Contents

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/M-T pronouns: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:50, 18 June 2024

M-T pronouns (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Almost exclusively from a single source, and fails to establish WP:N. Practically zero mention of the concept outside of that single source and veers dangerously into WP:PROFRINGE territory with the WP:OR links to fringe theory language families like Nostratic, which aren't mentioned in the source. Without establishing notability this seems to not really belong here, and I'm unable to verify that this is at all taken seriously in linguistics.

For anyone unfamiliar with this topic:

"The M-T pattern is the most common argument for several proposed long-distance language families, such as the Nostratic hypothesis, that include Indo-European as a subordinate branch. Nostratic has even been called 'Mitian' after these pronouns."

Nostratic is emphatically a fringe theory within linguistics and is not mentioned in any of the sources, and this article seems heavily like WP:ADVOCACY. Any sources linking Nostratic to M-T Pronouns are inherently fringe sources, but even then many of the claims here are entirely un-cited. It doesn't seem this article can be saved. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 09:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 09:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Feels like Original Research to me. Only two sources though the Google search gives plenty sources. Whether they back up the article and are reliable or not I have no idea. Not my field — Iadmc♫^talk  10:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Asia and Europe. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 10:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not advocating for Nostratic. This is simply a piece of evidence claimed by those who do, and Nostratic has been deemed appropriate for a WP article.

  As noted, the M-T pronominal pattern is well attested in the lit. I relied on a single source to create the article, but others could be added.

  Some conclusions drawn from the pattern, such as Nostratic, are FRINGE. Yet we have articles on them. WALS is most certainly not a fringe source. IMO it's worth discussing one of the principal pieces of evidence given for fringe hypotheses when we have articles on them. A similar pattern in America, N-M, has been used to justify the FRINGE hypothesis of Amerind. Yet it is discussed in non-fringe sources, which conclude that it's only statistically significant for western North America, and disappears as a statistical anomaly if we accept the validity of Penutian and Hokan. That's worth discussing, because it cuts the legs out from under Amerind; without it, people might find the argument for Amerind to be convincing.

  I have yet to find a credible explanation for the M-T pattern. But the lack of an explanation for a phenomenon is not reason to not cover it. There are many things we can't convincingly explain, but that's the nature of science: we don't refuse to cover them. — kwami (talk) 11:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ seems to be motivated to object to this because they think I have a PROFRINGE statement on my user page. What I have is a sarcastic statement, one that other WP linguists have laughed over because it is obviously ridiculous. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ fails to see the sarcasm.

  An equivalent might be to say that our personalities are governed by Arcturus, which is in Gemini; therefore we're all Geminis and have share a single hive mind. That wouldn't be advocacy for astrology. (Though I'm sure people have come up with more imaginative ways of mocking it.) — kwami (talk) 12:05, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  It’s not exactly obvious sarcasm when you’re making articles that advocate the perspectives of fringe theorists, but sorry if I missed that. It wasn’t my intention to have it sound like an attack. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not advocating the perspectives of fringe theorists, I'm describing a pattern that they have used to justify their theories. I've done the same for Amerind; there the conclusion is that if we accept Penutian and Hokan as valid clades, then the statistical anomaly (and thus the purported evidence for Amerind) disappears. I don't know of any similar conclusion in this case, but the pattern remains and is worth discussing if we're going to have articles on Nostratic and the like (and we have quite a few of those articles!)

  What comes off as advocacy to me is covering FRINGE theories in multiple articles and then refusing to discuss the evidence, when consideration of that evidence would cast doubt on the theories. That would be like refusing to discuss the evidence posited for astrology or UFOs, leaving readers with only the perspective of advocates to go by. — kwami (talk) 12:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  This is WP:Original research, by your own words, and has no place in the encyclopedia. Use a blog to promote your personal research. Delete — Iadmc♫^talk  12:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Nostraticists have a long and storied history of claiming basically anything they can as evidence. These claims aren’t taken seriously among linguists for good reason. I’m unaware of a single piece of scholarship that’s pass WP:RS (or even not those that’d pass) claiming this as evidence for Nostratic, and frankly I find your accusations here inappropriate so I’ll bow out of engaging and let the rest of the AfD play out. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note — kwami is the creator and sole contributor to this article— Iadmc♫^talk  12:08, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm speaking as a non-expert, but I would like to get more context on the matter. Do such patterns, outside of advocating for certain theories, have any value? Could, for example, there be a place in the Nostratic article to add a few more of these details to the Proposed features section? I'm not familiar with the sources in the article, what is their reputation generally? AnandaBliss (talk) 16:30, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as credible sources go, which is just the one page linked as the main source in the article, it's a statistically noted feature but no signifficance has yet been attributed to it. Certainly not to Nostratic. Nostratic is itself a fringe theory and likely doesn't need more on the proposed features as none of the proposed features are real, and nobody is proposing a link to Nostratic because of this as far a sourcing goes except the author of the article and perhaps some blogs. This article has, frankly, some big "teach the controversy" energy.

@Austronesier is a little less viscerally anti-Nostratic-on-wikipedia and may have a different perspective, however. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:50, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]