Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Otomi language/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Karanacs 15:50, 1 September 2009 [1].

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Otomi language

Nominator(s): ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Otomi language/archive1

I am nominating this for featured article because I've recently expanded it drastically with the FA criteria in mind. I have asked for comments from multiple linguistic knowledgeable editors who have only found minor copyediting concerns. I believe the article is at such a stage that the only way for me to improve it more is by having it undergo the FA process. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to note that I can not continue to take part in this nomination process as it has proven too stressful. If this is interpreted as a denomination then so be it.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Comments from Materialscientist:
  • I find it confusing when double (Harvard) citation is used for short journal articles, and advise to cite those directly. This will also sort out existing problems with "same author, same year" citations (see below).
  • Please provide page numbers for all book references.
  • I don't understand ref "Lastra 1998, 2006: 54–55" - there are two Lastra 1998 refs. It is highly unusual that same pages could be used for two different books.
  • Please arrange references in chronological and alphabetical order; whenever two refs have same year for same author, use a,b (e.g. Smith 1990a; Smith 1990b).
  • Please provide alt text for images per WP:ALT.

Materialscientist (talk) 00:33, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments:

• I don't understand this could you give an example of what you mean by double Harvard?
• I don't provide page numbers when a cited fact is the general point of an article, such as Palancar's assertion about active-stative alignment or having no adjectives. Probably some page numbers have been left for sloppyness I will amend those.
• I inserted lastra 1998b after the first one was cited so I will change that reference to Lastra 1998a and Lastra 2006:54-55. These refs should be split since the cite to different facts - this is a clear mistake.
• Images have Alt text. Is there problems with the Alttext it has already?·Maunus·ƛ· 00:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• I have taken care of page numbers and sorting of the bibliography already. And yes that double citation was a mistake I have split it out into two separate citations. I have disambiguated Palancar 2008 a and b, 2006a and b, and Lastra 1998a and b throughout the text.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I have fixed the double references although I don't agree that this should be a problem.

There are still refs without page numbers but that is because the cited fact is not something that occurs on one page but throughout the cited work, or which is the main argument of the work - for example orthographic conventions used, analysis of adjectives as stative verbs etc.

I do not want to put short articles into the footnotes instead of the references - I would rather then switch to a harvard citation style with inline citations in parentheses instead of ref tags. It is very important in my view that the entire bibliography remain in one place - it is a major feature of the article that it represents so many sources at once - it is currently the most exhaustive bibliography of sources related to the Otomi language in print or on the internet - i would be very sad to split that up.

I respect that, but please do not abuse referencing system. Be sure, most readers come to read about Otomi language rather than references on Otomi language. Create a separate article with a list of references on Otomi language if this is so important. Unresolved issues are (i) many refs in Bibliography are never used in the text (examples are too many 3xWallis; 2xAndrews, most of Bernard, etc.) (ii) it it hard to understand why some references, supporting specific claims, do not have page numbers and others do. (iii) "This usage is preferred by Palancar (2008)" which Palancar 2008? Materialscientist (talk) 04:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that is abuse, to me it is standard practice which I have used in other FAs. I also disagree that using the refname function is necesarry - I don't use that in any of my articles only citeshort and I don't believe there is any rule that refname is necesarry for FAs. Pr MOS the citation style of the main contrbutor should be respected as long as it is consistent - I wish you would revert your changes to named refs. I have disambiguated the ref to Palancar 2008(b). I also don't think it is a problem to not have page numbers for all refs - it is standard academic practice in my field to only have page numbers for specific claims that are citeable to a specific page number.·Maunus·ƛ· 06:30, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

You misunderstand. You may use various citations styles. "Abuse" was a somewhat harsh word of mine on the i-iii issues above, none of which you have addressed. Unfortunately, conventions of your field do not apply to WP:FA. My "named refs" are a standard WP practice to avoid repeating identical citations in the list, which we all have to follow. Materialscientist (talk) 06:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Please show mw where in the MOS it says that named refs are a requirement? I would appreciate if you revert you change to refname untill others have commented on this.

Also the reason there are works in the bibliography that are not used in the body of the is as I said that this is made as an exhaustive bibliography which again is quite standard practice in encuclopedic articles - especially about topics where there is no general familiarity with the sources. The Bibliography is a section that is there to inform the reader about the scholarship on the topic - it is not just a section of references it is part of the article.·Maunus·ƛ· 06:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:FA would redirect you on Harvard referencing here, which explains "named refs". The rule here is basic - do avoid repeating identical references in the reference list. Comment (iii) is minor and beyond discussion - you have to re-read and fix it. It is your right to oppose other comments, which I would put below as

I have of course disambiguated that refernce to Palancar 2008b.

Argh.. No you have not. Search the page (press <CRTL-F>) for "This usage is preferred by Palancar (2008)" Materialscientist (talk) 07:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, you are right. Now I have and I caught one more.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not using the system given in here I am using WP:CITESHORT.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. Naming refs to avoid their repetitions is above any individual referencing system. Materialscientist (talk) 07:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Show me where policy based in consensus among wikipedians says so please. The mediawiki link does not state that this is a requirement, and if it did the mediawiki page is not a result of a consensus among wikipedians.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:57, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Request third opinion on the following comments:
(i) many refs in the Bibliography section are never used in the text (examples are too many: 3xWallis; 2xAndrews, most of Bernard, etc.) (ii) it it hard to understand why some references, supporting specific claims, do not have page numbers and others do. (iii) The nominator disagrees with the usage of <ref name=xx> and then <ref name=xx/> to avoid duplication of references. Materialscientist (talk) 07:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

A similar request was made at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates #Question about references and citations and several comments have been made there. Eubulides (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• re (i), even if some reference sources are not currently directly cited for some specific statement in the text, they are all directly relevant to the topic at hand. I can think of a number of good reasons why maintaining them in the article's bibliography makes sense and is beneficial—it's good practice to acknowledge relevant materials one has reviewed and considered when determining what to write (even if ultimately another source ends up with the direct citation); particularly in a specialised topic like this one listing influential works provides a good background to the field; makes it easier to validate whether the directly cited sources are representative of opinion in the wider field; it helps future editors who may come along looking for good source materials to use in expanding the coverage. But given that these are now being broken out into a 'further reading' section the point may be moot now anyway.
• re (ii), I'd say it's ok to refer to a source in toto if the statement being cited is a general theme of that source, ie the discussion in the source permeates throughout. Or, if the statement is essentially a summation of the source's main argument(s) or position, which are rarely confined to specific page(s). However, to avoid the impression that the page no's have simply been forgotten for these, perhaps it would be useful to explicitly indicate this is the case, either by citing it as <ref>Smith 2003, ''passim.''</ref> or discursively with something like <ref>For the arguments in favour of position X, see those detailed in Smith 2003.</ref>
• re (iii), I don't think 'named references' / combining "duplicate" citations is mandatory per any MOS, and (IMO) for bibliography-based referencing systems like the one used here, naming/combining citations doesn't really save much on space & make it more complicated not less to cite something. To my mind this is just one of those editorial decisions best left to consensus of editors working on a given article, and WP:MOS#General principles would apply. --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding (i), a logical solution is to separate "Bibliography" (sources cited in the text) and "further reading" (other relevant sources). A half-step has been made in this direction, thus I expect it to be finalized, i.e. to have references sorted out. Regarding (ii), I have to repeat, I do not take general answers to a specific point - there are specific facts in the articles where a whole book will not do as a reference. Materialscientist (talk) 07:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

You have not mentioned any specific facts - it might make it easier for us to adress your concerns if you told us which refs you believe require page numbers.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I suggest all further discussion regarding reference style be taken to the article's talk page. Materialscientist's concerns are valid but this is not the forum for them. The featured article criteria require a References section (which this article has) and a consistently formatted citation style (which this article has). The details of the citation style, such as whether the "name" attribute is used, whether there are additional references, and how specific they need be, are not covered by the featured article criteria or any other policy. I urge the closing admins to assume the citation style is sufficient for the purposes of the FA decision. Noisalt (talk) 23:13, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

General issues are already taken to talks. Specific comments: Arguably, those specific facts need page numbers: 5a, 23, 43, 44, 63, 74a (74b and 75?) Materialscientist (talk) 00:12, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

5 is a short article the entire topic of which is the different endonyms of the various Otomi groups - page numbers would be from the first page to the last. 23 is not a citation for a fact about the codex it is a citation for the published and translated codex itself. 43 and 44 are two medium sized articles about the reconstruction of proto-Otomi the entirity of which presents arguments in favour for the reconstructed inventory given - page numbers would be from the first page to the last. I will provide page numbers for 63 although it is a short article. 74 and 75 definitely needs fixed - thanks for noticing.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:30, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I variously tweaked the cites for 5a (a 1-page paper), 23, 43 & 44 to make it clearer reference is to the whole source. Hope that will suffice for those specific statements. Note in doing so the citation auto-numbering has changed, so these are now offset from the no's mentioned above.--cjllw ʘ TALK 10:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Alt text is done; thanks. Some images have alt text (thanks), but there are problems:

• File:Mezquitaltones.png lacks alt text, and the alt text for File:Artesania otomí (El Arenal, Hidalgo).jpg is simply the two words "alt text", which surely is a typo.
• File:Bienvenidos a Ixmiquilpan.jpg is an image of a sign that contains text which is important, so that text should appear in the alt text.
• Some of the phrases in the alt text repeat information that's in the caption and should be removed, as per WP:ALT #What not to specify. These include "sixteenth century", "Huichapan codex", and "Spanish and Otomi".
• Some of the phrases in the alt text cannot be verified by a non-expert who is looking only at the images, and should be removed, as per WP:ALT #What not to specify. These include the "Otumi" in "manuscript text in Otomi" and "Otomi warrior", and "welcoming visitors to the Town of Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo" (we shouldn't assume readers know Spanish or Otomi).
• The alt text for File:Otomimap2.png doesn't convey much useful info about what that map says. Instead of mentioning irrelevant details like "red", please rewrite it so that it focuses on what the map says that nearby text doesn't, e.g., the geographical locations of the various Otomi speakers. The visually impaired reader should know from the alt text that these speakers live in a band that stretches roughly from Mexico City east-northeast to the highlands south of Veracruz (you can use the words in this sentence as a prototype for the alt text, and improve it as you see fit).

Eubulides (talk) 02:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I have tried to improve the Alt text as per your suggestions. Please check to see if that adresses your concerns. This is the first tme I use Alt text in an article - nmy other FA's were reviewed before that was obligatory.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it's much better. I tweaked it a bit more by removing some phrases like "Otomi" that can't be verified by a non-expert who is looking only at the images, removing a few more phrases to avoid repetition with the caption and for brevity, and reproducing the typography of that sign more accurately (including that underscored "U"). Perhaps the underscore should be mentioned in the section on orthography? Anyway, thanks again. Eubulides (talk) 18:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Wobbly thus far. Very interesting topic; not well-enough written yet. Please locate serious copy-editors with a little distance from the text.

• "Chain" link in "indigenous languages of Mexico" (which will have "Mexico" linked prominently itself) and "Mexico". The latter could be unlinked as redundant.
• On the other hand, do we have a focused link for "dialect continuum"? Perhaps not ... "The language is spoken in many different dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible, and the language can alternatively be labeled as a dialect continuum." This is not, in any case, a good sentence—it seems to swerve back and forth: many different dialects, then some not mutually intelligible, then we find that it can all be labelled as a continuum. I'm confused, and we need to be clear for non-linguists. (You can remove the second "the language".)
• Is the Mezquital Otomi the main dialect? If so, please tell us when you introduce the term, or we won't know why it's privileged in the text. "]; speakers of other dialects use similar-sounding terms."
• Word order slightly uncomfortable: try "who would later" and "and by the eve of the Sp. con. had become". Can you audit for this throughout?
• Comma after "period"? It's not a short sentence. But now I notice "In the colonial period," and "During the colonial period", close together. I'd use a different wording second time (or remove it).
• "Literary" means more than just that the language was now written too. Sure it shouldn't be "written"?
• Why "However,"? I see no contradiction or turning away from the previous statement. You might instead consider a paragraph break there.
• Another "However", five seconds later, also without proper justification. Do check that but, however, etc, really do turn away in meaning.
• Challenging these adversities is slightly unidiomatic.
• Do you need "same" and "also"? I'm unsure I understand the meaning, anyway. I haven't read further than the lead yet. Tony (talk) 13:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I will look in to this tonight - there are already several "serious" (whatever you mean by that) copyeditors who are working on the article and some of the things you mention have been introduced by them.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

The text has now been completely rewritten by two serious copyeditors (one of them a little too serious in my opinion) who have not contributed to the article at all (therefore: distanced from the text). And the lead has been improved according to your suggestions.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I've only re-written some sections of the article. Haven't had the time to get to the entire article, but plan to. In my view, the copyediting shouldn't be rushed. Will report back here when I'm finished. User:Dale Chock is also copyediting, so the prose will get a good overhaul. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Initial pass at copyediting finished. Will respond to and fix additional and specific comments re: prose in the rest of the article. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• Comments - sources look okay, links not checked with the link checker tool, as it was misbehaving. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• Comments
  • Could content notes be separated from mere references?
  • I'm really iffy with the idea that this article could get promoted with IPA marking that is completely nonstandard. I don't know whether the use of hooks is standard in the Otomi-related literature, but could you please at least consider using the standard nasalisation mark?

(I'll probably form a fuller opinion once I've read the article fully). Circeus (talk) 01:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I see your point. I would rather change to using standard Americanist notation since that is what the sources use, would that be acceptable?·Maunus·ƛ· 13:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

No. That's a completely different issue. Upon further reading I can see the problem is not quite a nonstandard transcription as the improper use of the language's spelling system (as noted under "Practical orthography", which comes too late to relieve confusion) where phonetic notation is to be expected. The consonant are just fine (I personally loathe Americanist notation), it's the nasal vowels that cause problems, not only because of their non-standard notation, but also because that diacritic is similar to the IPA retracted tongue root mark. Circeus (talk) 18:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thats not really a valid point for example Lakhota orthography also uses hooks to denote nasal vowels (as do all other orthograpghies based on americanist notation).I don't know what you mean by "improper use of the language's spelling system". The system used by Lastra and in the article heres is as close to an official spelling system as the language has - None of the orthographies suggested by Bernard or Bartholomew gained any currency. This transcription is used in the vast majority of published texts in Otomi. The only difference is that it should use š instead of ʃ which i don't really know why I didn't do in the first place. The only works in Otomi that use IPA are those by palancar because he was publishing in IJAL whose style guide prefers it. (and possibly because he is educated in Europe and not by Americanists as Lastra, Bartholomew and Bernard)·Maunus·ƛ· 18:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

As it was when I commented, the anomalous feature where solely the vowels, so it is normal for to assume the problem comes from the spelling (which is weird, though, given that higher up you actually used tildes...). I also do not believe that using the Americanist notation is appropriate merely because American linguists use it. IPA is clearly the standard on en:WP (as strongly implied by Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) and the {{IPA}} templates), and is also the system used in your previous FA, Nahuatl, so I honestly do not see any good reason to use what is essentially an egocentric variant with the potential to exclude a majority of users accustomed to the IPA. Circeus (talk) 22:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

If there is a consensus to change to IPA instead of the transscription used by the sources then so be it. My reluctance to use IPA is not because the linguists who use it are american but because it is used by the majority of the linguists who work with the language. As for the MOS this could be considered a defacto orthography rather than a phonetic transscription - and the guidelines for pronunciation would then not apply - we also do not use IPA for writing french except when dealing specifically with pronunciation. I find changing transscription to verge on OR so I will not advocate it myself - and I also don't want to execute the change if it is decided that it should be changed. I don't think i use tildes - maybe a copyeditor have inserted some. to me changing the orthography to IPA implies problems of interpretation that do not arise when using the transccription used by the sources - I would be afraid to introduce errors because of mistinterpretation the closeness or nearness of transcription that may vary between sources. In my view it is not merely a change of one symbol for another but also involves making guesses about the original researchers intents.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Dubious in conception and focus. Here I will address the issue of unclear rationale. People can go to the article's talk page to see my copious comments on the specific content and on the editors' scholarship (I have also edited the candidate article massively, see bottom). But I must interject one content problem: the Otomi language article has almost no content about syntax (as opposed to morphology, i.e., word structure), a deficiency which I find academically unacceptable for an FAC.

What are the scope and the intention of this article, Otomi language? It was in effect developed to its current state by appending a long discussion of grammar to an existing article, Otomi people: as of yesterday, the "language" and the "people" articles have all the same illustrations and (by perusal) almost the same upper half text. The "people" article has a brief paragraph on grammar near the bottom.

One of my first criticisms of the "language" article was it went on too long about the history of the people without direct relevance to the language. Since making that criticism (which was dismissed out of hand, as have been other of my criticisms), I have looked at the "people" article, and now I'm beginning to "get it". Meanwhile, the driving force behind both the "language" and the "people" article has created a stub, Otomi grammar. That was eleven days ago, and of yesterday, it hadn't been touched since 15 minutes after its creation. Readers should know, at Wikipedia there are many cases of paired "X language" and "X grammar" articles, this is not in general inappropriate.

Recommendations. The Otomi language article currently has excessive content about the Otomi people. It also has excessive content about the grammar. Either put some of it in the Otomi grammar article, or delete the Otomi grammar article. Although I myself am a linguistics enthusiast, I find that some of the current content in the grammar section of Otomi language is too trivial for anyone except me myself and one or two of the main contributors.

(I have edited this Featured Article Candidate massively in the last three days or so; so much so that I could almost be called a contributor, although that was not my intention). If you're curious about my impact on the prose, it should be easy to ascertain because I only have ten page saves not marked "minor edit".) Dale Chock (talk) 20:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You are wrong on all accounts. I have created the articles on Otomi language and Otomi people. Three weeks ago I started expanding the article on otomi language because I had gotten acces to a lot of new sources. At a point in editing I realized that the section about history of the language was better than what already existed at otomi people so i moved that section there so that readers o wanted a good overview of the Otomi peoples history could read it there. Then i expanded the article more - and irealised that i had gone into too much detail about the grammar of the language and I decided to create a separate spinnout article about grammar where I would move the entire section on grammar and only keep the parts of the decription of grammar that were relevant in order to give the reader interested in the language a brief overview on the grammar. While I were busy writing all this what were you doing Dale? The article on Otomi language does NOT have excessive content either about the peopl or about the Grammar. Look at other featured articles and you will get an idea about how they are written - they are not substantially different form this one. You obviously haven't got much of an idea about how language articles are written at wikipedia - or what the FA criteria are. I suggest that you start contributing content and reading articles in stead of harassing content contributing editors. Now, have a good day Mr. Chock.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I would ask the closing admin to close based on the merits of this article alone and not based on Dale Chocks irrelevant musings about which parts of the content is repeated in other articles.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Two rejoinders. First, to elaborate on my objection about the lack of content about syntax. Here — in less than 25 words — is what "proper description of syntax" means: the description of syntax in grammars of languages has gotten fairly standardized since about 1980; there is a menu of topics to address. OK, given that, when an article about a language doesn't describe that language's syntax, that's like an article about the moon not describing the moon's monthly phases. At the talk page of this candidate article, it has now been claimed that the deficiency reflects a deficiency in the literature on the Otomi language. If so (and it may not be so), then it would follow that an article on the Otomi language is not deserving of Featured Article status. Find a different language to write about if you want to garner an FA award, a language that someone can properly describe. Second point (which I didn't first raise here, I did first raise it on the talk page of our FA candidate article, Otomi language): Maunus says he created an Otomi grammar spinout article to which to "move the entire section on grammar", etc. But he never followed through: he spent 15 minutes on the spinout article and eleven days later, still no new edits to Otomi grammar, during which time massive editing of grammar facts continued at Otomi language. No transfer of content was performed. I suggest that a more deserving target for a FA campaign would be the Otomi people article. Look past the hand-waving rebuttal to me, "your objections are irrelevant": between the three articles, Otomi people, language, grammar, there is a confusion as to conception and focus. There is also unsatisfactory execution. Dale Chock (talk) 20:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

"he never followed through" have you considered that this might be because I have been busy with another article? Anyway it is irrelevant how much time I spend on any article, as I am not under accountable to you or any other editor at wikipedia for how I choose to spend my time. And furthermore you cannot see how long I have spent writing or reseraching from time stamps on the edits - there is such a thing as external text editors. I suggest you read up on the FA criteria - there are FAs with less material on syntax. Possibly the world just isn't how you'd like it to be - I suggest you deal with that. Now I have spoken the last I am going to communicate with you - and further comments from your part will be ignored.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Comments

• Bartholomew, Doris (1963). In refs but not notes or text
• Bernard 1969 in text but not refs; Bernard 1967 in refs but not text. Typo?
• Bartholomew 2001 in notes but not refs
• Garibay 1971 in notes but not refs
• Bernard, H. Russell (July 1973) & Bernard, H. Russell (April 1974) both in refs but not notes or text.
• Lastra, Yolanda (1989) in refs but not text.
• Palancar, Enrique L. (2006a) in refs but not notes.
• You have notes to Palancar 2008 & Palancar 2008b, but only one ref for 2008b. Is the unadorned 2008 supposed to be “a” or “b”?
• I think some of your Lascars were out of chronological order...
• I added a few {{fact}} tags, which you can either cite or defend against.
• It's often difficult to separate the language from the people and vice versa. I too feel there is a bit too much overlap between this article and the one about the Otomi people. However, I caution against sudden, wholesale slashing and deleting. First, the decisions regarding "what goes where" should be undertaken judiciously, with proper care and deliberation. Second, the Language article, by virtue of being at FAC, has received numerous copy edits and is grammatically far superior. If any duplicated text is to be removed from the language article, the "kept version" should be that of the FAC (i.e., the language article), and should be moved over to the People article. Carefully. I suspect that the total amount of text removed from the language article need not be too large...
• Not wanting to clutter this page, I have temporarily placed some suggestions at User:Ling.Nut/page1. I s'pose I could move them to article talk as well. Ling.Nut (talk) 10:22, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Ill take care of those before leaving.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Prose spot-check:

• "namely: the person ..."—consider dropping "namely".
• "Suffixes on verbs express grammatical number of the participant(s)."—where there's an "of" to the right put a "the" to the left.
• "innovative dialects"—remind the readers what "innovative" means here? Is this standard terminology? Do you mean "unstable"? Or ... "distal"?
• "noun words" ... sounds clumsy. Consider "nominal items" or just "nouns".
• "widespread throughout" might be tautological; "widespread in"?
• "Person, Number ..."—sentence case, please, throughout for titles.

The grammar section is all a bit trad.—word classes that I'm sure don't really fit the way the language is used. Have you read Halliday? But that's neither here nor there—the article has chosen to source a trad. frame. Tony (talk)

I suppose an encyclopaedic entry on its grammar can only cover descriptions and schemes appearing in those sources that analyse this language; Halliday is not among those that do. The sources used are all the major published authorities on Otomi, and are fairly reflected in the text. And it'd be a fair reflection of the way the language is used. --cjllw ʘ TALK 15:14, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, have made some tweaks to address the points under Tony's 'prose spot-check' section above; pls review. --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Consider this: there are only seven Good Articles in the area of Language and Linguistics and no Featured Articles. Why couldn't the promoter of this article have aimed for Good Article instead? You can always try to improve a Good Article later. Anyhow, as I will explain, this is the wrong language to try to make a GA or FA off of. But first an aside: the FA nominations page seems like NOT the place for detailed copy editing! Take that to the article and the article's Talk page.

This language, Otomi, is just insufficiently researched: even mere description of it is still relatively scanty, and there is less of analysis of the data and even less still of theorizing. How can Wikipedians make a Good Article or a Featured Article out of a topic that is poorly researched? (I mean poorly researched by the professionals who research such things, not by the Wikipedians.)

This nomination was not just premature, it was fundamentally misconceived because the promoter's strategy for developing an article of FA quality was, "let's take an article, an article that isn't even close to ready, and undertake to edit it into shape". For goodness' sake, the nomination was made BEFORE thorough reference checking was performed by editors knowledgeable in linguistics. With only two hours of Internet searches plus checking three pages in sources pulled off a shelf, I confirmed misquotes, gaps, and absences of "context" (one of the FA criteria is providing scholarly context). The contributors did not report (they were apparently unaware of it) a significant divergence between investigators: it concerns the very consonant inventory of Otomi. I was able to document the existence of the divergence in about ten minutes of Internet searching. That's just yet another example of how this article did not come close to meeting any of the FA criteria. Aside from that, the Peer Review was rushed — the Peer Review archive for this article is blank.

I am dismayed by some of the comments made above, but not because I find them erroneous. The problem is that they don't recognize that the article was marred by a tedious attempt to provide exhaustive grammatical detail — which by the way violates one of the FA criteria. You commenters need to examine one of the seven Good Articles in Languages to find a model for writing such articles (let me suggest Mongolian language). By the way, I second Tony; the grammar discussion read like one of the grammars from the 1950s or 1960s "structuralist linguistics" era (some of which I like, but many of which were dull and uninsightful). Dale Chock (talk) 20:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

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