Template talk:Language phonologies

Notes from 28 January 2007

I grouped together the dialects of English (that is, Old English, Modern English, and Australian English) and Greek (Ancient, Koine, and Modern). I would have done the same for German but I wasn't sure of a good term for the German German as opposed to Bernese German. I think that this will make the template slightly more useful than just having the language phonologies catagory. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Since German phonology clearly states it's the phonology of Standard German, I'm labeling it "Standard". —Angr 15:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

chinese

is the page for chinese phonology is non-existing or it is just not included in the template? thx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.94.116.212 (talk) 05:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

We don't have a "Chinese phonology" page, nor do we have an "X Phonology" page for any of the Chinese dialects... yet.— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That's not true, we have an article on Cantonese phonology and have since October. +Angr 08:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

We also have an article on Historical Chinese phonology, and I've just moved the phonology section of Standard Mandarin into its own article, Mandarin phonology. +Angr 09:08, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Touché. The Historical Chinese phonology article doesn't strike me as a phonology article like the others. Maybe it's just woefully undeveloped. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 10:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

No, in its current state it isn't very phonological. It just needs work. It's actually a surprisingly old article; it was created about six years ago - it's been on Wikipedia longer than I have! +Angr 10:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Organization

This template is getting lengthy. Would anyone oppose organization by language family? --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 13:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. It might be best to do a test layout here in the talk page or in a sandbox first. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 01:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I've done it, at last. :-) I hope it's no problem that apart from families, I used geographical groups like „Native American” or „East Asian” --Tarnoob (talk) 23:33, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

If someone's interested, my sanbox includes another, more branched version of the template. I personally find it too big and overwhelming, but maybe someone has a different opinion or would like to use a fragment of its code. --Tarnoob (talk) 12:32, 4 October 2020 (UTC) E.g. when making separate naboxes for particular language families. --Tarnoob (talk) 12:34, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

IMHO, that's a bit too parsed. It's possible we could parse it simply by language family, but the the nice thing about having it be purely alphabetical is that it's more intuitive to non-linguists who are, after all, the main target audience of these transcription guides. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:07, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't be too nested. However, I believe that a purely alphabetical list is bad for the laymen; they can find a particular language by name with crtl+F anyway, and from sorting they can learn some basics about language families & geography; and which language groups are described more exhaustively on Wikipedia. --Tarnoob (talk) 23:45, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

What is the purpose of reorganizing the list if we're going to force nonexperts to use the find feature in their browser anyway? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:07, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I also prefer the former layout. Nardog (talk) 02:34, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

The purpose is that people with even basic knowledge of language families can find things easier & learn a bit of taxonomy. --Tarnoob (talk) 10:17, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

There is sometimes a tendency on Wikipedia to say that if a reader wants to find out X we're going to first require them to learn Y, because though it's not actually necessary for X, it would be good for them. Personally, I think we should leave such decisions to the reader. We could help readers find things while avoiding forcing them to learn about taxonomy by organizing this list geographically. Kanguole 17:13, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Still, the purpose is not only educational; it's to make life much easier for people who know basic linguistic taxonomy. Maybe I'm over-hopeful, but this number is relatively big & it will only increase. It's no secret – it's actually common knowledge – that English is a Germanic language while Spanish is Romance; the name „Italic” may be less known, but it could still attract the attention of someone knowing that Italian is a closely related language. Similarily, Template:Particles is sorted scientifically, i.e. by properties, not alphabetically; which is good. --Tarnoob (talk) 01:44, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I am sometimes guilty of not being very capable of putting myself in the head of someone who knows less than I do about a given topic. You are guilty of this right now. Even if I were to grant that the basic knowledge of Indo-European linguistic taxonomy is common knowledge (which I suspect is far less "common" than you presume), it certainly isn't the case for other language families.

Kanguole is right that presuming people know linguistic taxonomy is adding an additional burden for readers to simply use this infobox as a tool. That's counterproductive. This might also be true of linguistic geography, unfortunately.

You also still haven't asked my question, so I'll restate it. Since a straight alphabetical list has an intuitive presentation for anyone and the search function is usable in both straight alphabetical and when organized by language family, why should we bother reorganizing the list at all, especially considering that the latter presentation is less helpful to non-experts who are our target demographic? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:38, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

No reason to change. It's much more intuitive to find a needed language knowing its name, than thinking, which family it belongs to, and if, f.e. Maldivian is Indo-European, Dravidian, Austroasiatic or maybe even Sino-Tibetan. Would be a pointless change for me. Avtandil (talk) 22:05, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I do like Tarnoob's variant. It's much clearer and easier to read. SMiki55 (talk) 08:28, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I separated the list into alphabetical chunks, similar to what I've done in Template:Fairies. I think four chunks are enough, though it could probably do with three, or even just two. —Neutral0814 (talk) 09:45, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

English

I think that English should have its own sub-sub-family within the West Germanic Branch, as its dialects are too unwieldy to be another bullet point. TheWhistleGag (talk) 02:13, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe; but maybe it would be better – and less arbitrary – to make a sub-family of North Sea Germanic or Anglo-Frisian langauges. --Tarnoob (talk) 12:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Seconding the Anglo-Frisian category. TheWhistleGag (talk) 20:33, 9 October 2020 (UTC)