Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages

Berawan–Lower Baram languages

Please add reliable sources. Bearian (talk) 02:40, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Hebrew (disambiguation)#Requested move 12 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Hebrew (disambiguation)#Requested move 12 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. PK2 (talk; contributions) 03:58, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:English language § Requested move 12 October 2025

An editor has requested that English language be moved to another page, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Kowal2701 (talk) 19:07, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Extra colors for Chibchan and Tucanoan languages?

Following this edit request at Template talk:Infobox language, which didn't get any participation, should new colors be added for Chibchan languages and Tucanoan languages?

Pinging editors from the previous thread: @Kepler-1229b @PersusjCP @Kwamikagami Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:52, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

In support of my argument, most American language families with large amounts of languages typically get their own family colors. Campbell (2024) highlights Arawakan, Cariban, Chapacuran, Chibchan, Macro-Jê Sensu Stricto, Pano-Takanan, Quechuan, Tukanoan (Tucanoan), and Tupían as being "larger language families" (i.e. >6 languages present). Per this argument, Chapacuran should also get its own color (  ). 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 18:49, 18 October 2025 (UTC) 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 18:49, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Support adding, though the proposed colors imo seem too similar and too hard to distinguish from others Қатысушы Апельсин (talk) 07:29, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Support per above. Also agreeing with Қатысушы Апельсин on color similarity, though not because they're too close to each other but too close to others. Other language families like Siouan and Muskogean need the same as well, but I'm not sure the process for bringing it up. Any advice appreciated. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:28, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

I meant other colored families too heh:) Қатысушы Апельсин (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Fair point. I attempted to make them different shades of blue, but anything in that range works too. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:48, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Is the idea to make them blue because they're all New World languages? I would recommend a shade of orange/brown for Siouan, red for Muskogean, and purple for Iroquoian since these colors are less represented in the current swatches; blues, greens, and the in-betweens make up the majority of colors there. ThaesOfereode (talk) 18:35, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

To me, it seems the American languages are all blue and I would recommend keeping the current color scheme for the new colors. Purple for Iroquoian could work. The conlang colour should be changed to be grayscale to not seem like one of the American language families like Macro-Jê. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 18:41, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

That does seem to be the case, though I don't know why or how that was chosen. The colors seem very strange choices and not as cogent as maybe they should be. For example, why are Hmong–Mien and Kra–Dai dull purple when it appears they should be a shade of red? Is there some way we can consider alternative groupings? I'm not sure geographic is necessarily that helpful and may be counterintuitive (e.g., implying geographic proximity reflects phylogenetic closeness). I do agree conlangs should be changed, though; it is misleading. Perhaps black? ThaesOfereode (talk) 18:58, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Black would be nice. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 21:00, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

References

Requested move at Talk:Je–Tupi–Carib languages#Requested move 24 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Je–Tupi–Carib languages#Requested move 24 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Yacàwotçã (talk) 09:34, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Shetland dialect#Requested move 16 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Shetland dialect#Requested move 16 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 11:24, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 14 § Lower Frisian

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 14 § Lower Frisian. PK2 (talk; contributions) 10:17, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Altaic (disambiguation)

An editor has requested that Altaic (disambiguation) be moved to Altaic, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. PK2 (talk; contributions) 22:34, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Pictish language

There is an uncomfortable back and forth going on the talk page in Talk:Pictish language#Influence On Gaelic. Extra eyes and input would be very welcome. The Banner talk 00:20, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I've added my tuppence worth. Hopefully it will not need to be escalated. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:55, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Noric language

The article really seems to be a hoax made somewhere in 2005, because it is based on a single source made around the same time, and the evidence of it is two undeciphered inscriptions, which absolutely cannot be taken as a separate language. I suggest maybe creating a new Eastern Celtic article which will combine small evidence of Noric with a broader evidence of Eastern Celtic toponyms in total, to form a better-sourced unified article? From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 10:58, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I doubt it is a hoax. The author of the cited source, David Stifter, is a professor of Old Irish. From 2000 to 2008 he worked at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna, where he probably became acquainted with the fragmentary inscriptions.[1] However, the source is a transcript of a lecture, which does not meet the criteria of WP:RS. The topic certainly does not qualify for a stand-alone article. Donald Albury 16:30, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Well the source is indeed authorative, but it's single. There's, for example, Brythonic colony of Britonia in Galicia, and I being an authorative scholar can write an article about a separate language there. Will local language considered separate then? Yeah, I doubt so. We need more sources on the language to proclaim it's "independence".

On other hand Eastern Celtic in total has a lot more sources made by other authorities scholars, so a unification with the inscriptions of Noricum seems to be logical. From Alba, Celtoi, (talk) 16:41, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Indonesian language#Reversion of edits

I have a disagreement with Cookiemonster1618 regarding the speaker parameters in the Indonesian language, specifically the year of the source. The infobox currently lists: L1: 75 million (2020), L2: 177 million (2020), and Total: 252 million (2020), all sourced to Ethnologue (https://www.ethnologue.com/language/ind/). In my view, the year should be 2025 rather than 2020, because the figures come from the 28th edition of Ethnologue. He insists that 2020 is correct. I would like to invite other editors from WP:LANGUAGE to help clarify this issue. Ckfasdf (talk) 00:01, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

About the "importance" of different Arabic dialects to the project

Hello all.

I just added Qatari Arabic to the project, and started wandering through other Arabic language articles. I found that while dialects such as Peninsular Arabic and Egyptian Arabic are defined as "high importance", only Levantine Arabic is defined as "top importance" (alongside MSA and Arabic overall).

The distinction in importance is probably itself not very important in the grand scheme of things, but just seemed to me an odd and irksome enough inconsistency to ask about here.

Does anyone have any explanation/argument as to why it is this way, and why it shouldn't be changed?

Thanks and good tidings, غوّاص العلم (talk) 15:55, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Content assessment#Priority assessment explains the purpose of importance assessment. This project has criteria for assigning importance at Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages/Assessment#Importance scale. As far as I know, importance ratings for articles of interest to this project are usually set by individual editors without consultation with other editors. Personally, in 20 years of editing I have never set an article importance rating as anything other than low (and then only when I have added a project template to an article talk page), and otherwise ignore such ratings. Donald Albury 18:04, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I guess I'll just let it be, then.

Good tidings, غوّاص العلم (talk) 07:27, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Notice of discussion about gender neutrality in grammar examples

I've begun a discussion about the translations into English that we provide for samples in the third person singular from languages with no 3ps gender distinction. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Gender neutrality in grammar examples. Largoplazo (talk) 00:15, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Spoken language, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 15 December 2025 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Good article reassessment for American Sign Language

American Sign Language has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:57, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Philistine language article talking about two different languages

The aritcle on Philistine language talks about two different languages with the same name it should be split to Philistine Canaanite and Philistine Indo-European based on the two infoboxes in the article Isla🏳️‍⚧ 21:49, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

The article talks about two very different theories on the origin and affinities of the language, and does not suggest that there were two different languages called "Philistine". I don't know anything about the evidence for the affinity of the language, but if assignment to the Afro-Asiatic family and the Indo-European family are both considered plausible, then not enough is known to support either infobox. Donald Albury 23:30, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Old/longstanding copyvio on Mexican Spanish

This early edit from 2005 is almost entirely copied from Mackenzie, Ian (2001). A Linguistic Introduction to Spanish. pp. 141–143. (Mackenzie's own website has largely the same text). The article has been expanded since and a lot has been rewritten but portions of the plagiarized text remain. I could delete remaining plagiarized material but beyond that does anyone know what should be done? Erinius (talk) 01:31, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Deleted remaining plagiarism, an admin sensibly denied revdel. Erinius (talk) 04:33, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian

There is currently a discussion on WikiProject Song Contests regarding the separation of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian — IмSтevan ^talk 15:56, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Kabyles hadra#Requested move 22 December 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Kabyles hadra#Requested move 22 December 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 23:36, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Biblical Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 20:45, 2 January 2026 (UTC)