Talk:Proto-Japonic language

Notice about multiple issues in the article

Hello!

While making a complaint on the issues of this article (copy-and-pasted almost entirely from a Wikipedia article, obsolute sources and etc..), I accidentally added copyright issues on the article about Proto-Japonic.

I beg for a pardon for this and I apologize for the error!

-Newroderick895

Two of those issue templates don't seem justified to me:

• Copy-paste: It wasn't copy-pasted, the content about Proto-Japonic got too large and was split out from Japonic languages into a separate article. The two articles now have different content. For comparison, it's the difference between Romance languages (an article on the modern and known Romance languages) and Proto-Romance language (the reconstructed ancestor of those languages).
• Unreliable sources: Why are any of them unreliable?

— Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 16:50, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable/obsolete sources? These are overwhelmingly 21th century sources, and represent top-quality scholarship. @Newroderick895: please tag sources which deem problematic to you, otherwise the template is moot.
Further, get familiar with WP:SPLIT. The necessary context is in the mother article Japonic languages. –Austronesier (talk) 17:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: On second thought, I see almost no obsolete sources upon checking on a handful, with few exceptions. (although there is one that suggested ɨ as the seventh vowel in proto-Japonic, now rejected by most scholars. Also don't know if this is necessary.). Nevertheless I still have some problems at hand detailing this article, mostly on how PJ *itu is reconstructed and other miscellaneous stuff. Newroderick895 19:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Most authors do reject *ɨ, but they usually take the time to say so.

PJ *itu 'five' is sourced to Whitman (2012). What is the source for an alternative form? Kanguole 09:33, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Upon thinking harder on the matter, I decide to respectfully detract my arguments here, due the fact that I was wrong with initially suggesting PJ *etu (five) as the the correct answer to this. Initally tried suggesting so because Miyakoan yields itsï and therefore incorrectly assumed *etu as the etymology, atleast the one on Wiktionary. I apologize for the mistake.

Also what I wanted to further clarify; why do the languages on the numeral sections on the page (Shuri, Hatoma) not be renamed as Central Okinawan and Yaeyaman respectively? If they are the names of the languages' respective dialects then I would understand without any confusion, but how come? Ideally there also should be more available Ryukyuan languages there of in the Japonic numeral list and of those should belong to one distinguishable language entirely, instead of one individual dialect in that language. Newroderick895 (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Wiktionary needs to be used with caution. That PJ entry, the corresponding PR entry, and many other PJ&PR entries are completely unsourced.

It seems fairly common to specify the dialect used when dealing with non-standardized languages. The intention of the table is to give a spread of Ryukyuan examples to compare with the other forms. A larger selection might be appropriate for a Proto-Ryukyuan page, but seems out of place here. Kanguole 16:32, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kanguole: Either way, it most certainly clears up confusion for beginners in the topic with a format of something like this; Central Okinawan (Shuri) and Yaeyaman (Hatoma). It's an ideal compromise at best I would say anyways. Makes it easier to distinguish a separate language in a separate branch much easier.Newroderick895 (talk) 17:23, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted the Ryukyuan numeral forms to the IPA versions given by the cited sources, which seems more appropriate for dialectal material than a pseudo-Hepburn romanization. For example, recasting Hatoma /h/ as /f/ is something of a distortion. Kanguole 11:28, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Three Ryukyuan varieties are sufficient, with representatives of Northern, Southern and the highly divergent Yonaguni. Any more should go in the Ryukyuan languages article. I'm not sure why you consider Pellard's report on Ōgami "incredibly inaccurate",[1] but the 2015 source is a study of an unpublished Russian manuscript from the 1920s, which makes it rather difficult to use. Kanguole 23:51, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kanguole: In what ways is it difficult to use? An answer for this would be appreciated. Also, what I meant by incredibly inaccurate is unknown. Don't really know why, I'm afraid, possibly mixed up a source. Also, having only three out of possibly six Ryukyuan languages. Four or even five in my opinion is already sufficient enough for convenient comparison between Ryukyuan languages. Newroderick895 (talk) 20:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Nevermind, it was the exact source you were talking about. Just again started looking into it and it doesn't seem too incredibly accurate. My bad. Newroderick895 (talk) 20:41, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

The Nevskiy source needs expert handling because it is so old, and the pronunciations were originally recorded in Cyrillic.

Having a lot of Ryukyuan varieties would be useful in article about Ryukyuan languages, or Proto-Ryukyuan, but this is not that article. Kanguole 21:29, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 4 December 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. Even if other proto languages have their title as "proto-X language", there is currently no guideline in WP:NCL that says that should be the case. It only says to add "language" if there is ambiguity with the people. In this case there is no ambiguity since Proto-Japonic people is not a widely used term. The guidelines might change in the future, but right now there is no consensus for the move. (non-admin closure) Vpab15 (talk) 11:08, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

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Proto-Japonic → Proto-Japonic language – All proto-language articles in Category:Proto-languages have "languages" added at the end per WP:NCL. Everything has been moved except for Proto-Japonic, which is the only one left. — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 16:58, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Support for the reason mentioned. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 18:30, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CONCISE, WP:PRIMARY and WP:COMMONNAME. Sure, we have "....language" as natural disambiguator in most language articles, for two simple reasons: for names like English, Spanish, Japanese etc., the language is not the primary topic, so we must disambiguate them; at the same time, English language etc. is a common and natural alternative to refer to a language, so we have a natural disambiguator at hand. That's what WP:NCL actually says (and which does allow Urdu and Latin). However, with proto-languages, the case is quite different: first, for most instances of "Proto-Foo", the proto-language is the primary neaming (and often the only meaning); and secondly, "Proto-Foo language" is not commonly used. Speaking for myself, I have never used "Proto-Austronesian language", "Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language", "Proto-Celebic language" etc. in my own (academic and WP) writing, and replacing "Proto-Austronesian" etc. with these would really sound awkward in running prose. A Google Scholar search also strengthens this point. –Austronesier (talk) 19:36, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Counterpoint: If you go by WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARY, then the article should be titled "Proto-Japanese" since it's an older term, much more well established, more widespread in academic works, more well-known by those who know little about the topic, and it's still being used in modern academic works. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 14:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
    • On the other hand, "Proto-Japanese" is ambiguous. Many view the family as consisting of Japanese and Ryukyuan branches, so Proto-Japanese might refer to the proto-language of the former. Some use proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan and proto-mainland Japanese to get around that, but this demonstrates that the ambiguity is real. Kanguole 20:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
      • I agree it's possible to interpret it that way, but it's not that common and other terms do already exist for that same concept (e.g. "Pre-Old Japanese"). The argument also works against you when no where in this Wiki article is the concept of "Proto-Japanese" in opposition to "Proto-Ryukyuan" ever used. In fact, it appears in the titles of academic works cited, that use it for the same concept as "Proto-Japonic". And if we talk about ambiguity, then it needs to be pointed out that "proto-X" can also be used to refer to hypothetical prehistoric groups of people, such as "Proto-Japonic people" or "Proto-Indo-European people". — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 14:52, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
        • Pre-Old Japanese is the result of internal reconstruction of Old Japanese, whereas proto-(Mainland) Japanese, obtained by comparison of all the mainland Japanese evidence, is not the same thing, e.g. regarding accent. If the latter were discussed in this article, it should probably be called "proto-Mainland Japanese", because if this ambiguity. Kanguole 17:57, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, essentially for the reasons given by Austronesier, especially the unfamiliarity of "proto-X language". I hadn't thought to check WP:NCL, but indeed it does not support the claim made above. If the intent is to change the guideline, it would be better to do that through a centralized discussion than setting out to establish a fait accompli piecemeal. Kanguole 20:17, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Support I fully agree with the reasons OP stated. Newroderick895 (talk) 21:21, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.