Given the TOOLONG template, I propose to move the content of [[Romance_languages#Classification_and_related_languages]] to [[Classification of Romance languages]]. --[[User:SynConlanger|SynConlanger]] ([[User talk:SynConlanger|talk]]) 22:22, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Given the TOOLONG template, I propose to move the content of [[Romance_languages#Classification_and_related_languages]] to [[Classification of Romance languages]]. --[[User:SynConlanger|SynConlanger]] ([[User talk:SynConlanger|talk]]) 22:22, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
== Ethnologue is not a reliable source for classification as per Wikipedia:Languages ==
As per [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Languages#Interpreting_Ethnologue_data]], SIL/Ethnologue is not considered a reliable source for classification, yet this article and most articles on the Romance languages are heavily based on SIL/Ethnologue claims. Being an academic linguist myself, I concur that SIL/Ethnologue is not used in linguistic as a source for classification. I am not opposed to a mention of it, but we should not rely entirely on just it. I propose a clean up of the relevant text in this and related articles. While everybody recognises that classification is hard, there are plenty of reliable academic sources that discuss classification. --[[User:SynConlanger|SynConlanger]] ([[User talk:SynConlanger|talk]]) 06:29, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Revisionasof06:29,18February2020
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Romance languages article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Latin, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Latin on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LatinWikipedia:WikiProject LatinTemplate:WikiProject LatinLatin articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Italy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Italy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ItalyWikipedia:WikiProject ItalyTemplate:WikiProject ItalyItaly articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spain, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Spain on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SpainWikipedia:WikiProject SpainTemplate:WikiProject SpainSpain articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject France, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of France on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FranceWikipedia:WikiProject FranceTemplate:WikiProject FranceFrance articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Moldova, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Moldova on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MoldovaWikipedia:WikiProject MoldovaTemplate:WikiProject MoldovaMoldova articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Romania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Romania-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.RomaniaWikipedia:WikiProject RomaniaTemplate:WikiProject RomaniaRomania articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Portugal, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Portugal on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PortugalWikipedia:WikiProject PortugalTemplate:WikiProject PortugalPortugal articles
Find correct name
The airport is not listed as João Paulo II anywhere.
The airport's own website calls itself simply Ponta Delgada, and has no mention of João Paulo.
Template:Regions of Portugal: statistical (NUTS3) subregions and intercommunal entities are confused; they are not the same in all regions, and should be sublisted separately in each region: intermunicipal entities are sometimes larger and split by subregions (e.g. the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon has two subregions), some intercommunal entities are containing only parts of subregions. All subregions should be listed explicitly and not assume they are only intermunicipal entities (which accessorily are not statistic subdivisions but real administrative entities, so they should be listed below, probably using a smaller font: we can safely eliminate the subgrouping by type of intermunicipal entity from this box).
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Switzerland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Switzerland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SwitzerlandWikipedia:WikiProject SwitzerlandTemplate:WikiProject SwitzerlandSwitzerland articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Catalonia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Catalonia and Catalonia-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CataloniaWikipedia:WikiProject CataloniaTemplate:WikiProject CataloniaCatalonia articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Latin America, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to Latin America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Latin AmericaWikipedia:WikiProject Latin AmericaTemplate:WikiProject Latin AmericaLatin America articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject European history, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the history of Europe on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.European historyWikipedia:WikiProject European historyTemplate:WikiProject European historyEuropean history articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sicily, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Sicily on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SicilyWikipedia:WikiProject SicilyTemplate:WikiProject SicilySicily articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ethnic groups, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ethnic groupsWikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groupsTemplate:WikiProject Ethnic groupsEthnic groups articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Linguistics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of linguistics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LinguisticsWikipedia:WikiProject LinguisticsTemplate:WikiProject LinguisticsLinguistics articles
This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 10 sections are present.
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Romance languages article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kateybeck (article contribs).
The Early Romance mutual unintelligibility red herring
For reasons unknown, this below was moved to archive. The inaccuracy and incomplete reference remain, however, so I'm reviving it.
Early Romance and mutual (un)intelligibility
This flies in the face of everything known of the early state of Romance: Over the course of the fourth to eighth centuries, Vulgar Latin, by this time highly dialectalized, broke up into discrete languages that were no longer mutually intelligible. Languages as far apart geographically as Castilian and Central Italian are mutually comprehensible to this day if speakers want them to be. The minimum of a precise reference to Glanville Price's claim is needed, so that his text can be quoted and contrasted with the more standard view in the literature. 47.32.20.133 (talk) 19:26, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've just attempted to repair this. The result is far from ideal, but at least perhaps it makes it relatively clear that mutual intelligibility was gradient. 47.32.20.133 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:26, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Listing of Latin and Latino-Faliscan languages before the Romance languages on article templates
Should I place Latin and Latino-Faliscan before the Romance languages on article templates of those languages, because the Romance languages are descended from Latin (specifically Vulgar Latin), which is a part of the Latino-Faliscan group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European languages? -- PK2 (talk) 11:34, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion to split, move linguistic features to Romance Linguistics
I don't grasp the reason for the suggested split. Romance Linguistics is a field of scholarship. What's presented here is a brief descriptive sketch of linguistic features of the Romance languages. A Romance Linguistics article would outline the history of the field, contributions of major scholars, shifts in interests and theoretical approaches, tools (such as linguistic atlases), etc. 47.32.20.133 (talk) 02:43, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's brief in the sense of, for the most part, covering only a few languages; it's not brief at all in the sense that much that is done with long runs of prose text could be handled with tables and less text (almost random example: Nasalization in Fr and Po section). I suppose there could be even more minimal treatment here of phonology, morphology, syntax, then an article on each of those, synchrony and diachrony. The tricky bit would be deciding what comes out of the Romance languages article. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:40, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For now, I moved the section describing general linguistic features of the Romance languages to Romance languages linguistics (which might be renamed) because it was the one with a split notice. We would need to write a brief paragraph in this article about these general features and add {{Main}} that links to the other article. The section on sound changes here is entirely unreferenced. Are there linguists/philologists expert in historical linguistics of the Romance languages here that could help? --SynConlangertalk) 16:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Various cans of worms here, beginning with the move being made "because it was the one with a split notice" -- placing of a split notice is not justification in itself; the entirely open question, not really discussed, was whether the split was necessary or advisable (that's not meant to be as rude as it may seem). Assuming that consensus would have been reached after appropriate discussion, I agree: Romance languages linguistics is odd at best, and needs replacement. If what is intended is comparison of (some) Romance languages by (some) linguistic features, then Romance languages (comparison)orRomance languages (typology) or some variant thereof might work. (My own opinion is that whatever the label, those would become unwieldy over time, thus better to have separate articles, such as Romance languages (phonology) or, restricted further, Romance languages (historical phonology).) As for no references to sound change, a guess is that that's possibly the result of the changes being so well known, and illustrated in the examples; in principle there's no call for a reference to each point (e.g. development of word-initial /pl/) -- perhaps a note near the top of subtopics pointing readers to specific references listed would helpful. Yes, there are experts who can help; their touch is evident throughout the article. The amount of time they might want to dedicate to creating accurate content that's subject to being edited by anyone who drops in? Don't know. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:33, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Romanian
" changing of /l/ to /r/, for instance Latin schola/scola > Slav. школа, școla > modern Romanian școală [ˈʃko̯alə] "school""
Correcting the figures I cited in de-pluralizing "Africas", "Asias", etc. It was not fair for me to compare the frequency of "America" directly with that of "Oceania". What is fair is to compare singular-to-plural ratios for each continent name. These are "America", 25; "Africa", 5,000; "Asia", 6,000; "Europe", 3,000; "Oceania", 6,000-12,000. In other words, it is relatively common, in English, to refer to "the Americas", and rare to refer to "the Africas", etc. The Ngram Viewer is at <https://books.google.com/ngrams>. Kotabatubara (talk) 17:47, 30 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Ethnologue controversially considers Sardinian to be a macrolanguage"
How to classify Gallurese and Sassarese is a bit sticky, but it's uncontroversial that "Sardinian" can refer realistically only to a collection of closely-related distinct varieties, i.e. a macrolanguage for those who accept the term and concept. 2600:8800:A580:DAC0:3593:6DE5:7BD2:3522 (talk) 18:23, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This has been here for months with no comment, so I'm going delete "controversially", along with the claim of Corsican being "the closest lect to Tuscan and Italian of all in the Neolatin panorama" (whoever wrote that might want to study Dalbera-Stefanaggi's Unité et diversité des parlers corses, then pop over to, say, Umbertide or Viterbo and keep ears open). Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Barefoot through the chollas: (or is that 'my feet really hurt'?), just my 2c. First, Ethnologue is not a RS for classification. They don't even remember where some of their classifications came from, they've been lost to mimeograph history. Also, 'macrolanguage' isn't a linguistic concept, but a coding one. A language cannot be a macrolanguage, only an ISO code can. — (talk) 20:27, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
kwami, fully agree re Ethnologue. Partially disagree re macrolanguage, i.e. that it's not a linguistic concept, although it's no fun to try to establish a foolproof definition. "A group of mutually intelligible speech varieties that are sometimes considered distinct languages" isn't too far off, though, and the Sardinian continuum is a pretty good example of that. Without the concept (choose a different label if you like), Sardinian as a singular subsuming all or most of the indigenous variety of the island either refers to a fantasy entity or is nonsense. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:57, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Barefoot, the thing with macrolanguage codes is that they aren't assigned for any linguistic reason, but rather for when an ISO 2 code corresponds to multiple ISO 3 codes. If Sardinian didn't have an ISO 2 code, it couldn't be a macrolanguage. Now that the DB software is better, the concept isn't needed any more and no new macrolanguages are being created.
I suppose the word could be repurposed for Dachsprache or some other opaque bit of jargon, if people wanted to redefine it, but until then its non-ISO use here on WP is usually misleading. I've been going around deleting it whenever it's being used with an OR definition -- especially since it tends to be used any time a language is difficult to define, without any consistency as to what it is. — kwami (talk) 18:41, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
kwami, not the same at all as a Dachsprache, very different concept. A Dachsprache is 'a language'; a macrolanguage is a collection of closely related varieties. In any case, it would be good to consider a) that not everyone is deeply into the ISO coding thang, b) that those who are deep into it can, without realizing it, fall into a mutatis mutandis version of what was once known as "theory-specific hand-waving." Macrolanguage is meaningful on its own, coding aside, and Sardinia is a good example. My humble request would be "Be nice" -- and not centrally relevant to the macrolanguage controversy (assuming there is one) from my own point of view, but if/when you find the term contradicted by the coding (or vice versa), don't forget to examine the accuracy of the coding, too. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:20, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A macrolanguage is a 'language' too, at least sociolinguistically. But the word was invented by SIL or ISO specifically to solve coding issues. If you have a linguistic definition of the term, I'd be quite interested to see it. I agree it could be a useful concept. But it's not useful to misuse jargon on WP to fill a gap in our vocabulary. If we only look at how closely related a group of varieties is, Romance is a 'macrolanguage' too. Is there anything here that dialect cluster wouldn't cover? Anyway, I'd want to see a RS that the word has taken on a non-coding meaning (or that ISO coopted an existing word that has a linguistic meaning) before accepting it on WP. For one thing, we'd want to have an article on it so people would understand what it's supposed to mean. — kwami (talk) 19:31, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There's a definition above, reasonably clear "A group of mutually intelligible speech varieties that are sometimes considered distinct languages". Not trying to be rude here, but just to be straight with this: using the term macrolanguage with that definition intended is accurate (once the quibbling about what 'mutually intelligible' means is over), neither misuse nor jargon, any more than calling this gadget I slide around on my desk a mouse is misuse or jargon (actually, much less so, since the morphemes of macrolanguage are analyzable). The concept is clear, and we have a good example: Sardinia. How coders use it is up to them. But if their coding reflects real-world relationships accurately, it shouldn't be troublesome -- quite the opposite.
"Romance is a macrolanguage, too" is an example of why it's so difficult to establish a watertight definition (a rabbit hole I'm not going to skitter down into now). A somewhat easier case, first: Can it be said that English (tout court, without further labeling, and not including the remnants of "ancient dialects" in Britain) is a macrolanguage? Presumably, for all the obvious reasons. Well, then, Romance? Ouch. The ol' brick wall of degree-not-kind. I would try to weasel out of it. Not by the same definition. True that a Romanian and a Brazilian can work themselves into a basic form of clumsy mutual intelligibility if they choose to, but it takes a good bit more effort and patience than any English-speaking pair I can think of.
Basta. I'm dangerously close to the rabbit hole. If the coding definition is something very similar to "A group of mutually intelligible speech varieties that are sometimes considered distinct languages", there's no problem in the fundamental conceptualization. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:59, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
See ISO 639 macrolanguage for the definition of macrolanguage that Kwamikagami is referring to. It is not equivalent to "a group of mutually intelligible speech varieties that are sometimes considered distinct languages". For instance (as pointed out in the article), zh (Chinese) is a macrolanguage, but it corresponds roughly to a language family, and I think all the constituent language groups (ignoring lzh, Literary Chinese) are mutually unintelligible (for instance, cmn, Mandarin Chinese, and yue, Yue Chinese). Where have you gotten the "mutually intelligible" definition from? — Eru·tuon21:33, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Barefoot, if you have reliable linguistic sources that use 'macrolanguage' in that sense, that's great. It would save us a headache. But if you don't, then it's really problematic to invent definitions to use on WP. What's to stop someone else from inventing a contrary definition? Linguistically, if Chinese is a macrolanguage (consisting of hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages per Norman), then so is Slavic, Germanic, Indic and Iranian. The Indo-European family would consist of just a dozen 'macrolanguages'. — kwami (talk) 21:43, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that there are two definitions of macrolanguage floating about (aside from the non-linguistic usage):
1. (linguistics) A language consisting of widely varying dialects.
2. (linguistics) A group of mutually intelligible speech varieties that are sometimes considered distinct languages
The first is troublesome from the start as a result of the term dialect being profoundly ambiguous (see the Wikipedia page dialect). If that thorn is ignored (though always present and irritating), it seems to work for, for example, English or Spanish (obviously excluding for the nonce underlying autochthonous languages such as Scots, Asturian, etc.). Although there are difficulties, it might even be made to apply to cases like Sardinian or Mixtec – more than a bit iffy to claim that there is an entity identifiable as ‘a language’ that the numerous actual lects are varieties of, but – holding one’s breath like an EOD technician working on a rusted bomb -- the principles that permit conceptualizing the various Englishes as a unit can be applied... sort of. More trouble begins with cases like Slavic or Romance: can ‘a language’ be identified? No. And with “genetic” relationships ignored and mutual intelligibility (MI) completely irrelevant, the concept is open-ended. Chinese? Sure! For that matter, under 1 Indo-European is a macrolanguage. Nostratic, anyone?
The second definition refines and constrains the concept. Sardinia is handled reasonably well (at least it’s not “controversial” in any meaningful non-circular sense), and work on Mixtec MI suggests that it works with only slight discomfort for that case, too. There are two major glitches, though: work on both Mixtec and Slavic MI makes one common-sense observation clear: mutual intelligibility (MI) is gradient, not binary. Turkish and Navajo? MI zero. Finnish and Estonian? Well… Not Turkish-Navajo, obviously, but annoying to the point of switching to English or German. Italian-Spanish? Fairly high level of MI if the interlocutors want there to be.
Upshot: 1 and 2 are distinct. 2 could be viewed as, and I’d guess probably is, an attempt to refine and focus 1 so as to rein in its exuberance. 2 needs further refinement of the MI aspect. (Re-)consideration of and massaging in Hockett’s concepts L-Simplex and L-Complex would appear to supply crucial ingredients for a more satisfactory definition. (The real-world grounding of this might be a useful control mechanism for those who use macrolanguage not as a linguistic term but as “a book-keeping mechanism for establishing ISO 639 international standard for language codes”, with macrolanguages thus “established to assist mapping between different sets of ISO language codes.”) At this point, permit me a polite ça suffit. This doesn't seem the right forum for trying to make sense of a tug-of-war between the field of understanding and describing language relationships and the creation and labeling of codes that "aren't assigned for any linguistic reason." Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:13, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I looked at the Wiktionary entry but somehow missed the second Noun header with the human language–related definitions. — Eru·tuon21:47, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
also called Romanic languages
I've been doing Romance Linguistics for 40 years, and I don't recall seeing "Romanic" as a label in English anywhere but here. Can someone supply a respectable reference to use of Romanic? If not, I suggest deleting this on grounds of being misinformation. 98.168.51.95 (talk) 18:58, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good references needed for this: "It is clear that Sardinian became linguistically independent from the remainder...
of the Romance languages at an extremely early date, possibly already by the first century BC." As it stands, it reads like peremptory declaration. If it's clear, respectable references are available and should be here. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 23:44, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ethnologue is not a reliable source for classification as per Wikipedia:Languages
As per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Languages#Interpreting_Ethnologue_data, SIL/Ethnologue is not considered a reliable source for classification, yet this article and most articles on the Romance languages are heavily based on SIL/Ethnologue claims. Being an academic linguist myself, I concur that SIL/Ethnologue is not used in linguistic as a source for classification. I am not opposed to a mention of it, but we should not rely entirely on just it. I propose a clean up of the relevant text in this and related articles. While everybody recognises that classification is hard, there are plenty of reliable academic sources that discuss classification. --SynConlanger (talk) 06:29, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kateybeck (article contribs).
