Talk:Totonacan languages

Tepehua and Totonac

I've reverted the recent changes made in this sequence of edits, which in effect eliminated Tepehua language from mention and coverage on this page as a distinct linguistic entity.

While I fully realise that there is ample scope for divergent opinions on what are valid distinctions and groupings in linguistic classification —particularly for Mesoamerican languages—, I think there are plenty of sources that make a distinction and hold Tepehua and Totonac as separate groupings in an overall Totonacan languages family. Lyle Campbell in American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America and Jorge Suaréz in The Mesoamerian Indian Languages do this, for eg. I note also that Tepehua is formally recognised by INALI in its Catálogo de las lenguas indígenas nacionales as one of their 68 agrupaciónes lingüísticas, and distinct from Totonac. They even note:

Por ejemplo, la agrupación lingüística tepehua está relacionada con el pueblo indígena históricamente conocido como tepehua -del cual esta agrupación recibe su nombre-. Por su parte, esta misma agrupación lingüística, la tepehua, presenta una diversidad lingüística interna que se hace manifiesta tanto en el plano de las estructuras lingüísticas, como en el de las respectivas identidades sociolingüísticas; tal diversidad ha sido caracterizada aquí mediante el reconocimiento de 3 variantes lingüísticas.

Furthermore, those changes were incomplete in the sense that they left in references to the manner in which Ethnologue classified these langs, so it appeared that this amended classification was based on Ethnologue (which is not the case).

Possibly I've misinterpreted what the objection or correction those series of edits intended to address; if there is some good reason for making those changes would be glad to hear it. To the extent that there are differing models of linguistic relatedness and distinctiveness, these can and should be canvassed in the article. But I don't think that the removal of Tepehua was the way to go.--cjllw ʘ TALK 04:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Tepehua is considered a language distinct from Totonac on all accounts.The edits you removed where simply incorrect. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm really sorry for that - really night is for sleeping, and not for editing. I clicked link "Totonac" and didn't realize that opened page was the same. The only thing we must do is to create such a new article - Totonac and move some info hence to there. --Koryakov Yuri (talk) 09:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this is that we have separate articles for some of the Totonac languages such as Highland Totonac, Misantla Totonac. To create a hub article for all the Totonac languages may be to overly emphasize their unity. I think we should start by creating pages for Upper Necaxa Totonac and Papantla Totonac and the other Totonac varieties. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 11:57, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding inline citations

This article could use inline citations to help verify the text. To understand Wikipedia's principle of verification, see WP:Verification. To understand how inline citations help verify the text, see WP:INCITE in WP:Citing sources.

Because this article has a list of full citations that are already formatted with citation templates, it is easy to add either shortened footnotes (see {{sfn}}) or parenthetical references (see {{harv}}). Adding a shortened footnote is easy: just add {{sfn|author's last name|year|p=page number}} after the statement the source verifies.

E.g.:

Totonac and Tepehua are better characterized as families in themselves.{{sfn|Arana|2007|p=12}}

If you use this method, you will also need to add |ref=harv to the citation templates.

Cheers. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 02:59, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Totonac languages page

I wonder if we might reconsider the Totonac languages page? At the moment it only includes a table giving the (inaccurate) SIL/Ethnologue listings for the family that were originally there, plus the newer proposed classification by Brown et al. (added by myself), which doesn't really go with it. I'm not sure what would go on that page that won't eventually be on this page or on the pages for the individual languages. Maybe we should just remove it and redirect traffic here?Davidjamesbeck (talk) 15:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Done.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:25, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Any reason Tepehua gets a page but Totonac doesn't? — kwami (talk) 03:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that the main reason would be that there can potentially be a decent article for all three Tepehua languages, which are very close to one another, that has more than just the putative genetic groups. With Totonac it is more difficult because the shared properties that group them for the most part go for Tepehua as a group as well, and so apply to "Totonacan". The interesting differences go a step below "Totonac" in the tree, so the "Totonac" page is never going to be very interesting, or at least until we really know what the structure of that branch of the family is, in which case that might be a reason to bring back the "totonac" page, as a rung in the ladder, so to speak.Davidjamesbeck (talk) 04:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, I rd'd Zihuateutla Totonac to Xicotepec Totonac, since it's included under than ISO code. Should we make it a separate stub? — kwami (talk) 04:00, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Eventually we'd want to separate them, as I think that the ISO codes are inadequate here, based on my impressions working in the area. I don't have the definitive word on that, though, and can't supply any good material to include in a Zihuateutla stub (yet). I may be able to in a couple years, if all goes as planned. Davidjamesbeck (talk) 04:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)