Template talk:Infobox language

new parameter for de jure recognition of certain language

Refer to discussion on previous section. I'd like to propose to add the following parameter into the template:

{{{recognition}}}, which create the header of "Recognised language in", this parameter intended to list language that has de jure recognition on certain countries/territories. This parameter shares similarities with the |minority= and |nation= parameters, which specifically list languages recognized as minority languages and those with official status respectively. However, it serves a different function, albeit somewhat akin to the aforementioned parameters. The addition of this new parameter will also address the issue mentioned in the previous section. Ckfasdf (talk) 07:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I assume this is a discussion on what to propose as a change? I think the word 'minority' should be removed entirely because it is open to interpretation. Recognised is far less ambiguous, but de jure is not the same as it is more restrictive. Recognition can come from a treaty, a constitution, a local by-law, which are not necessarily de jure.

The causes of the wider problem come down to 1/ ambiguous words 2/ availability of good sources. 'Official' should be better defined because it can apply to de jure and de facto. I think the simplest is to define it as de jure official. That means countries like the UK and NZ cannot call English an official language, which is both silly and will cause ongoing issues. But, if we have a parameter for 'primary language' the problem is solved because nobody should get irked by have their language as a county's primary language, especially when the alternative is not 'official' but 'official de jure'.

So IMO the new parameters should be in order

Primary language (principle?)

Official (de jure) state language (not national language which can have different meanings)

Recognised other language

This will add one additional parameter and reword the other two. It avoids ambiguous terms (although primary and state could be ambigious and might need some alteration but I can't think what except possibly use 'principle' instead. It also allows for all these other languages recognised at a local level or in some other way, that currently get put into 'minority language'. To use the uk as an example, we would get

Primary language - English

Recognised other languages - Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish etc (Welsh is not UK-wide de jure official)

In NZ we'd get

Primary language - English

Official (de jure) - Maori, NZ sign language

IMO this arrangement is far more workable than the current one. The issue of availability of RSSs because less of an issue as a result of fewer arguments. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be great to have for all countries:

1. Primary/Main (de facto)
2. Official (de jure)
3. Other recognized languages (de jure): but does this one need to be at the national level? Or do we include local languages?

For Spain for instance:

1. Primary: Spanish
2. Official: Spanish (the only one official at the national level)
3. Other recognized languages: none? because they're not recognized at the national level?

Similarly, if one city in Argentina makes Patagonian Welsh its official language, then Welsh should NOT be mentioned on the Argentina article as "Other recognized language". But if the Argentine Parliament decides to give a special status to Welsh, then it should. Correct? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 10:50, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't know the exact situation of Spain or Argentina, but I assume Catalan and Basue have some sort of recognition at a regional level at least. I thought there was a reference to Welsh in Chubut province being recognised in a certain context (whether that recognition came from the state parliament or provincial govt is not relevant if it only applies to Chubut). So in my proposal we would get foe those two countries

Primary language Spanish

Official state-wide (de jure)  ??

Regional Many, incl Welsh

Primary Spanish

Official de jure statewide Spanish

Recognised Catalan, Basque etc

As it stands btw Welsh is noted as a language in Chubut in that article which is silly, there are no L1 speakers there except any that might have arrived from Wales in the last few years. What about all the Italian, Chinese, Arabic, English etc L1 speakers there? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:14, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Err... my proposal is only for this infobox, and this infobox only meant to be used in languages article. IMO, discussion on which language should be put on Country article is a bit out of scope. In case of Spanish language, |nation= will only list countries where Spanish is an de jure official language (Colombia, Spain, Peru, Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, Domincan Republic, Honduras, Paraguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Equitorial Guinea, Puerto Rico), and |recognition= will list countries where Spanish has de jure recognition other than as official language, such as Philipines. Ckfasdf (talk) 01:36, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

You're right. But I've always found "|nation=" confusing. Should it be renamed "official="? Also, I don't see the point of adding a new parameter. Should we change and rename "Minority" instead? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 10:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

In general, I'm okay with changing |nation= to |official=. But I don't know implication of renaming parameter. Also, I'm a bit hesitant to propose renaming |minority= as it might be in use elsewhere (dunno where though). Ckfasdf (talk) 13:52, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

If I'm addressing the wrong talk page, sorry, my mistake. However, about national v official, the point I raised still applies. Neither is suitable because their meanings are both ambiguous so constant confusion will arise. National can mean relating to a sovereign state and to an ethnic group. Official can be according to a written rule or to common usage. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

IMO, for a language to be considered as having official status, there must be specific legislation, an act, or a rule that explicitly states that the language holds official status within a certain country or territory. For example, although English is widely spoken in the US, it's not recognized as the official language because there's no legislation explicitly stating so. Ckfasdf (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

English is recognised as the only official language of the UK and as the main official language in NZ, to give just two examples of many. Neither has anything in writing to make them official. They are treated that way on their wiki pages. All English dictionaries will give the two meanings of official. There is no WP consensus on how to treat the word, it is left up to editors on each article. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 00:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

AFAIK, there is no official recognition de jure for English as the official language of the UK and NZ. However, English does serve as the de facto official language due to its widespread use. However, this discussion might be somewhat beyond the current scope. We could consider opening a separate discussion on this topic. Keep in mind that this section is intended solely to seek consensus on adding a new parameter to address languages that have de jure recognition as anything other than the official language. Ckfasdf (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 February 2024: e27

I've just created {{e27}} (for this) but it looks like something needs to be done here as well. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 12:01, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are requesting, or how it relates to this template — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:48, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi. I'm talking about the "ref" parameter. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 13:01, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Correction of misleading "family-color" groups

According to a search of the archives this has been brought up more than once over the years. Given that “Altaic” is widely rejected as a valid grouping, there should be separate colors at least for Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages. Koreanic and Japonic could get their own colors or use the "isolate" color. عُثمان (talk) 14:05, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 May 2024

Please replace [[Category:Languages with Linglist code]] with [[Category:Language articles with Linglist code]] per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 21#Category:Languages with Linglist code. (Note this is an edit request for {{Infobox language/linguistlist}}, not {{infobox language}}.) Thanks! HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 15:25, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:25, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 June 2024

Can someone please replace http:// with https:// on line 3, per this RfC, because the 'Endangered Languages Project (ELP)' website now supports 'https'? (Note this is an edit request for {{#invoke:Endangered Languages Project}}, not {{infobox language}}.) PK2 (talk) 12:49, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done Sohom (talk) 13:26, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 30 June 2024

Can someone please replace

| data42 = {{#if:{{{lingua|}}}|<code>{{{lingua}}}</code>{{{lingua_ref|}}}}}

with:

| data42 = {{Infobox language/lingualist|1={{{lingua|}}}|2={{{linguaname|}}}}}

and add two parameters {{{lingua2-10}}} and {{{linguaname(1)-10}}}, the template that I just created this afternoon, {{Infobox language/lingualist}} for the parameter regarding the Linguasphere Observatory codes, because it contains a link to the website http://www.hortensj-garden.org/index.php?tnc=1&tr=lsr&nid= and therefore aids verifiability of those codes, add nine more instances of that parameter because some languages and their dialects and linguistic variants have more than one code, both like on the French Wikipedia's version of this template, fr:Modèle:Infobox Langue, remove the parameter {{{lingua_ref}}}, because it's currently used in only one article, 'Shetland dialect', and add another parameter {{{lingua_other_codes}}}, for certain information like how many Linguasphere codes some languages and their dialects and linguistic variants have, and those code's ranges? I made those edits to the sandbox version of this template this afternoon on revisions 1231750403 and 1231754712. PK2 (talk; contributions) 06:30, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:42, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 July 2024

Uralic language color change from lime to #a8fe74 HEX color change suggestion. Talk on this subject under here. Ewithu (talk) 18:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 July 2024

The abbreviations "(B)" and "(T)" that result from using iso2b and iso2t should be explained to readers in some way. The best option, ISTM, is to link the letters to the relevant article text where the difference between the two types of codes is discussed. This can be done by making the following changes in the template code:

•  (B) →  ([[ISO 639-2/B|B]])
•  (T) →  ([[ISO 639-2/T|T]])

These take advantage of existing redirects to that article section, ISO 639-2/B and ISO 639-2/T. Alternatively, the link target ISO 639-2#B and T codes could be used for both, but using the redirects is probably preferable in case the section heading is changed in the future. dcljr (talk) 20:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:42, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Linguistic Classification for Contact Languages

Given that contact languages such as creoles, pidgins, and mixed languages are not universally classified as members of language families (i.e., it is unclear whether they descend from individual protolanguages in the usual manner), should the "Language Family" parameter instead be labeled "Linguistic Classification" to accommodate ambiguous or exceptional cases? Conocephalus (talk) 01:06, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Endangered languages

I wish to request an edit for this template to include the classication of a given language's danger of extiction, given by UNESCO, as described on this article. There are already some articles that hack it in using the |map= paramater (see Adyghe language), but I believe that it should be included for completeness and as a useful metric to gauge a language's healthiness, compare the vulnerability classification on {{Speciesbox}}. Juwan (talk) 12:00, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

pinging @Kwamikagami who contributes to the template and might be interested. Juwan (talk) 12:01, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

IIRC, there's some uneven consensus that we do not include that classification in the infobox. I do not think it adds much concrete information; moreover, something really rubs me the wrong way about presenting sociological data like language vitality identically to biodiversity metrics (though I'm not against the UNESCO schema in itself). It is also not a widely adopted schema IIRC. Remsense ‥ 论 12:05, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense sociological data is something that I look for often and, in my opinion, would better these articles. would you mind explaining a bit more what is your issues and ideas about these types of classifications? the biodiversity metric are only an example of what to think about but it doesn't need to be exactly that! Juwan (talk) 13:46, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

In general, infoboxes are designed to communicate key facts at a glance (cf. WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE); details that are significantly nuanced or require additional context to understand should be omitted. This classification is not quantitative, and is based on specific criteria that are not universally accepted, which is not adequately clear when listed alongside more quantitative or otherwise objective data about a language like number of speakers or uncontroversial phylogenetic relationships. Given this schema is not universally accepted, it requires additional context and thus should be omitted from the infobox in favor of being discussed in prose. Remsense ‥ 论 22:43, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that language vitality is not easily captured by a one-dimensional scale, whether it is the UNESCO scale or the more detailed EGIDS. It fails to include vital aspects such as internal and external language attitudes, degree of bilingualism, presence in mass media, etc. I have observed communities speaking languages that formally appear as 6b on the EGIDS scale, but are more likely to persist than languages classified as 5 and 6a.

Also, as of now, most articles that fell victim to the senseless, disruptive mass-edit stunt of abusing the map-parameter blantantly violate WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, since they don't have a matching prose section about vitality status. Adding a dedicated parameter won't solve the issue, but rather might invite more additions to the infobox mechanically copied from UNESCO Atlas. –Austronesier (talk) 23:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Edit request 29 September 2024

I propose creating new colors for many language families of the Americas at Template:Infobox language/family-color due to the comparatively high load of languages using the "American" color to other colors.

Some language families which could use their own colors are the proposed Penutian and hypothetical Hokan families, other large families in North America, and major families in South America like Macro-Jê and Tupian.

🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 17:36, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Once you have consensus on a specific new color scheme, feel free to re-activate this request by changing the template back to |answered=no --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:16, 30 September 2024 (UTC)