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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of spoken and sign languages beginning with the letter Y

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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate waskeep, possible copyvio. ugen64 23:58, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

List of spoken and sign languages beginning with the letter Y

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Delete this utterly useless list which may be a copyvio of [1] --Angr 09:48, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • A list of languages may be useful, but I can't see why the ones starting with Y should be in a seperate article. (Delete if it's a copyvio) Mgm|(talk) 15:33, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • I find it highly suspect that there are hundreds of languages starting with the letter Y alone. Anyway, there's no point in a list of just one letter, and there already is a category for this stuff. Delete. Radiant! 15:49, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Not sure. There is also a List of spoken and sign languages beginning with the letter Z page, which is linked from List of languages. Perhaps somebody was trying to do a split? — RJH 18:22, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. If we need a list, it should list the lot, not split them up by first letter. Average Earthman 18:28, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Accurate and certainly not useless, this list, like List of spoken and sign languages beginning with the letter Z, is a natural spinoff of the much poorer article List of languages, which is full of gaps. A single List of languages with 7,000 entries is too large to be useful. Its partial derivation from the Ethnologue falls well within the limits of fair use, as long as it's cited. Strong keep. (But needs cleanup to conform to Wikipedia language naming conventions.) cleaned up. - Mustafaa 18:44, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep — I would love to see Wikipedia have an article (even a stub) on every language on this planet. To list all languages in a single list is too much: it makes more sense to keep the major languages on list of languages and spin off the lesser spoken ones into these lists. A deletionist approach here is a triumph for systemic bias and limiting the geographical scope of Wikipedia. As for copyvio: the names of natural languages cannot be copyrighted. SIL/Ethnologue can only copyright its presentation and original information on these languages. Gareth Hughes 19:35, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I find it amusing that you talk about having a list of just the "major" languages and harangue about "systemic bias" almost within the same breath. Uncle G 15:49, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)
  • Keep and make similar sub-lists articles for the rest of the alphabet. Kappa 21:42, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Un-copyvio and keep. I agree with Mustafaa's argument. --Ryan! | Talk 00:00, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, fork. Wyss 01:06, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, unnecessary fork. Megan1967 05:20, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Why not just have a single list of languages, sorted alphabetically? I don't see how we need articles that consist entirely of rearrangements of existing data. Keeping this would set a very bad precedent. Binadot 05:37, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Definite keep -- having the list for Z is sufficient reason for keeping. Being consistent and splitting up the long list are both good things. --Idont Havaname 06:01, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete A pointless competition with Ethnologue, whence this list is derived. Individual languages that have pages at Wikipedia should always have an external link to Ethnologue. Energies might be better spent checking at Category:Languages to make sure that these are all currently in order. --Wetman 08:05, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment: I disagree. Most Ethnologue entries are not of sufficiently high quality to be worth linking to. The main benefit of this page is its redlinks to languages we should have articles on and don't. - Mustafaa 08:12, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. This is what categories are for. Ideally, every language article on Wikipedia should be traceable up to Category:Languages by two paths: one through its genetic affiliation (e.g. Navajo language < Category:Apachean languages < Category:Athabaskan languages < Category:Na-Dené languages < Category:Languages) and one through its location (e.g. Navajo language < Category:Languages of the United States < Category:Languages of North America < Category:Languages by country < Category:Languages). We don't additionally need 26 pages of languages that have nothing in common but the first letter of their name. --Angr 10:42, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment — Angr, it's nice of you to bring up categories. I noticed that you have removed a lot of languages from top level categories, like category:languages, so that a reader has to know the genetic classification of a language to get to it by category. I just thought it'd be nice if all language articles were in that category as well as in more specific ones. It just looks as if you are really keen on doing a lot of unnecessary housework. I could see your last comment being worthwhile if you hadn't performed the decategorisation. All I can see is a drive to make it more difficult to find language articles, and an over reliance on the often flawed system of genetic classification. Gareth Hughes 11:39, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Not quite; I've moved languages out of top-level categories so that a reader has to know either the genetic classification or the country where the language is spoken. I think it's unlikely a reader will want information on a language without knowing at least one of those two facts. I also think having all the language articles listed directly at Category:Languages will leave the door open to one day having a category with two thousand entries in it, which will be a nightmare to navigate. I have left in Category:Languages languages that are the only member of their language family to have an article in Wikipedia. --Angr 21:09, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • If you want an alphabetical list of "X language" articles, feel free to populate a Category:Languages by name category. If you want an alphabetical list of "X language" articles that meet the Gareth Hughes criteria for being "major languages", feel free to populate a Category:Languages that Gareth Hughes thinks are major by name category. Uncle G 15:49, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)
  • Keep, no good case for delete is given above. --Zero 13:46, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • List of languages does nothing that cannot be done with a Category:Languages by name category (with the redlinks in a "To do" section on the category page or on Category talk:Languages by name) in conjunction with the other parallel categorizations by family and by country. This list has the addition of a few (8) navigational notes (Just in case you thought that Eastern Yiddish might not be covered by Yiddish language.), but conversely lacks the classifications. I cannot see this list doing anything that a category cannot. Merge the redlinks in List of spoken and sign languages beginning with the letter Z, List of spoken and sign languages beginning with the letter Y, and List of languages to a "to do" list at Category:Languages by name, and categorize the bluelinks. Split into Category:Spoken languages by name and Category:Sign languages by name if so desired. Uncle G 15:49, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)
Keep Impressive info. --Pgreenfinch 17:13, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Wikipedia isn't a general information base. An information base is a repository in which information is available for querying in a variety of ways. It would be useful to to have a database containing one record for each human language with a wide variety of different attributes given and a query capability by which one could obtain lists of languages with various properties, sorted in various ways. Perhaps this exists elsewhere. I'd be surprised if linguists have not created it somewhere. However, Wikipedia is not this, and it should not try to make itself into a Human Language database by having an "article" for each language, and a plethora of "list articles" giving the results of every imaginable interesting query on the basic data. If it were to have one or a few articles representing queries on the basic data about languages, it is doubtful that a straight list alphabetized by the conventional name of the language in English would be the most interesting, or even interesting at all. All that said, some thought should be given on how to organize all the information in the Wikipedia about human languages. However, this is not it. In fact, it comes across as kind of stupid. --BM 11:09, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. There is such a database, of course. It's called Ethnologue, and it's where the language names in this article were copied from. --Angr 12:09, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment — As long as categories by country are done, I can now understand what the reorganisation was all about. I think that there is a question here about the validity of lists on Wikipedia when the content of those lists also appears ina category. This isn't limited to languages, but is present throughout the project. For me, the major use of lists is that they can be used for project building, where categories cannot (they can't have red links unless they are added by hand). Ethnologue is the most comprehensive online survey of the world's languages, but is often flawed and offers poor information. We have been using Ethnologue, perfectly legally, as a starting block for our articles on languages (compare, for instance, the Ethnologue article on Lishanid Noshan and Wikipedia's Lishanid Noshan). It would be utterly daft to ignore such a comprehensive resource as Ethnologue, but it would be equally daft to rely on it alone (I haven't spoken to any linguist who is a total fan). This list is not just about navigation for readers: it is a recognitions that we have a long way to go before we are providing a good, comprehensive resource for the world's languages. Isn't that an aspiration of encylopaedia building? I see that Category:Languages that Gareth Hughes thinks are major by name is still a red link: I look forward to seeing that one on VfD! Gareth Hughes 16:32, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep Robinoke 12:12, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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