Talk:Navajo language/GA1

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GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: Maunus (talk · contribs) 03:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]


The article seems broad in its coverage, balanced, etc. I've done a mini-PeerReview below. Feel free to disagree with any statement in the review, or to revert any of my copyedits; not everything in this review is necessary to pass GA.

Lead[edit]

  • No pronunciation guide for "Navajo"?
  • The language contains a fairly large phoneme inventory: in colloquial usage, "fairly" can mean "somewhat" or "quite", so this statement will come across as meaning anywhere from "somewhat larger than average" to "quite larger than average". Is "contains a fairly large phoneme inventory" insufficient?
    • When this comes up later in the article, I think it would be good to tell the reader the number of phonemes, and the average number of phonemes for languages (and English?) to give an idea of what "large" signifies.
  • it includes several uncommon consonants (that are not found in English): I'd drop the parentheses
  • contains both nasal and non-nasal versions: I'd link Nasal vowel
  • is quite phonetic: rather than phonemic?
  • I'm pretty sure "phonetic" is the correct term; do you have examples of the opposite usage? Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am pretty sure it is not correct to say that it is phonetic, the script as far as I can see is almost entirely each letter representing a phoneme rather than a phone. In anycase the section on orthography doesn't mention either phonemic or phonetic so the statement is not supported.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough; I'll nix it. Tezero (talk) 21:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Or (assuming the sources support it) you could say something like "spelling is regular and reflects pronunciation", which is clearer to a layreader anyways. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • beyond easy recognition: beyond easy recognition even for a native speaker?
  • Well... what would you suggest? Tezero (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • with similar irregularity: "irregularity" wasn't stated earlier in the sentence---recast to make it clear?
  • The language does not have grammatical gender: if it did, it would be worth mentioning, but if it doesn't, I'd drop it from the lead. I mean, there are so many other language features Navajo doesn't have, right? Articles, honorifics...

History[edit]

  • The phenomenon of tone in the Athabaskan family evolved independently in all of its subgroups: this is sudden, and seems to take for granted that the reader would know that these languages have tone.
  • that pronounced these glottalic consonants differently: has it been positied how they were pronounced?
  • with which it predictably shares a similar tonal scheme: "predictably" as in "you would have guessed they shared it", or as in "you can predict what tone one language will have based on what the other has"?
  • Mainly the first one. I've just removed that word, though. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Navajo's land was initially colonized by the Spaniards: when?
  • of its impenetrable grammar: not literally impenetrable?
  • I just ended up removing that word, as I couldn't think of another that was culturally neutral enough. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • no Navajo dictionaries existed at the time: no Navajo-German or Navajo-Japanese dictionaries, or none at all?
  • None at all, I think. Not published, anyway, which I've noted. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • during its associated war: meaning World War II?
  • In this case, yes, but the source said it was the only code never deciphered during whichever war the code was in - Navajo was more than just the only code not deciphered during WWII. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • and English-language radio broadcast to tribal areas: I had to read this twice---at first blush, "broadcast" comes across as a noun
  • although its large speaker pool: how "large" is "large"?
  • Figures aren't given in the source, but I've added an explanation. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moreover, federal acts passed in the 1950s to increase educational opportunities for Navajo children had resulted in pervasive use of English in their schools.: after being told that Navajo was "better off than most", the reader will expect this "Moreover" to introduce another reason the language was resilient
  • 18 spoke only Navajo: 18 percent or 18 children?
  • English-only campaigns in the late 1990s: is there something good to link to here?
  • Haven't been able to find anything. Tezero (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In recent years: this'll date easily

Phonology[edit]

  • hard columns (such as {{col-2}}) is not as friendly to the wide variety of browsers and screen sizes and orientations. {{div-col}} allows you to specify an appropriate column width, which the browser adjusts automatically to an appropriate number of columns. Having said that, it's perhaps not a good idea to column-ize this if there's no semantic reason for it, especially when you're putting tables into columns.
  • I only did it because the vowel table is so tiny. I've tried your way out with a 40em colwidth; does that work? (My window size isn't that large, so I can't tell how it might look on a bigger monitor.) Tezero (talk) 19:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I understand the motivation, but I think accessibility trumps aesthetics. It looks fine now. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar[edit]

  • for example, there is only a plural marker (da/daa): I don't understand---this is an example of a null prefix?
  • No, there's a null prefix for the singular and dual numbers. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • revealing a large amount of information: or "imparting" or something? "revealing" sounds strange to me.
  • Is it not worth linking the headwords for Modes and Aspects?
  • What do you mean "headwords"? They're already linked to "grammatical mood" and "grammatical aspect", Curly Turkey. Tezero (talk) 19:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • give the same stem: maybe "share"? I had to think for a second to figure out what "give" was expressing.
  • mode/aspect: should avoid the slash per MOS:SLASH, but I'm not sure the best way to handle it
  • mósí doo nitsaa da – the cat is not big: I think glosses are supposed to be in single or double quotes (I don't think it's been settled which, or if either are acceptable)---somethink like mósí doo nitsaa da "the cat is not big"
  • may use pronouns at length: I think I know what you're trying to say, but I don't think "at length" makes it clear
  • They may also use paralinguistic techniques to convey noun information, such as speaking in a consistently nasal voice to represent coyotes: does this mean they can avoid using nouns if they speak in a nasal?
  • In some contexts. Not the best example, I guess, but another one wasn't given. Should I just remove it? Tezero (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • there is no need to decline them for number: can they be declined for number?
Generallty I would use inflect instead of decline, decline and declension is mostly used when describing Indo-European case languages.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:02, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, okay. Done. Tezero (talk) 04:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • no examples of nouns? Do they have no morphology, for example?
  • Navajo has a fairly small pool of noun roots that are modified by a small set of affixes, as I've just added. I'm not really sure how a morphology-bereft noun would work, unless one morpheme as is the case in isolating languages counts... Tezero (talk) 03:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • could we get some example sentences displaying different grammatical features?
  • I know there's a separate Navajo grammar article, but I still feel like this section is knda thin.
  • In addition to the bit about nouns, I've added information on the use of classifiers, which wasn't there before; I think all of the prefix types for verbs are covered now. The section should be fleshed out a little as I add examples of the important parts. Tezero (talk) 03:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Some linguists such as Eloise Jelinek considers Navajo to have free word order, and has argued that it should be considered a pronominal argument language with discourse based syntactic configuration. This is a well known argument in the literature and linguists will be surprised to read that Navajo is unambiguously classified as SOV.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:12, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well... you've added that, so thanks. I just fixed up the citation for consistency. (I REALLY want this to be done, so I'm just kinda plowing through.) Tezero (talk) 19:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From my point of view that is the wrong attitude. It is not a piece of homework you need to do to be able to write a check mark on a list, but a question about writing a good article for others to read. It is completely OK to say that you didnt imagine it would be this much work and you dont have the energy, time or interest to get it done - we are all volunteers here. But for me the goal is to make sure the article is as good as possible, giving readers a fair and accurate summary of what linguists have written about Navajo.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:51, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I know it's important for it to be good. I just have other projects I want to be able to start in good conscience. I'm looking for good example sentences and stuff right now. Tezero (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There is no shame in letting the nomination lapse now and renominate it again later when you have the time and interest. You did carve out a big bite for yourself with so many concurrent nominations.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'll consider it as a last resort, but since I've come so far I'd like to keep it afloat. Actually, now that I'm back at college, I can see what our university library has on Navajo. Tezero (talk) 20:55, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've just started working on revamping the Grammar section, held currently in my tempspace, so don't think I've abandoned this. Goes for Czech, too. Curly Turkey Maunus Tezero (talk) 15:22, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Orthography[edit]

  • Navajo keyboards were made available for iOS devices in November 2012 and Android devices in August 2013.: I assume these were virtual keyboards?
  • written as h, but appears as x after the consonants s or h': what happens when x follows h, then?
  • I'm kinda stuck here. That's in the source, but I don't know of any circumstances where you'd want to express a double "h" sound (Navajo doesn't do double-consonants at all), yet the source doesn't mention the necessity of adding "x" after "z" to disambiguate from "zh". What do you suggest? Tezero (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
When in doubt, read more. This book discusses Navajo orthography extensively.[1]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here are two more that go into details on the development of different orthographies and how they have been used in Navajo education.[2][3]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I could've sworn I'd already looked through The Navajo Sound System for about all it was worth... Alright, I think I can make do with all this. Thanks. Tezero (talk) 23:42, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the description of the Young and Morgan orthography in McDonoyugs book it is neither fully phonemic nor mostly phonetic, it underrepresents some phonemic contrasts and overrepresent others. It does represent some allophonic variation such as consonant voicing. This means that it is a specific challenge to the article to describe the differences and relations between the phonemic and the Morgan Young orthography (which seems to be the current standard).User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be worth starting an article on Navajo orthography? Perhaps the "challenging" parts could be delegated there, where it could be gone into in detail (along with more in-depth descriptions of failed earlier attempts), while this article could simply sum up the important birdseye-view aspects. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is not a bad idea, but in order to find out what is important birdseye view aspects and what are minor details the author needs to start by having a full overview.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • the use of an acute accent for vowels with a high tone was taken from French.: this seems to imply that the acute diacritic is used to represent high tones in French. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this is also clearly wrong as acute accent is pretty much the standard way to write high tone in the worlds languages. Also used in IPA.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not making it up. The source says it was taken from French; I don't know what you want me to do. Polish doesn't use the barred-L for the same sound, either. Tezero (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Spolsky source cites Morgan and Young, McDonough gives a detailed description of Morgan and Youngs orthography so I would look at Morgan and Young and McDonough and see if they corroborate the statement. When in doubt, do more research.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be a good idea to give examples of the diacritics, rather than just describe them. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand. Navajo text, used throughout the article, includes diacritics. Tezero (talk) 19:32, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Give an example of how they look when you describe the diacritics.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:40, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean "how they look"? It's just a standard acute accent; I've never seen that further "described" anywhere else. What would you suggest here? Tezero (talk) 06:43, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe youre right, since in fact all the other diacritics mentioned in the section actually do have examples following them.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:48, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Images[edit]

  • Other images fine

General[edit]

  • {{reflist|3}}: again, it's better to use |colwidth=??em rahter than a hard number of columns, as it's friendlier to the wide variety of screens out there.
  • Definitely not needed for GA (or even FA), but I think it would be great if a sound file could be provided for the Sample text (it would be nice to have that in all the language articles, actually), especially as the language is touted as one whose phonology is so different from English. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I found something for a single word that demonstrates a few features English doesn't have: the ɬ sound, nasalization, and tones. Couldn't find anything of the entire passage, though. Tezero (talk) 21:00, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

———Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:29, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the detailed review; I'll start these tomorrow. Another watcher of this article has brought up the Grammar section issue before, and I just haven't gotten around to fully expanding it yet. Tezero (talk) 05:35, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Curly Turkey, it's been a few days now since the Czech article, which had been keeping me busy, passed. I absolutely do not have the time for this tonight because I have to fervently catch up on a class I've missed a few assignments for as a result of being out-of-down and poorly organized on top of that. Nor will I tomorrow because I have to create some sound and music files for a project my friends and I are working on. The grammar section does need to be fleshed out with more examples and stuff, I agree, but it would be irresponsible to simply substitute in the old grammar section (now the separate Navajo grammar article) as it's completely unsourced and far too detailed. I do want to finish this up at some point, because I don't like starting projects and leaving them to flounder, but if I haven't at least started fixing up the Grammar section by midnight on Friday (i.e. between Friday and Saturday), feel free to fail this GAN and I'll pick it up when I actually have time. Tezero (talk) 23:02, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was puzzling around about what to do about the lack of details about morphology for a while, but I've found a couple of very helpful sources and I'll be working stuff from them in now. Tezero (talk) 01:01, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, Curly Turkey, what do you think now? I've added explanations of the functions of everything, with examples of conjugated verbs and short sentences, and there's also some more information in the later part of History section. Think it's ready to go? Tezero (talk) 23:00, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While I am not reviewing this article I would advise against promoting yet. The classificatory verbs are not really dealt with with clarity, there are no examples of transitive verbs and the inflection of objects, and generally the treatment doesnt separate out sufficient types of inflection or what categories are marked, and how. It doesnt feel very coherent to me. There are some odd english usages "singeing", "being singed". Nothing on syntax except for basic word order. What about mood? Passive? Sentence coordination/subordination? he list of modes and aspects are not informative without examples of their usage.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:28, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot all about these comments. Anyway, Maunus, I'm not really sure if most of your proposed changes are necessary. I mean, looking at Nahuatl, one of your own FAs on a Native American language, it gives nothing about sentence coordination/subordination and only fleeting mentions of mood, aspect, and the passive voice (in addition to the copious unsourced statements, which admittedly aren't a content issue) - and that's for a language without a dedicated grammar article. (There's one for Classical Nahuatl's, but supposedly modern varieties' differ.) I can add examples or clarify wording if you have specific points that need it. Tezero (talk) 02:20, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There is a huge difference exactly in that Nahuatl is not one language but a group of many languages with different grammatical and phonological systems. The Nahuatl article nonetheless does give a full overview of the grammatical categories shared by all of the varieties and their uses. I would encourage you to look at the Greenlandic article as more comparable to the Navajo article. It is also a possible choice to write a grammar section that is comprehensive but shallow (as the one in Nahuatl), but it has to give a full view of the language's structure not just picking out random elements and leaving out other ones. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:36, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, Jesus, I'm really sorry, I totally forgot this review was still open. I don't really have the time to go through it again this week (busy with no-WP things), and after all this time I think I'd have to go through the whole article again to see whether it's really at GA level. Honestly, I should have closed it after a week in the first place. Unless Maunus wants to take over, I think I should archive it so Tezero can put it up again for a proper review. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:42, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Curly Turkey:, I can take over the review if you like. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:24, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that. I wonder if the bots would recognize it if you just replaced my name with yours at the top of the review. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:33, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I forgot all about this. As I found out this past week, we have a Navajo grammar at my university for whatever else you want me to fill out. Tezero (talk) 20:45, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which one? I am a little surprised that you apparently havent had a navaho grammar available during your previous work here.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:47, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's Young 1987. Anyway, I did have it earlier, but that was before the school year started. That's the main reason I've done so little since late August. Tezero (talk) 21:04, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, great. I will start a comprehensive review later today.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:38, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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