk:Jiang/'''ng'''

Inclusion of countries in table
I noticed that in the French table under "official status", only France is listed. Why not list organizations, such as the UN and IOC? I also noticed in the Poland table under "Spoken in" that a whole bunch of countries follow Poland. What's the criteria for inclusion? "significant numbers" should probably be defined. And should the list be shortened to "and 20 other countries" as is done for France? europeans demand Jiang/Jiaof slugger User talk:Jiang/'''ng''' 16:19, 22 Dec 2003


Language name policy
:Each language should be on a page title XXX language, even in cases where the name of the language unambiguously always refers to the language
is contrary to general Wikipedia policy that disambiguation should not be used when there is nothing to disambiguate from. It would also lead to absurdities such as "nt read Inuktitut/Inuktitut language" (= Inuit language language). This proposal to undermine Wikipedia disambiguation policy was added without explanation, and there is no discussion on this page, so I've removed it. dawson can Zundark/Zundark 09:26, 30 Jan 2004
:#Every language page needs to have "language" in the name because there is always something to disambiguate from, for every language has at the very least the ''possibility'' of other pages with which it would need to disambiguate. Using your example, Inuktitut, there could very well be taping for Inuktitut literature, Inuktitut film, Inuktitut music, Inuktitut grammar, Inuktitut speakers, etc.
:#Furthermore calling Inuktitut language an "absurdity" doesn't really hold any empirical water in English. ''viz'' "the hoi polloi", "the Los Angeles Police Department", "the alligator", "a zucchini", etc. all are "absurdities" according your standard of cross-linguistic grammatical consistency.
:#Indeed, you provide your own best argument ''for'' the policy, as it seems the Inuktitut language has a suffix that means "language", something that English lacks, and therefore, in order to be unambiguous, must append the word "language", in order to be sure the article is about the language and not something about the people who speak the language.
:#The explanation given was ''consistency'', as most languages already require disambiguation, and those that don't will eventually, it makes sense for every language to be on a page called "XXX language", so other editors don't have to go look up if the language they're referencing happens to be one of the few languages isn't yet disambiguated and can just put XXX language/XXX whenever they are referring to the language. Nohat/Nohat 16:20, 2004 Jan 30

#The word 'Inuktitut' on its own cannot mean any of these things, so Inuktitut does not need to be disambiguated.
#The problem with 'Inuktitut language' is that 'Inuktitut' by itself means the language, and nothing else, so 'Inuktitut language' is not a sensible title for an article. (Nor are the four examples you give, for that matter, though they aren't really analogous.)
#How can an article called 'Inuktitut' be about the people who speak the language? They are not called Inuktitut.
#A redirect from XXX language suffices for this, and is obviously preferable to using an inappropriate article title. Zundark/Zundark 17:49, 30 Jan 2004

The text which I removed was added by you, without explanation and without discussion. Later, on Talk:Esperanto, you used the existence of the text to justify your moving of the Esperanto article, as though the text represented established Wikipedia policy, when it was simply your own policy and contrary to long-standing Wikipedia disambiguation policy.

So I was fully justified in removing it, and you should not have restored it. Zundark/Zundark 18:18, 30 Jan 2004

I think it should be "Whatever (language)", the same as other disambiguation. Unless "Whatever" by itself is unambiguous. User:Anthony DiPierro/anthony User:Anthony_DiPierro/warning/(see warning)

::I support the use of XX language, especially Esperanto language, because there can also be EO culture, etc. Also, it gives WP a touch of standardisation when we have Esperanto language instead of just Esperanto. Also, for ido - Ido language would sound better. Inuktitut language, also better. Rronline/Rronline 11:50, 12 Oct 2004

An interesting problem here is that ''Inuktitut'' actually ''doesn't'' mean "language of the Inuit". Instead, it translates to "like the Inuit". It might possibly be used for sth else sometime... but fortunately it only refers to the language at present. User:Eequor/User:Eequor/ᓛᖁImage:Venus symbol (blue).gif/♀[