Wiktionary:Votes/2019-12/Banning Proto-Albanian entries

Banning Proto-Albanian entries

Voting on: Banning the creation Proto-Albanian entries, whilst still permitting reconstructions in etymologies.

Schedule:

• Vote starts: 00:00, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
• Vote created: {{victar|talk}} 20:45, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Others#Category:Proto-Albanian_lemmas
• Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium#Proto-Albanian

Support

1. Support Proto-Albanian reconstructions are arbitrary, and just as we don't create entries for Proto-Armenian, they should be equally forbidden. --{{victar|talk}} 07:34, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
2. Support --Vahag (talk) 08:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
3. Support Fay Freak (talk) 13:42, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
4. Support, they just become hotbeds for never-ending controversies. --Robbie SWE (talk) 17:29, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

   Incredibly weak argument. Just sayin. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 17:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

   Weak or not, it's still my opinion and the other people supporting this proposition make even more compelling arguments. --Robbie SWE (talk) 00:09, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

5. Support Even though I created these entries, I support the idea of moving them to the Albanian entry's etymology section under the label "Early Proto-Albanian". Kwékwlos (talk) 07:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

   Why not just "early Albanian"? Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

   'Early Albanian' does not refer to the proto language, but the modern one. ArbDardh (talk) 17:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)ArbDardh

6. Support With only one language, there is no common ancestor to reconstruct. —Rua (mew) 15:05, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
7. Support per Rua. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 02:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
8. Support per Rua. I don't know much about Albanian, but I don't see how you could reconstruct a language based on one language alone. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:15, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. HeliosX (talk) 19:23, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
2. Oppose. ArbDardh (talk) 19:47, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
3. Oppose. Torvalu4 (talk) 16:04, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
4. Oppose. I don't have any preference one way or the other, but after reading the discussion I must say that the arguments provided by the ban-supporters are not convincing. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 17:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

   @Allahverdi Verdizade: At risk of sounding like a broken record, the reconstructions are arbitrary. What stage do we reconstruct when comparative methodology of proto languages is thrown out the window? Orel contrives some golden 1st century period, but we have no idea what "Proto-Albanian" really looked like then. As a result, his reconstructions are also most often not in agreement with those of Demiraj, so even if you buy into this romantic fantasy, we have no standard to speak of. It's really just an ill-conceived sudo-scientific mess. --{{victar|talk}} 03:03, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

   @Allahverdi Verdizade: Could you reply here, per our conversation on Discord? --{{victar|talk}} 05:37, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Despite the fact that the reconstructions precede Gheg-Tosk split, I am still not convinced they are not legit based on borrowings from Latin and Greek. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 13:12, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

1. Oppose If the reconstructions are considered to be unreliable and insufficiently scientific, they should not appear in etymologies of Albanian entries either, but the vote proposes that they be allowed in etymologies. Surely, we do not want claims sourced to pseudoscience in the mainspace; the vote proposer suggests the Proto-Albanian reconstructions are "sudo-scientific mess". --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

   @Dan Polansky: If you think that "Proto-Albanian" reconstructions should be banned from etymologies as well, you should vote yes on this and start a follow up vote. By voting no, you're supporting the creation of more entries. --{{victar|talk}} 05:35, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

   By voting oppose, I am opposing the proposal as written, no more and no less, consistent with my reasoning above. I do not know whether Proto-Albanian is pseudoscience. If Proto-Albanian is pseudoscience, it would be good to collect reliable sources that say so, or at least some sources that say so. As the initiator, you can create a follow-up vote that bans Proto-Albanian altogether, consistent with your claim that Proto-Albanian is pseudoscience. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:42, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

   @Dan Polansky: I understand what you're doing, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A vote to ban Proto-Albanian altogether has a much poorer chance in passing so this is the only vote that will be created on this issue. --{{victar|talk}} 06:45, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

   Re: "A vote to ban Proto-Albanian altogether has a much poorer chance in passing": I don't know why that would be so. If Proto-Albanian can be shown to be pseudoscience or at least not reliable enough (e.g. too tentative) for the English Wiktionary standards, it has to go altogether. Being banned altogether is what happened to Altaic or Proto-Altaic in Wiktionary:Votes/2019-01/Banning Altaic, while there was an older vote that did not pass: Wiktionary:Votes/2013-11/Proto-Altaic.

   Re: "this is the only vote that will be created on this issue": My guess would be that someone will create another vote if the present vote fails; we'll see. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:29, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

   Just read the discussions and the votes here. Your oppose vote is a vote for Proto-Albanian. It's really as simple as that. --{{victar|talk}} 07:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

   We've clarified that already: "By voting oppose, I am opposing the proposal as written, no more and no less". --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:14, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

   ~@Dan Polansky In cases like these, people usually abstain. I think that's probably the best way for you to voice your concerns without making it difficult to get rid of Proto-Albanian. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Abstain

1. Abstain I just don't know enough about the issue to make a decision. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:45, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

   Abstain Let me abstain at this point and provide some notes:

   1) There is Wikipedia:Proto-Albanian language, referencing mostly Orel: Orel, Vladimir (2000). A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian and Orel, Vladimir (1998). Albanian etymological dictionary.

   2) Apart from Orel, "scholars like Demiraj, Schumacher, Matzinger and others" are mentioned by Florian Blaschke as sources for Proto-Albanian, in Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others#Category:Proto-Albanian lemmas.

   3) Category:Proto-Albanian lemmas has 84 lemmas.

   4) An example Proto-Albanian form is Reconstruction:Proto-Albanian/ainja, which has as descendants the Old Albanian nja, and Albanian një. Another example is Reconstruction:Proto-Albanian/aktṓ, from which Albanian etë is descended. In Reconstruction:Proto-Albanian/balgā, Old Albanian baljëgë is given as a descendant from which further descendants are derived, Albanian, Italian, Romanian, and Serbo-Croatian. None of the pages has any reference. balgā was created on 15 April 2012‎; the other two are from 2019‎.

   5) The prefix "Proto-" in "Proto-Albanian" refers to the the forms being unattested and reconstructed. (Trivial for most readers, but anyway.)

   6) If Proto-Albanian forms get separate pages, references can be added to them. If they don't, inline references can be added to Proto-Albanian items in etymology chains in Albanian entries or Old Albanian entries.

   7) Separate pages for Proto-Albanian can get inflection tables if such information could be sourced.

   8) The languages or dialects descended from Proto-Albanian include Gheg and Tosk. "Gheg and Tosk are different enough that you can, indeed, make meaningful reconstructions", said Chuck Entz. In the English Wiktionary, Gheg and Tosk are treated as parts of single Albanian language. Going by ISO 639-3 codes, the descendants would be "Arbëresh (aae), Arvanitika (aat), Gheg (aln), and Tosk (als)", per Mahāgaja. Examples of Gheg vs. Tosk can be found in Wikipedia:Gheg Albanian#Examples and Wikipedia:Albanian dialects#Comparison; some further reading is Albanian language # Dialects, britannica.com.

   --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

   Orel has done some work on Proto-Albanian inflection in his Concise Historical Grammar... If the opportunity arises, it could indeed be possible to create such inflection tables as per his reconstructions. ArbDardh (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2020 (UTC)ArbDardh