Talk:Quiripi language

"The Algonquian Language Family" section

It seems to me this is not the appropriate place to discuss about the Algonquian language family. It would be much better to incorporate this information into the already existing article Algonquian languages and in this article discuss the relationship of the Quiripi language to the rest of the Algonquian languages. CJLippert 14:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Any volunteers? Awcolley 15:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Explanation of my recent rewrite of the article

I've made a number of significant changes to the article. Specifically, I deleted a large portion of the material that was added in July 2007 by Awcolley, though I also tried to add in a little new info where I could. I think such a deletion, at least when it's to material that was added years earlier in good faith by a long-term, respectable editor, deserves a full explanation, which is what this post is intended to do.

I have a great deal of concern with and distrust of much of this material, for several reasons. My first concern involves an undue amount of conflict of interest and systemic bias introduced into the article by its over-reliance on the work of Iron Thunderhorse, and his organization ACQTC. Probably the most blatant instance of this was the section labeled "Historical timeline", which consisted of a (unsourced) table of "Important milestones in Quiripi R-dialect", including such gems as "Biwabiko Paddaquahas [=Iron Thunderhorse] learns Anishinaabemowin from his stepfather in Quebec and speaks six languages", and which culminated, in 2006, with "QTC Press ACLI Series #4 publishes revised and expanded 295-page edition of the WAMPANO-QUIRIPI COMPLETE LANGUAGE GUIDE, establishing a comprehensive Lingua Franca for the PEA-A dialects, using the Quiripi dialect as its foundation, as it was originally." I will say, though, that undue weight given to Thunderhorse/ACQTC is not as bad or prevalent in this article as in the parallel one Quinnipiac--other than the aforementioned table it was mostly manifested in excessive use of Thunderhorse and ACQTC materials in the notes and references (I'll explain my use of "excessive" below). Along the same vein, it should also be noted that a number of the sources cited in this article were primary sources (e.g., Jefferson's Unquachog vocabulary) rather than reliable secondary sources which mentioned these primary sources; I removed these as contrary to WP:PRIMARY.

Beyond this concern, there were a great many factual errors in the article--or, at any rate, the article's claims conflicted with the claims found in the vast majority of the reliable sources I have available to me that deal with Quiripi. For one thing, the name "Proto-Eastern-Algonquian-Archaic R-Dialect" or "PEA-A R-Dialect" is, to my knowledge, not used in any reliable third-party sources outside of those written by Thunderhorse. And for good reason, since the name is nonsensical and inaccurate. PEA-A refers to the hypothetical proto-language of a subbranch of Eastern Algonquian postulated by some researchers (e.g. Frank Siebert). It is not a valid use of technical linguistic terminology. It looks to me as though Thunderhorse essentially misinterpreted the use of the term "PEA-A" by people like Siebert or Blair Rudes and applied it to a language that wasn't a proto-language of anything; in any case, its idiosyncratic use by one individual in a series of (essentially self-published) works is not at all sufficient to justify the use of the term on Wikipedia. Compare, by contrast, the widespread use in the literature (specifically, reliable sources including articles in peer-reviewed journals and books published by university presses) of the terms "Quiripi", "Quiripi-Unquachog", or "Wampano"; for example:

• Rudes, Blair A. (1997). "Resurrecting Wampano (Quiripi) from the Dead: Phonological Preliminaries." Anthropological Linguistics (39)1: 1-2, 4
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (with specific discussion/mention of name on pp. 327, 331)
• Day, Gordon M. (1967). "Historical Notes on New England Languages." In Contributions to Anthropology: Linguistics I (Algonquian), Anthropological Series 78, National Museum of Canada Bulletin 214. Reprinted in In Search of New England's Native Past: Selected Essays by Gordon M. Day, ed. Michael K. Foster and William Cowan, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998, pg. 103
• Goddard, Ives (1978). "Eastern Algonquian Languages." In Northeast, ed. Bruce G. Trigger. Vol. 15 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 71, 72, 75

Beyond this, I should point out that the reliance on the reflex of PEA *r for defining languages or subgroups of Eastern Algonquian is not always considered particularly useful, since the reflexes cut across other isogloss lines.

The entire section on "The Algonquian language family," besides being uncited, was extremely misleading and inaccurate, and I removed it entirely. Referring to distinct languages (from many distinct families even!) as "dialects" is common in colloquial speech, but not accurate in linguistic terms. Furthermore, the grouping of American Indian languages into a small number of "phyla" (and the use of glottochronology, for that matter) is not accepted by most specialists in the field. And the four-way division of Algonquian languages is, to my knowledge, not proposed in any reliable source--or at least, none that I have ever read.

The frequent implication that Quiripi was particularly closely related to the Delaware languages (Munsee and Unami) are also not in accordance with the consensus among Algonquianists. Further, statements about the precontact distribution of languages or their speakers (as in the statement dating the presence of the "Renapi" in specific parts of the Northeast to AD 1) are not found in any reliable sources I am aware of, for the good reason that it's essentially impossible to prove or investigate such claims.

Finally, I removed the mentions of "pidginized forms" (which were equated with lingua-francas--decidedly not the same thing!) developing due to language contact among Algonquian languages, another claim I haven't ever seen in the literature. Certainly pidginized forms of Algonquian languages developed in response to contact with European languages, and these are mentioned frequently in the literature (Mithun 1999:331 in fact refers to the Pierson catechisms as being written in a "pidginized variety" of Quiripi); but nothing I've ever read has discussed pidginized forms resulting from intra-Algonquian contacts.

The greater issue here, in a major sense, is specifically the POV-pushing engaged in by Thunderhorse and the ACQTC. I want to make clear that I'm not accusing Awcolley of acting in bad faith; by every indication I can see he is a responsible, collaborative, and helpful editor. Nonetheless, the end results of Thunderhorse's campaign has been to fill the article (and similar articles like Quinnipiac, which will need to be dealt with as well, but for which I'm less qualified to make judgments regarding what reliable sources have to say) with claims that are those of only a single individual and his organization, and which have been published only through the ACQTC itself. This is entirely contrary to Wikipedia policy as outlined at WP:NPOV. Fringe views, expounded by one person who has self-published them, and which are nowhere even mentioned in reliable third-party sources, do not merit inclusion on Wikipedia. In this regard, I need to point everyone to this section on the ACQTC site--or, more specifically, to footnote 61: "...the original Wikipedia article entitled "Quinnipiack" was quite inaccurate with a strong colonialist bias. However, Wikipedia is “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” --- so we did. We completely redid the article on the Quinnipiac and fixed the spelling. ... Since anyone can edit Wikipedia, we will be vigilant to see that inaccuracies and misinformation are not allowed to creep back into these articles." This betrays both a lack of understanding of Wikipedia policies (particularly WP:OWN, WP:COI, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:NOTPROMOTION), but more disconcertingly, it seems to indicate an intention to simply revert any attempted changes, regardless of policy, consensus, etc.

Anyway, that's my explanation for my various changes, and particularly my removal of so much pre-existing material. --Miskwito (talk) 08:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

One of my tasks as (former) volunteer webmaster of the ACQTC website was to correct existing and create new Wikipedia articles with content as dictated by Iron Thunderhorse. I attempted to do this without violating the spirit of Wikipedia, and, in fact, often changed or deleted wording that was quite strongly non-NPOV. Clearly I overlooked a few by letting slip some of the "Timeline" entries in this article.

I am not a linguist, nor an authority on Native American history or culture; so I have no basis to challenge any of the changes made by Miskwito, nor do I have any clear evidence to determine Iron Thunderhorse's authority or lack thereof on the Quiripi language. Mr. Thunderhorse's style is not professorial or pedantic; but that does not preclude him from having some knowledge in this field.

"Authoritative sources" is often a euphemism for "sources written by the winning side attempting to validate their questionable (or sometimes nefarious) actions and/or tactics". So, when ACQTC said they intend to "be vigilant to see that inaccuracies and misinformation are not allowed to creep back into [Wikipedia] articles" related to the Quinnipiac, realize that they have been fighting centuries of "authoritative sources" which, at best, misguidedly misinterpret Native American cultures, philosophies, and actions through the prism of European cultures, philosophies, and actions; and, at worst, intentionally misrepresent Native American cultures, philosophies, and actions in defense of European/American genocide of the indigenous peoples.

The very first paragraph of this article now ends with a sentence claiming that the language has been "effectively extinct" for over two hundred years, yet also states that at least one random old lady somehow possessed knowledge of it in the 1930s. This is a clear contradiction; random old ladies do not possess knowledge of languages that have been "extinct" for over a hundred years. Clearly, the language was kept alive by descendants of the indigenous people, forced to hide their ancestry and maintain their culture in secret in order to avoid persecution. Whether this contradictory statement is "misguided" or "nefarious" is unclear; I will assume the former.

Awcolley (talk) 07:00, 11 March 2012 (UTC)