Template talk:proto

Translation parameter

It would be nice if another optional parameter were introduced which takes the hypothetical translation of the proto-word. henne 19:23, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Did this. henne 16:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

"Possibly"

Can we get rid of the "possibly"? Saying, for example, that hail is "possibly" from Proto-Germanic *haglaz is silly, because the earliest attested version of the word hail (namely Old English hægl) is one of the forms that was used to reconstruct the form *haglaz in the first place. There are some cases where it's uncertain whether a certain attested word is derived from a given proto-root or not, but in the majority of cases, there isn't any doubt. (What may be in doubt is the exact form of the reconstructed word or root, but that doubt is already expressed by the asterisk.) Angr 03:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

That is a critical part of the policy vote that just took place. Reconstructed forms are just that: conjecture. But a number of people have tried to promote them as somehow-attested terms. "*haglaz" is speculation, and must be shown as such. There are NO cases in which there isn't any doubt, it is all conjecture.

The alternative is to eliminate the proto- languages entirely.

There is a format issue, sequences of derivations are supposed to use "<" instead of repetitions of "from", so the template might be changed to "< conjectured Proto-...". Thinking about it. Robert Ullmann 10:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The existence of some Proto-Germanic word for "hail" from which all attested Germanic words are derived is beyond all reasonable doubt (just like evolution or the fact that smoking causes cancer). The argument that this Proto-Germanic word had the shape *haglaz is conjecture; that's what the asterisk means. Saying "hail possibly comes from *haglaz" doesn't mean "hail comes from something that might be reconstructed as *haglaz", it means "There is a conjectured word *haglaz, and hail might come from it", which is nonsense. There is no doubt that the attested Germanic words for "hail", including English hail and German Hagel, come from a common source; there's no "possibly" about it. What the exact shape of that common source is, is conjecture (as shown by the asterisk). This case contrasts sharply with the case of Greek ἵππος "horse", which only possibly comes from the conjectured Proto-Indo-European *h₁eḱwo-, which was reconstructed on the basis of words from other languages than Greek. Angr 18:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• haglaz is conjectured. It is impossible for anything to more than possibly derive from a "word" whose existence cannot be more than conjectured. Period.

The argument that there must be a common source is also conjecture, not matter how much you demand that it be treated as fact. The theory is perfectly reasonable, but not falsifiable or provable, so it remains conjecture. Robert Ullmann 14:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

"It is impossible for anything to more than possibly derive from a 'word' whose existence cannot be more than conjectured." Sorry, this is simply a non sequitur. The word *haglaz is conjectured precisely because the words hail, Hagel, etc. exist. I cannot prove the existence of my great-great-great-great-grandfather, because the records are missing, but I can certainly plausibly conjecture his existence. Once his existence has been conjectured, it's absurd to say I am "possibly" descended from him; I am definitely descended from a person whose existence is only conjectured. Angr 15:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

But once you give him a purported name, even if vague, it becomes possibly. It is precisely this sort of extreme POV argument that causes people to want to just get rid of all the proto- stuff entirely.

No, that's not true. If I say "I don't know my ggggrandfather's name, but I'll call him Theobald for convenience", then it's still nonsense to say "I'm probably descended from Theobald". I have to be descended from Theobald, because that's how I've defined that term, even though I can't prove that was actually his name. Let me use another analogy: "Homer" is the name given to the conjectured author of the Iliad and Odyssey. There's no evidence that he ever existed or that his name was Homer or anything; it's just a theory that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed by the same person, and "Homer" is the name given to that person by convenience and tradition. Would you then say "The Iliad was probably written by Homer"? No, of course not; the Iliad has to have been written by Homer, because that's all that "Homer" means: the author of the Iliad and Odyssey. Angr 17:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, this may get changed to " < conjectured Proto- ..." depending on where we are going with ety formats. In the mean time, use of the template is required by policy. Robert Ullmann 16:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Your argument is circular: "hail must descend from *haglaz because *haglaz was created from hail". Yes, you can assume that hail and Hagel each descended from some word, but the idea that they descended from the same word cannot be proved. Cynewulf 16:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

These arguments with PIE proponents are always inane. It is CONJECTURE already.

I never said it wasn't conjecture. I've consistently agreed it's conjecture. The problem is the scope of "probably": it makes sense to say "hail comes from something that was probably *haglaz". It doesn't make sense to say "hail probably comes from *haglaz" because then the implication is that it might come from some other source. It couldn't possibly come from some other source, because *haglaz is nothing more than the name for the source of hail. Angr 17:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Changed the template to "< conjectured" which is a format we seem to be moving toward anyway. Robert Ullmann 17:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Although this is now redundant (since the asterisk already means "conjectured"), at least it's no longer inaccurate. Angr 17:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

That is better. But why is the word not linked anymore? I also think it is a bit pretentious to protect this page. henne 17:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the word is only linked if its page already exists; the template won't create a redlink. As for protection, according to the log, Robert Ullman protected it "because there will be war with PIE POV proponents, forstall it". I don't hang out at Wiktionary very much; apparently "assume good faith" doesn't hold here as it does at Wikipedia. Angr 17:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure we assume good faith; but the PIE proponents utterly broke that, which is why we had to go around through a formal policy procedure over a month to arrive back where we were before their bad faith actions. Took many, many hours to accomplish little beyond codifying the existing consensus practice. Among other things it took several blocks and page protects. Robert Ullmann 20:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It certainly seems like an assumption of bad faith when the only linguist to be concerned with this template (namely me) did not edit the template itself to his preferred version, even though it was still unprotected at the time, but rather brought up his concerns on the talk page. I wasn't around during the preceding drama and only just discovered Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2006-12/PIE by chance a few days ago, but there it certainly looks like the "PIE proponents" have community consensus, as well we should. To suggest that all trace of PIE be removed from Wiktionary is essentially to suggest that all etymological information be removed; after all, the claim that Old English hægl is derived from Proto-Germanic *haglaz is no more conjectural than the claim that Modern English hail is derived from Old English hægl, even though the PGmc word is not attested and the OE word is. All serious dictionaries include etymological information, however conjectural it may be; why should Wiktionary be any different? Angr 21:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You are aware that that vote was dropped almost immediately for the vote that did take effect? (although that vote was allowed to continue) (See WT:VOTE). You weren't here, and were not the problem. (Yes, you brought this issue to this talk page; no problem there.) Another user, not you, had to be blocked and several pages protected after repeatedly trying to force his POV on the community. The issue is that this is all too common with the reconstructed language proponents (and I'm not even touching on the competing theories). Robert Ullmann 21:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

All well but, pardon me, the template is a mess. Maybe if you wrote some documentation, I could see the wood through the trees, but now it just does strange things. For example: why not red link the word (‘word’ if you want)? Some ‘PIE proponent’ might well add the entry in the appendix where it links to. And what are those 4th, 5th and 6th parameters good for? If it is to be able to give more forms, then why clutter the template with it; just use the template more than once.

I also think the ‘< conjectured’ should be moved out and rather be demanded that a wording of this kind be used since now it is very unpractical to use the template: one has to think trice (does that word exist? hm yes, but not with the meaning I had in mind) to make the etymology section look like a real sentence now. henne 23:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Were you thinking of thrice? Angr 23:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, exactly! Thanks. henne 16:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It did allow three references, with an easy extension to more, before you changed it to add a "second" parameter for the "meaning". So rather than undo your change, I made parameters (1, 2) do what you wanted, and (3, 4), and (5, 6) provide the same again, without haing to repeat "< conjectured Proto-European" or whatever if there are 2 or 3 forms? You want to use the template more than once, you get the essential policy boilerplate repeated. (I don't think you want that?). Robert Ullmann 21:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but I see two possibilities:

• a word is conjectured to be derived from some term, which is on its turn conjectured to be derived from another term
• a word is conjectured to be derived from multiple related terms.

in the first case, one would want to use the template twice, right? I think the second case is so seldom, it is not useful to add extra params for that.

This (second case) occurs fairly often, I think I found it on the third or fourth page I looked at ;-) Robert Ullmann 12:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, there is a problem with words which are themselves proto-forms: मनस् now looks like rubbish, as does haglaz (but note that this is not and should not be Appendix:Proto-Germanic *haglaz); and with words in old languages which are directly conjectured to be derived from proto-forms, as in lēaf (yes, I have to re-merge that with leaf). All in all, I think the template needs to be slimmed down, or you’ll have a hell of a time trying to catch up all possible use cases. henne 11:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Having finally gotten back to this, simplified. You can ignore the repeat params if you don't find them useful Robert Ullmann 12:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Please split up the template, or reword, or enforce policy, or...

Another example where the current template is unusable: lah#Old English. H. (talk) 13:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I was going to wait until someone sorted out whether we were going to use From ... from ... from, or From ... < ... < or whatever, but that discussion either stopped or I haven't caught whatever happened. Should be Wiktionary:Etymology that defines it, but it was going to change? Or something. I'll chase it. Robert Ullmann 13:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

"conjectured"

Er...is the "conjectured" bit really necessary? It looks ridiculous. Anyway, that's what the asterisk means. Widsith 08:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That is what the asterisk means to you (and most of us). To most readers, it is utterly meaningless. Anyway, I changed it while fixing other things. Robert Ullmann 12:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

comma before gloss

Is it really necessary? {{term}} doesn't use it. Like {{term}}, this is supposed to be used in running text. So

• {{term|a||b}} -> (deprecated template usage) a
• {{proto|Slavic|a|b}} -> Proto-Slavic *a, ("b")

I would've fixed this by myself, but if anyone has anything against it .. It's not a big deal, just annoying :P --Ivan Štambuk 22:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

yes, fixed that; I still need to either copy the exact form from term or call term. Robert Ullmann 16:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Make Language link and category optional

Can we make a) the Language link and b) the Category inclusion optional? (a) In etymology sections sometimes two PIE terms are listed consecutively and it is awkward to show Proto-Indo-European before each. (b) Sometimes you want to mention a word in a protolanguage that isn't an ancestor term (e.g. on eoh#Old English) and therefore shouldn't categorize the page. Should okay? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If there is more than one, repeat the second and third parameters. Have to look at the cat. Robert Ullmann 19:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

For disabling implicit categorization, either an extra nocat-like parameter could be added to the template, another {term}-like template could be made that would call {term}, or {term}'s lang= parameter could be overloaded to support proto-terms in Appendix namespace (e.g. {{term|īhaz|lang=Proto-Germanic}} - it would prepend asterisk implicitly, and use sc=unicode - that would eliminate {{PIE}} and similar). And maybe also there couldbe made a few Template:proto:xx mimicking Template:lang:xx, so that lang= would support common abbreviations, expanding "PIE" to "Proto-Indo-European", PSl to "Proto-Slavic", "PGmc" to "Proto-Germanic" etc. That would save a lot of typing. Conflict with ISO language codes could be evaded by uppercasing the first letter. --Ivan Štambuk 18:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Gee, I think you could make it even more complicated if you tried a little harder ... Robert Ullmann 09:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Use lang=. Robert Ullmann 10:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Repeating the 2nd and 3rd parameters does work, though since onecan't add text in between the two terms it is awkward to use. I don't understand, though, how specifying the lang=xx parameter will keep from adding a category. It looks like it will still add a category (albeit an xx:YYY derivations one. I want to be able to remove all implicit categorization. For instance on eoh#Old English, the Etymology section mentions that eoh 's PIE ancestral term also the ancestral root of Proto-Baltic *ečwā. So how should I mention this Proto-Baltic term w/o {{proto}} categorizing the page somehow as having a Proto-Baltic ancestry, which it doesn't? Thanks. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Use literally lang=, i.e. don't specify any language at all --Ivan Štambuk 20:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Now the lightbulb went on. Thanks! --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm running into more needs for a no title option. If there's no categorical reason for disallowing the title to be hidden, I'd like to change to beginning

[[Proto-{{{1}}}]] ...

to:

{{#if: {{{notitle|}}}||[[Proto-{{{1}}}]]}} ....

Thanks. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Um, can you show me cases? And not use it for a bit; there is a better way to do the parameter. Robert Ullmann 18:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I changed it to title=, so you can use something else. Or it can be blank, but that probably means something is wrong with the way it is being used. Robert Ullmann 18:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't used the template the way I had it. Thanks for the change, that is more general. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Also found this useful in babiche, for "Proto-Algonquian *aʔlapa·py, *aʔlapa·pyi, from *aʔlapy- (“net”) + *-a·py (“string”". —Michael Z. 2008-05-10 20:36 z

Make first parameter optional

Could we make a way to use the template without the actual constructed root? Take stot#Etymology_2 for example. I'm trying to format it with the template, but there is no root given (and I don't know it). Many thanks. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 15:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added this functionality to the template. Now the first root (Parameter 2) functions as all the rest do, i.e. not entering it causes proto to simply leave it blank. Please feel free to tweak my coding, as I will be the first to admit I am still a novice at this. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 21:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Italicized term

Is there a reason why we don't italicize the reconstructed term? Most unattested terms in non-"proto" languages (if you want to make that distinction) are formatted as *''term''. If there's no good reason, it'd be nice to conform. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 10:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Solved (see Template_talk:proto#Italicized_term). --Bequw → τ 05:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Um...this is Template_talk:proto#Italicized_term. Ƿidsiþ 09:33, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Ooops. I meant Template talk:unicode#Support for alternate faces. --Bequw → τ 14:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The reason why it shouldn't be italicized:

1. The asterisk already introduces use-mention distinction and there is no need to emphasize it futher.
2. Lots of special characters used in reconstructions are illegible or hard to read when italicized.

--Ivan Štambuk 10:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

1. The asterisk is not that informative to most users. I've seen many cases where the editor saw that {{proto}} did not italicize (like *''blah'' or *{{term||blah}}) and added explicit formatting so that proto language and non-proto language unattested terms were presented uniformly.
2. Most of the ones I checked looked fine. Do you have some examples? Can we pick a better font?

--Bequw → τ 14:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

If the asterisk is not informative enough by itself, perhaps it should be linked to * (directly to the appropriate definition line). Reconstructions themselves can never be used in spoken language, so it doesn't make sense to introduce use/mention distinction for them. Users who italicize them do so by inertia and apparent lack of uniformity in formatting, not because it makes sense to do so.

In my browser (Internet Explorer 8): italicized h₁h₂h₃ (used for "laryngeals" in Proto-Indo-European) look a lot worse than unitalizied <h₁h₂h₃>. In particular, subscript numbers are hardly legible. Wrapping them in {{unicode}} makes no difference. --Ivan Štambuk 23:18, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Always link to appendix pages

I was thinking that rather than linking to the appendix page only if it exists, why not always link, but show red links as black to avoid changing its appearance. That way, it saves typing in the whole page name (Appendix:Proto-blah-blah:name) especially useful if all you want to do is create a redirect for two equivalent forms. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:02, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

What I'm proposing is this, for the link to appear in black (not red) when the appendix doesn't exist, but for the link to be clickable to create the appendix, instead of typing out the tricky page name by hand. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Added. --Bequw → τ 02:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

There are a bunch of broken links after this change. Do all subscript characters exist? I couldn't find one for 'a' (needed for apple). Nadando 22:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

How about ( ₐ ) pulled from w:Subscript_and_superscript#Unicode? I've also started using ( ₓ ). --Bequw → τ 02:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

And here is a list. Nadando 23:24, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Alt2 Display Forms

Hi. Can we add an optional display form, like that used in template:term for each lemma argument? Oftentimes, I add a lemma to proto that consists of component parts like the one seen here. I would like to link to *sēna, but show *sē-na.

Secondly, can we add POS= (Part of Speech)? I would like to distinguish "personal pronoun", "suffix", etc.

Can these be done? Leasnam 01:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Added pos=, lowercase to match the pos parameter in template:term.​—msh210℠ (talk) 07:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Works good. Leasnam 15:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Black links

Why does this template produce black links when the page doesn't exist? Why not just use the normal red links? --Yair rand 00:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Proto with language name ??

Is this template suppose to have Category:Proto with language name in it? It seems like a very strange category to me. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

It was a cleanup category for when there were still other uses. —CodeCat 02:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

It causes it to appear in ртуть, but it seems out of place there. Does it mean that something in ртуть needs to be cleaned up? —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

But now it’s vanished. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:46, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

RFD discussion

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

---

This has almost been orphaned now, replaced by {{etyl}} and {{recons}}. There are 7 transclusions left, which are for proto-languages that have no code yet. If they are fixed (and codes created for them) then this template can be deleted. —CodeCat 16:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Delete. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 01:06, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Why was {{proto}} replaced? What was wrong with it? --Pereru (talk) 11:42, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

See this. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 13:17, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Keep, more efficient to use proto than to use etyl followed by recons. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how. Unless you mean it's less typing... which is a really bad argument. —CodeCat 11:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I did mean typing, however it's also possible to get the languages wrong using etyl and recons by having them not match, not so with proto. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

So you are arguing that we should do the same with all other uses of {{etyl}}? Replace it with a proto-like template that includes both in one? The idea behind deleting {{proto}} is to have a single common format for all etymologies, instead of one for proto-languages and another for all the others. If you somehow believe they should be different that is fine, but I really don't see any benefit from that. —CodeCat 16:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I would support merging etyl with term in some kind of new template. I agree with the deletion of {{proto}} but I think we should have gone in the opposite direction. DTLHS (talk) 05:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• Keep as long as there are still those 7 transclusions. —Angr 19:45, 15 October 2012 (UTC) See updated vote below. —Angr 15:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

  They can be easily orphaned by creating language codes for them. It's not really a big issue. —CodeCat 19:47, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

  But there will be more- or at least the need for them. What do I do when I want to reference, say, Proto-Taxic, or Proto-Cupan, or maybe even Proto-Northern-Uto-Aztecan in an etymology? Should I just start making up codes? Or is there a procedure for getting them created? Is it something the average editor would know about? Chuck Entz (talk) 06:01, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

  Building on work Daniel did, I've done my best to document our language code system at WT:LANGCODES. We certainly could create codes for all these proto-languages, and we probably should. I imagine it won't even be that difficult, because we should already have (or should create) codes for families like Northern-Uto-Aztecan, which would make creating the code for Proto-Northern-Uto-Aztecan a cinch. If a proto language doesn't have a corresponding family, it should be looked at closely anyway (but can still get a code in the end). - -sche (discuss) 00:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

  Do you think it would be desirable to have a kind of approval process for families? We've already rejected the Altaic languages, but there are a lot of other families out there that are of very doubtful status. We should probably look at the proto-languages of those families in the same instance. A family that has no proto-language by Wiktionary convention is West Germanic, and we call Proto-North Germanic Proto-Norse while Proto-Romance is Vulgar Latin on Wiktionary. So not all families will automatically have proto-languages by definition. —CodeCat 00:24, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

  I agree that not all families have proto-languages; I'm only saying that most proto-languages should have families.

  Penutian was also rejected. I suppose we should have a review process, yes. - -sche (discuss) 01:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• Strong keep. By all means deprecate if that's better (I've read the above and don't understand why it is), but it's been in use for a long time so that editors will still want to use it. There is not even a mention in WT:N4E (which seems not to have been updated since about April) - the only reason I knew about this at all was browsing my contributions history. Maybe after it has been deprecated a couple of years it can be deleted, but until then you'll just end up with redlinks and frustrated editors. Thryduulf (talk) 20:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

This template has now been orphaned. It can be safely deleted. —CodeCat 14:15, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

• Keep but mark as deprecated (in particular, it should no longer say "the use of this template is required by policy"!), per Thryduulf. The template could be edited to display a note along the lines of "this template is deprecated; please use {{etyl}} instead" if anyone tries to use it. —Angr 15:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)See updated vote below. —Angr 10:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

  I don't understand. If it's not being used and we do not want people to use it, why would we keep it? —CodeCat 17:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

  Because as Thryduulf says, it's been around for a long time and indeed its use was policy for a long time. There are doubtless plenty of editors who are unaware that it's been deprecated, and will try to use it. If they see a note saying "this template has been deprecated; please use {{etyl}} and {{recons}} instead", they'll know what to do. If they just see a redlink, they won't know what's going on, or what they're supposed to do instead. —Angr 17:42, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

  We could just mention what to do in the deletion message, though. If they click on the red link, they'll see that. —CodeCat 17:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

  But how will people know that they need to click on a redlink to find out what to do? Most people will just see a redlink and think that something has broken. I certainly wouldn't think to look for instructions like this in a deletion message and I'd be surprised if others did too - most likely they'll either save with a red link or not make the edit - neither of which helps either content or editor retention. The point of deprecation is that it provides a period of transition to avoid breaking things, and in environments like this it also serves to avoid pissing off people and losing editors. Thryduulf (talk) 12:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

  Ok, so what do you suggest we change the template into? Currently, it just transcludes {{etyl}} and {{recons}}, and is fully substable. —CodeCat 12:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

  How about replacing the content with: <span style="font-weight: bold; color: red">This template has been deprecated. Please use {{temp|etyl}} and {{temp|recons}} instead.</span>, rendering as: "This template has been deprecated. Please use {{etyl}} and {{recons}} instead." —Angr 16:38, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

  I think "This template ({{proto}})..." would be better, but that's the only improvement on your suggestion I can think of. Thryduulf (talk) 00:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

• It's been almost six months, so I no longer have any objection to the template's being deleted. I have already replaced the documentation subpage with the deprecation notice I mentioned above. —Angr 10:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• Deprecate and eventually delete. CodeCat's talk above of "a single common format for all etymologies, instead of one for proto-languages and another for all the others" almost makes me want to keep it — we treat proto-languages fundamentally differently from attested languages, and that applies here as much as anywhere else — but fortunately the plan really is to continue distinguishing them, by using {{recons}} instead of {{term}}. —Ruakh_TALK 00:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I feel like this is like rfding {{feminine of}} as redundant to {{form of|feminine}}. It's a regressive move, trying to replace a template with two templates. What next? Replacing it with four templates, or just saying 'redundant to writing it out in wikisyntax'? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 4 November 2012 (UTC)