Template talk:Sino-Tibetan branches

Template title

1. Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) branches
2. Sino-Tibetan branches

OK, the reason why we're choosing #1 over #2 is that there are two competing schools of thought:

• The George van Driem / Trans-Himalayan / Indocentric POV really doesn't like the name Sino-Tibetan. They prefer Tibeto-Burman or Trans-Himalayan.
• The James Matisoff / Sino-Tibetan / Sinocentric POV really doesn't like the name Trans-Himalayan.

Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) branches is a compromise between these 2 POV's.

— Stevey7788 (talk) 09:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

For those who really believe that Sino-Tibetan has two primary branches, namely Tibeto-Burman and Sinitic, this title does not contradict that viewpoint. Parentheses are used throughout this template box to mark subordinate branches. — Stevey7788 (talk) 09:34, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

We can't follow the preferred terms of these people like that for the article and simple consistency with the term for this language family in all our articles leads to #2. Aside from the fact that Tibeto-Burman is usually not a synonym for Sino-Tibetan (in which case this title would contradict itself), if we'd do it like that, we'd also have to include Trans-Himalayan. --JorisvS (talk) 09:38, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

All right, I'll put Tibeto-Burman into "Proposed groups." — Stevey7788 (talk) 09:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Other templates to make

Existing template boxes:

• Template:Lolo-Burmese languages
• Template:Qiangic languages
• Template:Kiranti languages (needs cleanup)
• Template:Tani languages
• Template:Sal languages
• Template:Chinese language

Some more need to be made, especially for the big Sino-Tibetan groupings.

• Template:Bodic languages (Bodish + West Himalayish + Tamangic; aka Bodish-Himalayish)
• Template:Naga languages (Kuki-Chin-Naga)

— Stevey7788 (talk) 10:24, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Template scope

This template's purpose is to navigate between the primary branches of the Sino-Tibetan family. Navigation to individual languages within each branch is provided by dedicated navboxes like Template:Karenic languages or Template:Na-Qiangic languages. However, in October last year this template was expanded with the content of these individual navboxes and added to all individual language articles, of which there are about 700. This was not a good idea: the end result simply duplicates the content of the individual navboxes, and – with over 700 links spread across a dozen collapsed sub-navboxes – is clumsy to navigate, both to the languages and to the subgroups. I've now restored the earlier version. – Uanfala (talk) 13:33, 27 March 2021 (UTC)