Talk:Chono language

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Not the same and not putative

Hello. (I'm sorry for my English.) This article is about two languages: putative "Caucahué" and Chono. Language of Caucahué people remains unknown, it could be Chono language, but nobody knows it. Chono language is known for this (1975) and many toponyms are atributed to it in historical Chono territory. Please, split it in two articles, one about Kakauhua (name created by Ethnologue?) language and another about Chono. Regards. Lin linao (talk) 16:07, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi. The source of that Wikisource page would be appreciated.

Hammarström (2015) says,

Chono, an extinct isolate language of Southern Chile, is missing [from Ethnologue] (Bausani 1975, Viegas Barros 2005) unless it is the language (unsuccessfully, see below) intended by the Kakauhua [kbf]-entry.

However, I can't find anything "below" that explains this comment. — kwami (talk) 05:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

That page of Wikisource comes from Diccionario lingüístico de Chiloé by Renato Cárdenas, 1994. A slightly different version is available in Itinerario y pensamiento de los jesuitas expulsos de Chile by Walter Hanisch, 1972 (!) that it can be downloaded from Memoria Chilena (I'm not sure about copyright). Off topic: in document copied by Hanisch there is the only linguistic evidence of taijatafes spoke kawésqar, sadly no linguist has seen it. Regards. Lin linao (talk) 06:15, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Below is the line that begins with "E16/E17 Kakauhua [kbf]..." Lin linao (talk) 06:18, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

The ISO code ISO 639:kbf links to Spurious_languages#kbf.

There we have the line Kakauhua [kbf] – Kakauhua/Caucahue is an ethnonym, language unattested – see Alacalufan languages. — kwami (talk) 02:51, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Merge proposal

~~Not merged~~ No consensus. Overall, there is no consensus here to merge Wayteka language into Chono language. The broad sentiment is that the real Chono language and the Wayteka language are distinct topics, even though the latter is sometimes given the same name as the former. As such, merging the two is not appropriate. If editors wish to pursue this further, an WP:AFD at Wayteka language may be appropriate to determine whether content on that topic should exist independently or be redirected elsewhere. — Amakuru (talk) 17:32, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I propose to merge the imaginary Wayteka language here. As-is, the Wayteka article consists of a "vocabulary" (falsified per source provided) and history of "discovery". I see little reason to have a fake vocabulary popularized in an encyclopedia. The fact of 1967 concoction by Llaras Samitier is documented in Wayteka article, but is very short. Samitier himself is apparently non-notable, so there are few, if any indelible marks left by the "language". We already have a sentence here about the fact, it can be slightly expanded during the merge. Викидим (talk) 22:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

oppose - do we have any evidence these are the same language? — kwami (talk) 22:32, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

One of the languages simply does not exist, so no, they cannot be the same language. However, they are both named "Chono", this creates a confusion, and this confusion is documented in the RS. Yes, the RS put this fact into the context of the proper Chono language (cf. Campbell 2012, page 89). We therefore will not do any WP:OR by using a similar text in our Chono article. Викидим (talk) 22:39, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

We don't conflate articles because the topics have the same name. To avoid confusion we use hat notes. — kwami (talk) 23:45, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Imaginary language that did not gain popularity beyond the author and is always discussed in conjunction with another language might be not notable on its own. RS clearly place the languages together, time after time. Yes, in the "do not confuse L2 with L1" context - but repeating this approach here neatly avoids the issue of notability of L2. We do use {{R to related topic}} in our redirects quite frequently. Here L2 and L1 are related IMHO, as linguists always mention L2 in the context of L1. Викидим (talk) 04:42, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

a mention of one in the other is fine. covering both in an ambiguous article is not. — kwami (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

As I have stated on another thread (Talk:Pauxi language#Pawixi), I am dropping out of these discussions altogether. There are many more editors involved in the WP:NPP, some of them will definitely handle the subject of obscure languages better. Sincerely, Викидим (talk) 00:17, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Support – Couldn't find enough RS, most search results are just WP clones. FaviFake (talk) 16:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Comment I am fine with the Wayteka article not existing independently, but I split it out of the Chono article because they are two totally distinct entities, one of which is a real language, and the other fake, and should not be in one article. The data could go to some other relevant article, that is not Chono. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 02:43, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Do you have any alternative targets in mind? FaviFake (talk) 05:19, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

@FaviFakeNo. Anything related to spurious langauges could have a section, but that would not be optimal. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 22:08, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Regardless of whether it has an ISO code, it could have a line at Spurious languages and rd there. Probably no more than a line, but we could state whether the consensus is that it was a hoax. — kwami (talk) 03:00, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

This is what I was thinking earlier. A few sentences would suffice there, although the question of what to do with the remaining data remains. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 13:04, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amakuru Thanks! To clarify, did you find that there was no consensus to merge or consensus not to merge? You used a variation of both expressions. FaviFake (talk) 18:32, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi @FaviFake: thanks for your question. To clarify, I meant no consensus to merge and I've amended the close above to be explicit about that. The thread shows agreement that the topics are distinct, but there's disagreement about whether that should lead to the specific outcome "merge Wayteka into Chono". With that mix of views and limited participation, there wasn’t sufficient agreement to carry out the proposed merge, but there also not a firm consensus against. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 10:50, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

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