Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mongolian language/archive1

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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 SandyGeorgia 23:51, 26 April 2009 [1].

Mongolian language[edit]

Nominator(s): G Purevdorj (talk) 12:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it seems to address the topic in a fairly comprehensive manner and is rather well researched. On the other hand, there might still be a few areas of concern, so that I'd be glad if these could be pointed out to me so that I can improve them. I might point to such areas myself, eg the discussion about classification and dialects might well not only be mentioned, but argued for. However, the article has a length of 60000 bites, which is about as long as it should be, so that it has become difficult for me to differentiate between useful additions and additions that would only violate comprehensiveness requirements. I see this nomination as an opportunity for getting some consensus on weak areas and maybe as a way, by improving these, to also get it promoted. (I'm nominating today to start collecting some opinions, but I'll only be able to make some major edits on Sunday.) G Purevdorj (talk) 12:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments -
  • your websites in the notes need publishers
  • You have bare numbered links in the bibliography. They need to be formatted with titles.
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Note that I did not evaluate the non-English sources nor the ones published in English by the non-standard publishing houses. Given the subject matter, I would expect most works to be from Asian publishing houses, so that's not a big concern. The ones that are from US and UK publishing companies look good. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I integrated the bare numbers, removed one source and added one publisher, while a third publisher had already already been present. The article of Sühbaatar doesn't point to any publisher and might be self-published. It addresses very self-evident facts that I could easily "prove" (which would of course be original research) by pointing to hundreds of websites that show that Mongolians indeed often use Latin when writing on the internet. On the other hand, no scientific publication available to me seems to take notice of this. If required, I could replace the first link with a manual for the proper use of Mongolian, which is even less reliable, but has been properly published, while dropping the second link. Else, footnotes 81 and 84 would have to be deleted together with their respective content. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
Fixed six of the links to disambiguation pages, changed one disamb page to article status, kept one link to disambiguation page that contains a short, but useful definition of a linguistic category that doesn't have an article of its own. Deleted one link and slightly modified another (I was aware that Ganhuyag had gone offline, but had been waiting for some days whether this might change). References should be in good shape, as they were fixed when going for GA. Mechanical fixes might sometimes even mistakenly alter the scope of a reference. Better point to individual discrepancies in case that those still exist. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I asked Brighterorange (talk · contribs) to run his script to fix the WP:ENDASHes in the citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:12, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments While I appreciate that this article has to be technical in places, I think you might do more to help the reader in this otherwise excellent article.
  • verbal and nominal domain - links to verb and, I guess noun
  • noun phrase order - link to noun phrase, or gloss
  • diachronic development, it has undergone a major shift in the vowel harmony paradigm, developed long vowels, slightly reformed its case system and re-structured its verbal system. - what a sentence to have in the lead. What does diachronic mean? Surely this sentence can be made more accessible (I did the GA review for Wagiman language, so I don't think I'm unusually dim on understanding language examples )
  • ...much-disputed problem between different scholars. - Assuming it's not a major talking point in the pubs and supermarkets, perhaps end at ...much-disputed problem. This also avoids the pointless different, unless you're contrasting with a single schizophrenic scholar racked by internal turmoil.
  • verbum sentiendi et dicendi. - redlinked and no gloss, write a stub, explain meaning or replace please, meaningless to me as it stands
  • None of the book references have isbn numbers given, as required by MoS. I think this must be fixed to avoid an oppose
Good luck jimfbleak (talk) 12:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Links to noun and verb are given in Mongolian_language#Grammar#Morphology. noun phrase was given as “nominal phrase” which doesn’t seem to make any difference, but I changed it. The word “diachronic” was useful, but not necessary. I could have replaced it by “historical”, but as this word was used in the preceding sentence, I just dropped it. Else, I don’t know how this sentence might be simplified, as it refers to complex linguistic phenomena that are explained within the article. Except for “has undergone a major shift in its vowel harmony paradigm”, the language doesn’t seem technical to me. But if I’d reformulate this sentence and speak about palatalization instead, I fear it won’t become easier to comprehend. I replaced verbum sentiendi et dicendi and followed your advice concerning the "much disputed-problem". I'll see to adding some ISBN. G Purevdorj (talk) 13:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Added most ISBNs. Two books that might have ISBNs are not accessible to me right now, the rest is old western books, modern western books without ISBN and essays from journals without ISBN. G Purevdorj (talk) 13:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I guess I'm finished with the ISBN. G Purevdorj (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support and further comment The point I was trying to make with verbal and nominal domain wasn't that they were not linked anywhere, but that I felt that it would help to link them at the first occurrence, especially as both words have more general meanings (the sentence could be read as oral and unimportant). I still think it would help your readers to link in the lead, but I'll leave that to you and other reviewers to consider. Now the isbns have been added, I'm happy to support jimfbleak (talk) 06:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment The article is superbly sourced and comprehensive. To meet prose requirements, it needs a copyedit, which I'll undertake over the next few days. Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 02:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Follow-up Aside from the rather intensive copyediting the article requires, I found—as a layman, by no means a expert in the field—a substantive error in the first, very brief section of the article's main text. Even with an intensive copyedit, there is no way I can support this article for promotion unless its substance is vetted and approved by an independent, veteran Wikipedia editor demonstrably familiar with the field of language.—DCGeist (talk) 09:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Query G Purevdorj, you are the primary contributor to the Daur language article as well as the Mongolian language article. Why is Daur transliterated as Dagur in the latter? Is there any good reason for the inconsistency? You should be aware that this inconsistency also occurs within the Daur language article itself—this is obviously unacceptable.—DCGeist (talk) 10:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, many thanks for the copy-editing done so far. As I'm not a native speaker of English, I can't do this myself. I hope that you will complete the copy-editing irrespective of whether you think that this article should become FA or not.
There is an enclave of Dagurs in Xinjiang that was relocated to there during the Manchu reign. There are some Oirats in Kyrgyzstan. Though I'm not aware of a scientific source mentioning this, there are substantial Mongolian communities in the US and Germany. You can always add some areas where a language in question is spoken by a few people. I added the infos on the detailed distribution of Oirat and Dagur in the respective articles, but in the article on Mongolian I just intended to give a general picture. By the way, Janhunen himself makes the same "mistake" on page xvii of "The Mongolic languages". (The new formulation - mentioning the huge Xinjiang area instead of the tiny vinicity of Tacheng - seems somewhat misleading.)
When I first started to contribute to Daur language, this article already existed. "Daur" is the approximate pronunciation of the language name by its contemporary native speakers, but the variant "Dagur" is far more widespread in scientific literature, so I guess using it is more appropriate. If necessary, though, one could rename the Daur article. G Purevdorj (talk) 11:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Query In the Geographic distribution and dialects section, there is the following passage; "In Inner Mongolia, official language policy divides the Mongolian language into three dialects: the Inner Mongolian dialect, Oirat and Barghu-Buryat. While 'Inner Mongolian' is said to consist of Chakhar, Ordos, Baarin, Khorchin, Kharchin and Alasha, it is nevertheless supposed to jointly provide a common standard grammar for all of Inner Mongolia. Only the standard pronunciation is said to be 'based' on the Chakhar dialect of the Plain Blue Banner." The "only" at the beginning of the last sentence is confusing. It looks like what is meant here is simply this: "The standard pronunciation is said to be 'based' on the Chakhar dialect of the Plain Blue Banner." That is, the standard pronunciation of Inner Mongolian according to official policy. Is that correct, or is something else implied by the word "only"? —DCGeist (talk) 22:13, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The "only" was meant to imply that the authorities have "only" cared to establish a standard pronunciation, while leaving alone all the grammatical differences, eg different pronouns, verbal suffixes etc. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Follow-up OK. I think as well that the phrase "the Chakhar dialect of the Plain Blue Banner" may pose difficulties for many readers. Are there multiple Chakhar dialects, associated with the different banners? Did the Chakhar dialect emerge in an administrative district under the Plain Blue Banner? If so, where was that? The sentence works fine thus: ""The standard pronunciation is said to be 'based' on the Chakhar dialect." If we're going to mention the Plain Blue Banner, we need to be clearer about the information being imparted.—DCGeist (talk) 23:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Chakhar is a vast area, and Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005 even include some varieties into it that several scientists would consider separate (either as part of “South Khalkha” (Svantesson et al. 2005) or as a separate variety, “Shilin gol” (Janhunen 2003, “Mongol dialects”)). Even if we limit ourselves to Chakhar proper, there are still 10 different banners (Sečenbaγatur 2003: 6), Šilaγun Köke or “Plain Blue” being one of these, and while I’m not acquainted with differences between those, such differences are likely to exist. So it is better to point out that it is the Chakhar of the Plain Blue Banner. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Got it. I've edited the passage per your explanation to make it a little clearer.—DCGeist (talk) 23:53, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Query A final question concerning this section. In the following sentence—"While there is a common literary standard, a dialectological approach would see a sharper distinction between, for example, the 'Inner Mongolian' varieties of Chakhar and Khorchin than between the 'Inner Mongolian' Chakhar and the 'Outer Mongolian' Khalkha"—what precisely is meant by "literary standard"? Is this a reference to the fact that all the varieties of Inner Mongolian are written in traditional Mongolian script (in contrast to the Cyrillic used for Khalkha)? Or does it mean something else?—DCGeist (talk) 00:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most South Mongolians don’t read Cyrillic and most people of the Mongolian state have only a very limited command of the Mongolian script. Notice that Cyrillic is rather close to actual Khalkha pronunciation, while the Mongolian script is 800 years remote from it and thus independent of modern dialects. But there are also several grammatical differences in both standards, eg concerning nominalization (overt nominalization is always necessary in literary Cyrillic, but very often left out in modern Written Mongolian), verbal suffixes (the verbal suffixes -uushtai and -maajin are widespread in the Southern standard, but nearly non-existent in the Cyrillic standard) etc. There are several words that differ considerably in meaning between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, and the loan word inventory is distinct, and this is conventionalized within the respective literary standards. G Purevdorj (talk) 07:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

question Why is File:Mongols-map.png different from the map in the featured article [2]? Fasach Nua (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The map you mention is hopelessly incomplete and quite strange. It includes Gansu-Qinghai, but excludes Oirat and Buryat. I won't say that the map used in "Mongolian language" is without fail, but compared to that other map it's rather accurate. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Query Please take a look at this diff. My copyedit here involved a substantive change, from "Written Mongolian" to "Middle Mongolian". Please check that I've understood correctly.—DCGeist (talk) 22:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The terms Ulaanbaatar Khalkha Mongolian and Standard Khalkha Mongolian need to explicated, as well as the distinction between them. This can be done at the top of the Phonology section, where the former term is currently introduced, or in the Geographic distribution and dialects section, or even in the lead section.—DCGeist (talk) 23:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just gave an explanation for Standard Written Mongolian, but this might need copyediting. I don't think it should be explained in the sections that you suggested as it is not crucial for the article. Ulaanbaatar Khalkha is a self-explanatory descriptive term. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment And similarly for Preclassical Written Mongolian, if that is the proper orthography. Preclassical Mongolian is defined at the top of the Historical Mongolian section, so you could use the phrase "written Preclassical Mongolian" (or "Preclassical written Mongolian") below. However, you are currently using Written Mongolian as a proper noun (and, as you suggest in your recent edit summary, it has a specific definition); the term must be thus be defined at the point where you currently use it, or above.—DCGeist (talk) 23:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Preclassical Written Mongolian is the same as Preclassical Mongolian, so I just dropped the "Written" and got the desired terminological consistency. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One comment to one previous edit of yours: “Ödrijn sonin -> News.mn”. The link was intended as an extra. The text was published in the daily newspaper “Ödrijn sonin” which is a better reference than the internet portal “News.mn”. I wonder whether this could be taken care of in the footnote. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Got it. No problem.—DCGeist (talk) 00:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose—needs a thorough copy-edit. The language issues are not just on the surface, but involve matters of logic, flow redundancy and ambiguity. We owe it to the topic to make the language top-notch. And it's pretty technical, so it needs to be crystal-clear. I was slightly concerned by the amount of link-hitting you have to do (even an expert) to follow much of the description in the lead. Maybe, but consider glossing a few of the technical terms on the spot.

  • "It is the language of most residents of Mongolia and of many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China, totalling about 5.7 million speakers". Slightly unclear as to whether this number is of the second-listed item (those in China). Why is "language" linked? Is it helpful to the readers? Is there a section of that article you could more usefully pipe-link it to?
  • "fairly complex"? Perhaps just "complex? "Mongolian has vowel harmony and a fairly complex syllabic structure for Mongolic"—clearer to write "... structure for a Mongolic language"? I don't get it as currently worded.
  • "the verbal and nominal domain"—should it be plural "domains"?
  • "Subject Object Verb"—can you pipe-link this ... "subject–object–verb"?
  • "the noun phrase order is relatively free, so functional roles are indicated by a system of about eight grammatical cases." The "so" locks us into logical causality; but do the cases really arise from the freedom of word order in nominal phrases? Which came first, chicken or egg?
  • "The verb can take several voice suffixes and is marked for aspect and some other notions belonging to the domains of tense, modality and evidentiality. In sentence linking, converbs play a special part." I suggest "Verbs can ...". Remove "some"? Can't it just be "and are marked for tense, modality and evidentiality"?
  • "Mongolian evolved from Middle Mongolian, the language spoken in the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries—a major shift in the vowel harmony paradigm occurred, long vowels developed, the case system was slightly reformed and the verbal system was restructured." Remove "the language" (it's redundant). The use of the dash is puzzling grammatically. Do you mean "; since then, a major ...". Or perhaps "; in the transition to the discreet ....".

These are just examples from the lead; please find a WPian who is interested in foreign languages to copy-edit this. May I suggest User:Timberframe? Tony (talk) 15:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your helpful comments. I’ll address them in the following in row:

  • I don’t get the ambiguity (or consider it highly implausible), but I’m no native speaker after all. Maybe you could suggest an alternative wording anyway. As for the link to language – I think most links are given at the first occurrence of an item. I thought that this is meant to be so.
  • “fairly” dropped
  • “domain” > “domains”
  • “subject–object–verb” adapted. Indeed, it looks better now.
  • The “so” doesn’t necessarily mark a causal relationship, but may only point to an interdependence. Seeing one part of the language, it is logical to conclude that the second part looks so and so.
  • “The verb” ~ “Verbs”. I don’t see much of a difference, but adapted your suggestion. “some” cannot be dropped because without it, the clause gets ambiguous, as you could then misunderstand that “aspect” is a notion belonging to the domains of tense, modality and evidentiality. “and are marked for tense, modality and evidentiality” wouldn’t do as there are several paradigms and each of these only includes a few of these notions. Then, it isn’t clear whether the word “yum” should be integrated into these paradigms (as Hashimoto seems to suggest). No, we may not oversimplify the matter. (I would indeed be ready and willing to oversimplify it here if it was resolved within the article, but it isn’t feasible to do so now: I’m aware of some ongoing research and several papers that have not yet been published, and as these will greatly contribute to clarify the matter, it is worth waiting a few years before trying to improve the aspect section.)
  • I removed the dash and replaced it by “In the transition, “. I don’t agree that “the language” is redundant, but feel that it contributes to the readability of the text.

I do agree that additional copyediting would be useful and gratefully accept your suggestion to contact the editior you suggested. I would also be delighted if you would make some additional contributions as well. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Some attention is needed to style consistency in dashes/hyphens, and clarity in explaining items in the lead. For example, you now have "subject–object–verb" in the lead, apparently with en dashes. While looking for further information in the article, I discovered that you don't ever write "subject–object–verb" again (confusing) but I did find "subject, object, predicate" (commas) with the side note that it's referred to as "SOV". Why use "predicate" here but "verb" earlier? Later, we have "Object-Predicate-Subject" and "Subject-Object-Predicate", this time with hyphens and capitalized. --Laser brain (talk) 19:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Er, I should have been more clear here. We don't want changes to hyphens in these cases. Hyphens should only be used to indicate a conjunction. Everything like "subject–object–verb" should have unspaced en dashes. To indicate a pause in the sentence, use either a spaced en dash or an unspaced em dash. --Laser brain (talk) 19:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dashes are a bit annoying as I don't have them on my keyboard, but I've (re)established them. By all means use spaced dashes for a pause in a sentence – otherwise it looks very ugly. G Purevdorj (talk) 20:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The use of the term "verb" in this context is most widespread, but as this word order is generally meant to hold for any kind of predications, it is highly imprecise. I've now changed to "subject-verb-predicate" throughout the text and dropped the brackets referring to "SOV" altogether. As for the other problems of the lead section: I've invited User:Timberframe and hope that s/he will join us at the weekend. Of course, I'll be glad to take care of any specific issues in the meantime. G Purevdorj (talk) 20:22, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I look forward to it. I will scan for any dash/hyphen bothers. Your research and writing are highly prized, but unfortunately none of us can escape the Manual of Style. --Laser brain (talk) 20:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments just started to copy-edit per invitation above, but already I have several comments and questions:
    • Lead: "is the best-known member of the Mongolic language family" - citation required as well as a clarification of what is meant by "best-known" in the context of a language. "Most widely spoken" or "most commonly used" might be considered to be more meaningful, if true.
    • Lead: "about eight grammatical cases" - can we state the exact number of cases? If the "about" arises from a core of frequently use cases plus some additional or alternative cases which are used only exceptionally this could be mentioned as a feature of the language.
    • Classification: Mongols-map.png. The caption in the article "Geographic distribution of the Mongolic languages" could be at odds with the file info: "The red areas are the places dominated by ethnic Mongols". Ethnic Mongols, especially those removed (or descended from people removed) to regions dominated by other languages, do not necessarily speak Mongolic languages; nor is the use of Mongolic languages necessarily restricted to areas where ethnic Mongols dominate. I would suggest that a new or different map, depicting geographic distribution of the Mongolic languages and citing a relevant source, be used instead.
    • Geographic distribution and dialects: "The delimitation of the Mongolian language is a much-disputed problem" - is it a problem in the sense that a resolution is demanded, or would it be sufficient to say that "the delimitation of the Mongolian language is much-disputed, and would probably require a set of comparable linguistic criteria for all major varieties"?
    • Geographic distribution and dialects: "Such data might account for the historical development of the Mongolian dialect continuum" - which data? This seems to be a non-sequitur.
    • Phonology - vowel length: "about 208%" - 208% is an excessively precise measure of a quantity which is inevitably subject to wide variation. Would "about twice" suffice?

Nevertheless, I'm impressed with the depth and scope of this article, congratulations on what you've produced so far. -- Timberframe (talk) 17:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • It is the best-know language of Mongolic – the only one that any German, Chinese, English etc. person will be aware of, but it seems futile (while probably possible) to search for a reference for such a claim. “most commonly used” doesn’t make sense, but “most widely spoken” will do. Svantesson et al. 2005: 141-155 supports such a claim.
  • The number of cases given for many languages is frequently disputed, but to have such a number often gives a good impression about how the language in question might work. Khalkha Mongolian school grammar used to propose 7 cases, but more recently switched to 8 (which is absolutely justified). There are two further items proposed as case suffixes by Janhunen and Sechenbaatar. At least for one of these suggestions seems to be very well-founded, but a detailed analysis of this problem has not yet been done. And then there are the dialects: starting from the traditional analysis, Khorchin and Baarin dialect have at least 9 and Ordos dialect 10 cases. (These are the more conservative estimates that I’d support; the grammars sometimes suggest a few more suffixes, but often it isn’t shown that these fulfil the criteria of casehood (such as full productivity and vowel harmony).
  • Map: it is wrong that these areas are “dominated” by ethnic Mongols, eg South Mongolia has about four or five times as many Chinese inhabitants as it has ethnic Mongolians. Then, we don’t always know what Mongolians actually speak. No map I am aware of accounts for all available data, eg progressing language death of Buryat and Oirat in Russia. The map in question has at least one difference to language distribution: the spot in the far south-east are ethnic Mongolians that speak Chinese. But in principle, the map is quite accurate and I am not aware of any other map that is not copy-righted and shows a more accurate distribution. The only way that I'd see to deal with this inaccuracy would be to drop the map altogether.
  • A difficult question. An alternative view could mean a different distribution of very much money in China, but the Chinese government is not likely to alter its views because of a different analysis that might be supported by the majority of scientists. So I don’t think that any institution in the real world is considering this question as an unsolved problem.
  • The last sentence says “a set of comparable linguistic criteria”. “Such data” then means an extensive data font that provides the data that is necessary to compare all these criteria. (It might be quite easy to propose sufficient criteria for a dialect classification, but we don’t have data on most aspects of grammar for most varieties, which is not very surprising at all as most innovative grammar studies are done by Japanese researchers and are ignored by those who do the dialect studies.)
  • 208% itself might be changed, but the article also has 127% and 71%, so you would have to replace all these values which probably isn’t feasible. I fancy it is clear that these are average values from experimental data provided by Svantesson et al. 2005. G Purevdorj (talk) 19:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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