Talk:Proto-Human language

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These are the same article; one should point to the other

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-World_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenesis_(linguistics) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.91.254.207 (talk) 11:28, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Is "Proto-World" frequently used?

The question has been raised whether "Proto-World" is a frequently used expression or not. I asked one of the leading monogenists whether he uses the term. He thinks he might have in some early articles, but is not sure; he does not use it currently. The terms "Proto-Human" (Harold C. Fleming, John Bengtson (2007)) and "Proto-Sapiens" (Merritt Ruhlen, quoted in Bengtson 2007) are actually being used, but Googling "Proto-World" turns up the past Wikipedia article "Proto-World language" (which merely assumes the concept without any references) and various references or copies of it, plus one or two newspaper articles (unreferenced), but no scholarly articles, at least on its first couple of pages of results. The term never occurs in the best-known works advocating monogenesis of recent years, namely Ruhlen 1994a and 1994b and the anthology Sprung from Some Common Source. To the best of my knowledge, it was never used by Joseph Greenberg (I checked the indexes to three or four of his books without finding it). While I can't rule out that detailed scrutiny of other sources might turn up some instances (perhaps back issues of the journal Mother Tongue), evidence that this term is actually in use by proponents of linguistic monogenesis is elusive. In the absence of any evidence that "Proto-World" is actually used (a) by any advocates of the concept, (b) by any at the present time, as opposed to years ago, (c) preponderantly by them, as opposed to e.g. "Proto-Human", and (d) by opponents of the concept, it seems the term cannot be justified. If evidence can be produced for these uses, I would of course withdraw my objection to it. In the interim, the objection stands. VikSol 09:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I haven't looked at this stuff in years, and "Proto-World" is the only term I was familiar with. It may very well have been from Mother Tongue. kwami (talk) 10:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

fwiiw, google scholar gives me 19 hits for "Proto-World language", 14 hits for "Proto-Human language" and 5 for "Proto-Sapiens language". None of these terms appears to be frightfully common. For google books, the ratio is 51:30:4. I guess this indicates that "Proto-Human" and "Proto-World" are both acceptable, but I have doubts about the validity of "Proto-Sapiens" as anything other than a nonce coinage of Ruhlen's. --dab (𒁳) 17:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

My Proposal

Vocabulary section

While some of Joseph Greenberg's work is widely-accepted, the vast majority linguists do not accept his reconstructions by the mass comparison method as valid. To call this approach controversial is to overstate its value. This is for very good reason - the usual approach, the comparative method, is strongly rooted in the axiom that sound changes happen in a regular fashion. These regular changes often produce words that look nothing like each other - compare the Latin "canis" with the English "hound", which is actually derived from the same source in Proto-Indo-European. Presenting lists of words that look similar with no claimed sound changes that could possibly have given rise to the set and then claiming they imply a relationship is bad science. In fact, it's such bad science that many introductory textbooks on historical linguistics briefly bring it up specifically so they can address what's wrong with it. (I'm thinking specifically here of Lyle Campbell's "Historical Linguistics", which I happen to have handy, but I've seen it elsewhere too.)

This is often said, and yet at AAA conventions, no one says it and the theories still get presented. Has there been a poll of contemporary historical linguists to prove that Old Joe is so dismissed after his death? (Because he sure wasn't when he was alive). I've removed the "fringe science" claim since Ruhlen's work is published by Stanford University Press and they don't publish lightly. It's not like it's a blog. Lots of things are not widely accepted because academia is very conservative. Yet, there are more monogeneticists now than there were 10 years ago, why would that be? It's because the genetic evidence came in and showed something very similar to what Greenberg and Ruhlen were saying. That's why. And while the two fields (genetics and linguistics) rarely do research together or write for each other, it's going to be an increasing number of historical linguists that slowly come out of the closet here. In the meantime, how about remaining silent on whether it's fringe when something has achieved publication by a major university press.QueenofRods (talk) 05:35, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Genetics is a red herring. Languages and genes are well known not to develop in tandem. Therefore, biological genetic relationship has no bearing on questions of linguistic genetic relationship. Also, lots of respected major publishers and magazines publish awful junk, sadly. The less specialised and the more general, the worse it is. Peer review is widely known not to be a panacea. Genetic fallacies and arguments to authority abound in your objection. "The tide is turning", oh my! Leave your crystal ball at home, it doesn't impress any sceptic. In fact, all of your assertions are either red herrings or unsupported assertions. Your complaint about conservative academics smacks of the Galileo gambit beloved of cranks everywhere, and even if academia may seem conservative, there's a good reason for it: anything close to compelling evidence for tons of speculation just isn't there, full stop. Academics actually love speculation, but serious researchers are very clear on where the facts end and speculation begins, and are very careful not to mix them up. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:56, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I had previously inserted a disclaimer that this reconstruction is not widely accepted, but frankly I don't think that went far enough. Putting a very visible table that does look kind of convincing to people who are not familiar with the field can be misleading, especially with very meager disclaimers about it being controversial. Even after my edit, which has since been reverted, the overall effect is to portray this as valid reconstruction work that isn't a consensus in the field, on par with something like the glottalic theory in PIE studies, when in fact it is something widely rejected in the field.

While clearly Greenberg's work is worth at least a passing mention here, I would like to remove the table, note first that the mainstream method of comparing languages cannot recover any proto-human vocabulary (with a link to Comparative method), and mention that the method of mass comparison has gotten results - with a note that this methodology is not generally accepted due to its failure to line up with any known theory of how languages evolve.

However, this would involve a substantial enough change to the article that I want to run it by other editors first.

--teucer (talk) 19:41, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Greenberg defended his methodology in his "Genetic Linguistics", and any evaluation needs to cover the points he makes there. However we should do that at a more appropriate article like Joseph Greenberg or mass comparison.

The widely publicized "global etymologies" are questionable, but they are what is associated with "Proto-World". To remove them would not leave much of an article.

To take a more extreme example, everyone may agree the earth is round, but that does not mean that we delete Flat Earth or parts of its content. The article is about a notable idea, and not in itself an assertion the idea is true. --JWB (talk) 05:33, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

On the one hand, there's plenty of serious scholarship positing that the proto-world language must exist (even if it isn't reconstructible), and it's a shame to see it all lumped into the same pile.

On the other hand, you're right that the global etymologies are the bulk of what's out there and therefore worth discussing. I'm just not sure what the best way to present them is; I suspect readers unfamiliar with the field might mistake the current presentation as being of something that is a subject of very real debate among historical linguistics, and I'd rather make its status as fringe science clear. teucer (talk) 21:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC) If not reconstructible this is just the question of monogenesis (linguistics) which also has its own article. "Proto-World" seems to connote specific attempts at reconstruction. --JWB (talk) 00:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I dont know where Ruhlen got his words from, but I am a native speaker of Tamil, an old Dravidian language, and I have a smattering of Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada, the other major South Dravidian languages, and I can assure that the words are wrong. "Kan" mean eye, not arm; "menda" does not denote knee in any of these languages; "pūṭa" does not mean 'hair'. other words are partly correct. If this is the accuracy in other languages too, then reconstructing the roots will give very wrong results. - Gopalan evr (talk) 12:03, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Extant?

Proto-World may not be real but it's real

Controversy

Mitochondrial Eve?

Lexicostatistics and glottochronology

Mitochondrial Miku.

Linguistic

External links modified

"Disputed, hypothetical"

Recent reverts

"It is well-sourced to the fringe theorists who espouse it" doesn't particularly matter, since this is all WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. An entire discussion on this type of necessary edit to these fringe theories can be found on the Fringe Theory Noticeboard, if that helps, where the general consensus was that articles pertaining to fringe theories in linguistics do not need gigantic unsubstantiated word lists. I'm going to revert the revert, as removing a huge block of fringe science is definitely in Wikipedia's best interest. Warrenmck (talk) 19:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@Warrenmck: What you intend to do is edit warring. Read WP:BRD. It's not a policy, but generally considered good practice. –Austronesier (talk) 19:31, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@AustronesierI do not intend on edit warring, which is why I reverted once and brought the comment in here explaining why and what was done. A single revert with a comment in the talk page does not an edit war make, friend. I wouldn't have undone an edit a second time, but would have tagged you and the other linguist in here were it ongoing. I'm not exactly new, here. :) Warrenmck (talk) 19:37, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

It does. It is just not yet actionable. I have a small humorous piece about this in my user page. –Austronesier (talk) 19:44, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Respectfully, in context I disagree.

Reverting to enforce certain overriding policies is not considered edit warring. For example, under the policy on biographies of living persons, where negative unsourced content is being introduced, the risk of harm is such that removal is required.

But nonetheless, edit warring wasn't my intent, I'm here to discuss the edit, and I do believe blanking the section on mass comparison in reconstructing Proto-human and making its status clearer was more appropriate. If you disagree, please, let's discuss it, I would hope that between my posts on FTN and the Wikiproject I've made it pretty clear my intent here is to build consensus, not just do everything on my own while stepping on as many toes as possible. Sorry if it came across as an intent at edit warring, however. Warrenmck (talk) 19:55, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Major removal of content

Warrenmck (talk · contribs) has removed 10kb (147 paragraphs) of sourced information from this article about a fringe topic in linguistics, and is warring to keep it out because it is WP:FRINGE, and WP:UNDUE (e.g., here, and here). This content follows:

More information Three sections removed from the article:, Language phylum ...

Three sections removed from the article:

Characteristics

Speculation on the "characteristics" of Proto-World is limited to linguistic typology, i.e. the identification of universal features shared by all human languages, such as grammar (in the sense of "fixed or preferred sequences of linguistic elements"), and recursion, but beyond this nothing can be known of it.^[1]

Christopher Ehret has hypothesized that Proto-Human had a very complex consonant system, including clicks.^[2]

A few linguists, such as Merritt Ruhlen, have suggested the application of mass comparison and internal reconstruction (cf. Babaev 2008). A number of linguists have attempted to reconstruct the language, while many others^[who?] reject this as fringe science.^[3]

Vocabulary

Ruhlen tentatively traces a number of words back to the ancestral language, based on the occurrence of similar sound-and-meaning forms in languages across the globe. Bengtson and Ruhlen identify 27 "global etymologies".^[4] The following table lists a selection of these forms:^[5]

Language phylum	Who?	What?	Two	Water	One / Finger	Arm-1	Arm-2	Bend / Knee	Hair	Vulva / Vagina	Smell / Nose
Khoisan	!kū	ma	/kam	k´´ā	//kɔnu	//kū	≠hā	//gom	/ʼū	!kwai	č’ū
Nilo-Saharan	na	de	ball	nki	tok	kani	boko	kutu	sum	buti	čona
Niger–Congo	nani	ni	bala	engi	dike	kono	boko	boŋgo		butu
Afroasiatic	k(w)	ma	bwVr	ak’^wa	tak	ganA		bunqe	somm	put	suna
Kartvelian	min	ma	yor	rt^s’q’a	ert	t’ot’	qe	muql	toma	putʼ	sun
Dravidian	yāv	yā	iraṇṭu	nīru	birelu	kaŋ	kay	meṇḍa	pūṭa	počču	čuṇṭu
Eurasiatic	k^wi	mi	pālā	ak^wā	tik	konV	bhāghu(s)	bük(ä)	punče	p’ut’V	snā
Dené–Caucasian	k^wi	ma	gnyis	ʔoχ^wa	tok	kan	boq	pjut	t^shām	putʼi	suŋ
Austric	o-ko-e	m-anu	ʔ(m)bar	namaw	ntoʔ	xeen	baγa	buku	śyām	betik	iǰuŋ
Indo-Pacific		mina	boula	okho	dik	akan	ben	buku	utu		sɨnna
Australian	ŋaani	minha	bula	gugu	kuman	mala	pajing	buŋku		puda	mura
Amerind	kune	mana	p’āl	akwā	dɨk’i	kano	boko	buka	summe	butie	čuna
Source:.^[5]^: 103 The symbol V stands for "a vowel whose precise character is unknown" (ib. 105).

Based on these correspondences, Ruhlen^[5]^: 105 lists these roots for the ancestor language:

ku = 'who'
ma = 'what'
pal = 'two'
ak^wa = 'water'
tik = 'finger'
kanV = 'arm'
boko = 'arm'
buŋku = 'knee'
sum = 'hair'
putV = 'vulva'
čuna = 'nose, smell'

The full list of Bengtson's and Ruhlen's (1994) 27 "global etymologies" is given below.^[4]

No.	Root	Gloss
1	aja	‘mother, older female relative’
2	bu(n)ka	‘knee, to bend’
3	bur	‘ashes, dust’
4	čun(g)a	‘nose; to smell’
5	kama	‘hold (in the hand)’
6	kano	‘arm’
7	kati	‘bone’
8	k’olo	‘hole’
9	kuan	‘dog’
10	ku(n)	‘who?’
11	kuna	‘woman’
12	mako	‘child’
13	maliq’a	‘to suck(le), nurse; breast’
14	mana	‘to stay (in a place)’
15	mano	‘man’
16	mena	‘to think (about)’
17	mi(n)	‘what?’
18	pal	‘two’
19	par	‘to fly’
20	poko	‘arm’
21	puti	‘vulva’
22	teku	‘leg, foot’
23	tik	‘finger; one’
24	tika	‘earth’
25	tsaku	‘leg, foot’
26	tsuma	‘hair’
27	ʔaq’wa	‘water’

Syntax

There are competing theories about the basic word order of the hypothesized Proto-Human. These usually assume subject-initial ordering because it is the most common globally. Derek Bickerton proposes SVO (subject-verb-object) because this word order (like its mirror OVS) helps differentiate between the subject and object in the absence of evolved case markers by separating them with the verb.^[6]

By contrast, Talmy Givón hypothesizes that Proto-Human had SOV (subject-object-verb), based on the observation that many old languages (e.g., Sanskrit, Latin) had dominant SOV, but the proportion of SVO has increased over time. On such a basis, it is suggested that human languages are shifting globally from the original SOV to the modern SVO. Givón bases his theory on the empirical claim that word-order change mostly results in SVO and never in SOV.^[7]

Exploring Givón's idea in their 2011 paper, Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen stated that shifts to SOV are also attested. However, when these are excluded, the data indeed support Givón's claim. The authors justified the exclusion by pointing out that the shift to SOV is unexceptionally a matter of borrowing the order from a neighbouring language. Moreover, they argued that, since many languages have already undergone a change to SVO, a new trend towards VSO and VOS ordering has arisen.^[8]

Harald Hammarström reanalysed the data. In contrast to such claims, he found that a shift to SOV is in every case the most common type, suggesting that there is, rather, an unchanged universal tendency towards SOV regardless of the way that languages change, and that the relative increase of SVO is a historical effect of European colonialism.^[9] In conclusion, it is the best guess that the first language had SOV—because it is generally the most common—but it could have had any set order or no dominant order.

References

[1]
Campbell & Poser (2008:391)
[2]
CARTA: The Origin of Us -- Christopher Ehret: Relationships of Ancient African Languages. August 1, 2013. Archived from the original on 2021-12-11.
[3]
Velasquez-Manoff, Moises (19 July 2007). "Linguists seek a time when we spoke as one". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
[4]
[5]
Ruhlen, Meritt (1994). The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue. New York: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 9780471159636. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
[6]
Bickerton, Derek (1981). Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma. ISBN 9783946234104.
[7]
Givón, Talmy (1979). On Understanding Grammar. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-285451-4.
[8]
Gell-Mann, Murray; Ruhlen, Merritt (2011). "The origin and evolution of word order". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108 (42): 17290–17295. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10817290G. doi:10.1073/pnas.1113716108. PMC 3198322. PMID 21987807.
[9]
Hammarström, Harald (2015). "The Basic Word Order Typology: An Exhaustive Study" (PDF). www.eva.mpg.de. Max Planck Institute. Archived from the original on 2022-08-11. Retrieved 2023-05-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)

Close

Warrenmck, I'm afraid you don't understand how we deal with fringe topics. When we have an article about a fringe topic, description of it is WP:DUE within the article (as defined by the title of the article). This is a fringe theory in linguistics, and we describe the theory, pointing out also why it's fringe and the critcism of it. We don't wipe out the description, leaving nothing but criticism of a void that we don't allow readers to read about. See for example how we handle Cold fusion, Lysenkoism, Moon hoax, Alternative theories of Hungarian language origins, Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin, or Phlogiston theory. All of these treat the subject properly, by describing the theories, and also what's wrong with them or why they are rejected. This article is no different from them, and nothing is to be gained by removing sourced content describing the fringe theory, as proposed by its supporters, which is fully in scope, and within the confines of WP:DUE WEIGHT in an article on a fringe topic.

Please undo your major removal of content in this article. Until you do, I've tacked a NPOV banner to the top of the article, because it clearly is non-neutral now. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:53, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh, sorry Austronesier, didn't see the section above; this is a continuation of the same topic you raised. Mathglot (talk) 19:54, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

"description of it is WP:DUE within the article"

I am proceeding exactly as has been discussed in FTN about the handling of gigantic word lists in macrofamily proposals. I am not okay with the accusation that I am warring for a single revert with an immediate discussion raised here. A description is most certainly warranted, I'm not trying to erase perspectives. What I, and other people commenting on this broader topic, don't think belongs here is a gigantic list of a reconstructed proto gloss which uses a fringe method to deduce and isn't accepted in the slightest by scholarship. But again, I have routinely been trying to build consensus for this one. If you look at the section I removed, it's specifically looking at the data that is presented in a mix of self published and mainstream-publsihed-but-widely-rejected papers. The data it is presenting is not considered real within the field, and it's certainly WP:UNDUE. I didn't blank any and all positive mentions of the theory, or did I attempt to editorialize in any way that is considered outside the mainstream consensus (such as "widely rejected"). None of the articles you link include detailed extrapolations of the fringe papers which were used to arrive at the theories in question.

"This article is no different from them, and nothing is to be gained by removing sourced content describing the fringe theory"

I am not attempting to remove sourced content describing the fringe theory, I'm trying to remove a detailed justification of the fringe theory which presents widely rejected evidence. Again, there is not an equivalent thing on the articles you linked. The cold fusion article doesn't spend a third of the volume of the article discussing the findings of the theorists who still purport to find results from Cold Fusion experiments in fringe papers, for example.

But again, I have no intention of edit warring or plowing ahead without building some kind of consensus. But this exact topic has been discussed recently on the FTN.

@TaivoLinguist may have a perspective here, as well. Warrenmck (talk) 20:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

This has been indeed discussed in detail in FTN, but I don't see that the consensus reached there provides a carte blanche for insisting on WP:BRR edits. –Austronesier (talk) 20:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I understand that you are just

trying to remove a detailed justification of the fringe theory which presents widely rejected evidence

and what people are trying to tell you here, is, don't do that within an article about a fringe topic. You are already edit-warring at the article, because you have doubled down on your original removal. Please undo it while this discussion is underway. You can restore it again once you have consensus for it. See your Talk page. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 20:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I've reverted it. Now, can we attempt to build consensus here? I'll start: nothing in that section is considered accurate within mainstream linguistics and the entirety of it has been derived through a fringe technique, a statement which is made and cited in the section of that article itself, meaning that the only really solid citation in that section is the one that says "everything that follows is nonsense". The concept of Proto-Human is about as well loved as that of water memory in physics, and it is firmly and decidedly a fringe theory. One of the primary citations for that section is a PDF hosted from a Central Asian safe company. The book which is being cited is neither a scholarly work nor was it accepted by any mainstream scholars as having any particular value owing to the use of mass comparison. It is patently WP:PROFRINGE and WP:UNDUE. So, in short, I would like to proceed by removing the huge word list which has no basis in reality, which is what was done previously, and by changing the "status" to "widely rejected", which is both consistent with what has been done on similar macrofamily proposal articles and is an accurate representation of its status in the field. I think something like this would neatly reflect the reality of the situation and make the article more clear, encyclopedic, and accurate, so that's my proposal. Obviously some help formulating an even more neutral and scholarly article would be welcome!

There is no way to leave that section in without giving massive weight to a single, non-academic textbook that was wildly rejected by mainstream scholarship. It's a massive WP:SCHOLARSHIP violation (from the "isolated studies", POV, and "reliable scholarship" perspectives). This is not a minority opinion or even my own, rather it is a wide consensus in Linguistics that Proto-human is not a thing, or if it is it cannot be evidenced. If you don't believe this I'd encourage you not to take my word for it.

Also I wildly disagree with your handling of this. You're coming in hot as if I'm very intentionally trying to start an edit war when I've been very clear from the second I reverted your revert that I'm trying to go ahead with some form of consensus and trying to work on a broader quality issue that has already been discussed at length. Remember WP:AGF still applies, and this is exactly why I brought it to the discussion page. This didn't need to feel as contentious as it does now, everyone involved is acting in good faith and trying to improve the quality of the article. I do not believe patent falsities should remain on a page while discussing their removal, because everyone on here who reads this article in the meantime is going to leave not just misinformed, but with a potentially substantially incorrect understanding of the topic of the article.

"Reverting to enforce certain overriding policies is not considered edit warring. For example, under the policy on biographies of living persons, where negative unsourced content is being introduced, the risk of harm is such that removal is required."

WP:PROFRINGE violations abound here. Out of a bit over a half dozen articles I've been working on cleaning out this is actually the only one I've gotten serious pushback on, and this one is actually the most clearly regarded as a fringe theory out of any of those. Warrenmck (talk) 21:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course "patent falsities should remain on a page" when the topic of the article is a discredited theory, and you are describing them. We have plenty of articles on conspiracy theories, being false doesn't mean we can't write about them or have entire articles about them. How "clearly regarded as fringe" something is, also has no bearing whatsoever on whether we can have an article about it, or whether we are allowed to describe the discredited theory. This is precisely what WP:AT and WP:DUE guarantee that we *can* do, otherwise there would be no place for any hoax or conspiracy articles at Wikipedia. Mathglot (talk) 22:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course "patent falsities should remain on a page" when the topic of the article is a discredited theory, and you are describing them

I think there's an important distinction between addressing the historical claims and criticisms of a theory with wider interest and dedicating any meaningful time in this article to one of the maybe three quacks still publishing on this topic after the entire body of scholarship has moved on. There are historical arguments and criticisms that absolutely belong here, but we shouldn't be expected to subscribe to quack newsletters from the single-digit number of fringe theorists seriously working on this to be ready to rebute whatever newest point they've raised. Addressing the historical arguments and a footnote saying that there's some continued fringe research which has been rejected, with perhaps a bit more detail, should actually do the job of reflecting the reality of the situation. Warrenmck (talk) 22:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you're missing Wikipedia's basic role as an online encyclopedia, not an academic journal. Wikipedia is not an arbiter of truth, and we don't move on from a notable topic because 100% of specialists in the field are unanimous that it is poppycock. If it quacks loud enough to meet notability requirements, then we can write about it, describe what it is, and cover the unanimous rejection appropriately. Notability once achieved, never goes away, and appearing in Wikipedia is not an endorsement. Mathglot (talk) 02:53, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I see you just did; thank you. How would you like to proceed? Mathglot (talk) 20:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem with the present exposition of the data is twofold: a) massive tables that give visual dominance to the fringe position over the prose discussion in the "Criticism" section, which we should not ignore considering that our readers will approach these articles with various degrees of attention ranging from cursory to thorough. b) "Characterics" is probably an unaptly neutral heading for something that is highly contestable. Proto-Human is not a thing, and it does not have well-defined properties. It is a speculative entity build on sand. We should try to think of a better heading for the "sand" section. –Austronesier (talk) 20:59, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Is it even possible to have a "Characteristics" section which contains more words than just "If it existed, it probably had phonemes and grammar"? Warrenmck (talk) 21:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Look at Malleus_Maleficarum#Section_I: we don't explicitly list the properties ascribed to witches. If we did, we would provide a backdoor for the in-universe to speak for itself. –Austronesier (talk) 21:04, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

That's fair; we should cut it way back to examples sufficient to describe the theory adequately without being overbearing. The first sentence of the § Characteristics section places the word characteristics in scare quotes, but I don't know if that would work for a section heading. And yes for the section title change, because people will skip around and probably need to be reminded in each section that it is rejected by the mainstream. Warrenmck, any ideas there? (ec) Mathglot (talk) 21:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC) updated

That's fair; we should cut it way back to examples sufficient to describe the theory adequately without being overbearing.

Serious question: given they were derived from a fringe technique and published outside of academic press in a book that wasn't well recieved or taken seriously, does any form of that table need to exist at all? It feels like repeating some of the criticism of mass comparison would be warranted. At best, and something that would dramatically improve the quality of the article though take some extra work to dig up all the critiques, would be to present some of the mass comparisons used as well as the counterpoints to their inclusion. A similar thing exists on some other articles relating to mass comparison. Warrenmck (talk) 21:14, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Just as a secondary point: many of the language families in the table of "what language families are included" are themselves fringe theories (or let's say less accepted but probably not full-on fringe, in a few cases). Proto-human is a Silurian hypothesis-style house of cards built on successive fringe theories and taking each new one as a given. One of my big concerns with presenting that table in the first place is it contains sub-level fringe, so presenting Proto-human on its own terms requires a heck of a lot of disclaimers along the lines of "Note: this likely isn't real, either" over and over. Warrenmck (talk) 21:20, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Missed this, while I was chopping a bunch of stuff in that section (see what you think). Will get back to you on the rest, later. Mathglot (talk) 21:24, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Missed this, while I was chopping a bunch of stuff in that section (see what you think). I can see an argument that placing it in a tabular format lends it a kind of gravitas, and thereby a level of credibility that it doesn't deserve, which would argue for prosification; although I could also imagine the opposite in some other fringe topic where an appropriate chart or table could highlight what's wrong with the theory. I wonder if this formatting issue is something that's been considered in other articles on fringe topics and what the conclusion there was. Mathglot (talk) 21:41, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I honestly don't think a "Claimed Characteristics" section is possible in any form; there simply aren't scholarly sources making any claims about proto-human outside of the one cited claim already in the article that it's likely unknowable if it existed at all. Any serious discussion of the potential characteristics is tantamount to elevating a fringe theory that has zero acceptance in the field, because the consensus is "even if proto-human existed, the nature of sound change over time completely breaks down the accepted tools used in the field".

Proto-human itself almost certainly doesn't fail to be notable on the grounds of its historical interest, but I fail to see how the nature of the ongoing research into it is notable and its inclusion is not WP:PROFRINGE. It'd be very similar to me to including summaries of those who continued to believe in Humours into the 21st century despite germ theory. Historical importance does not add weight to current scholarship. I don't think the book "The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" can be cited here more than perhaps once as an example of a small community still working on it. Certainly not as a source, and certainly not in a way that presents its inline citations as peer reviewed (not saying it claims that, more that the formatting is what is generally used for peer reviewed sources).

I do not think that section is salvageable given the degree of fringe we're talking about, here. This isn't, say, Altaic, which is generally rejected by scholarship but has some serious people working on it and interested in it nonetheless. This is a linguistics flat earth movement. Warrenmck (talk) 21:33, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe not a bad example; Flat Earth is currently 78kb. No reason we can't have an article like that, explaining a discredited theory. Discredited doesn't mean, big, black hole in the encyclopedia, and we're not allowed to describe it. Mathglot (talk) 21:45, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Flat earth’s fringe contingent is far more notable than Proto-human’s, however. There’s probably a few dozen adherents of proto human in this form with any kind of linguistics background, at present? I’d argue that the historical proposal and general idea of proto-human is notable, ongoing research is fringe and is not, except in passing. Warrenmck (talk) 21:49, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Altaic is a good example, and you're missing the point; notability, truth, or acceptance level is irrelevant in an article about the fringe topic itself. I'm starting to get the impression that you are arguing for a Wikipedia practice that how much we are allowed to say about something is related to where it sits on the mainstream—wacko-fringe scale, and that is very true in the main article on the larger topic (per WP:DUE), but when you have an article entitled with the name of the fringe topic itself then it is perfectly in accordance with WP:DUEWEIGHT to have considerable discussion of the fringe theory, because that is what the topic is, and "defines what the article is about". (ec) Mathglot (talk) 21:59, 14 July 2023 (UTC).

but when you have an article entitled with the name of the fringe topic itself then it is perfectly in accordance with WP:DUEWEIGHT to have considerable discussion of the fringe theory, because that is what the topic is, and "defines what the article is about"

I think, perhaps, this is actually the core of us not seeing eye to eye. I think we've got two possibilities, here:

1) Either this article is about the historical proposal of Proto-human, and its rise and fall

or

2) this is an article about the current fringe theory manifestation of Proto-human

I think the article needs to exist, for historical reasons, but that point 2) represents such a minority perspective that it wildly would fail WP:NOTABILITY. Essentially I think it's an important discussion that Proto-human was historically raised in a less fringe context than it exists now (though it never had wide support) but that present work on the fringe theory is benefitting from the notability of the historical proposal. This is sort of made a bit clearer but just how little is published at all on Proto-human outside of the occasional footnote of "once upon a time linguists considered this, but have moved on for the better part of a century".

Of the two sources, Merritt Ruhlen and John D. Bengtson, the former's work on Proto-Human was entirely rejected within his lifetime and the latter self-publishes a fringe journal. He has no actual academic or scholarly qualifications I'm aware of to be publishing on the topic of Proto-Human other than his Mother Tongue journal (which at some point had its name changed from "newsletter", which is maintained via a hotmail address). This isn't a case of a large fringe movement continuing to have interest in the topic, this is a tiny number of people whose continued fringe work is diluting an article of otherwise historical interest. Warrenmck (talk) 22:11, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

You're right, it is the core of our mimatch. But if you belieive that if something

represents such a minority perspective that it wildly would fail WP:NOTABILITY

then I submit that you totally misunderstand WP:NOTABILITY as it is not related to minority perspective in the slightest degree. Mathglot (talk) 22:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I am saying Proto-World meets WP:NOTABILITY, I'm also saying that the ongoing continuation of proto-world as a fringe theory has so few adherents that it's very much not clear they warrant addressing acutely in this article, beyond a passing mention. I'm aware of WP:NNC and I'm not trying to discuss notability in the context of the content of the article, but rather I think "Proto-World (Historical Proposal)" and "Proto-World (Fringe Theory)" would not both meet notability guidelines equally.

I submit that you totally misunderstand WP:NOTABILITY as it is not related to minority perspective in the slightest degree

Let me phrase that better: Proto-human is a non-notable fringe theory at present. This, historically, wasn't quite as black and white. The ongoing support Proto-human enjoys is, functionally, non-existant. This isn't a case of "so few people believe this as to make it non-notable", which obviously would exclude a lot of historically important theories, it's a case of "There are no actual credible sources of this theory as a present, ongoing thing outside of maybe a half dozen people self-publishing, which makes meeting WP:NOTABILITY a nonstarter". There isn't even an academic discussion about the ongoing work, for the most part, because unlike the flat earth movement it represents such a tiny sliver of the fringe community that they're generally just left alone.

Ongoing research on proto-human fails on every single point of Wikipedia's notability guidelines. It's genuinely just a few guys at their computers whacking out word lists using a fringe technique and publishing them in a fringe newsletter for the other few people still doing this. The fact that it's become entrained in historical discussions around the proposal is a side effect of the continuation of a fringe theory, not a feature speaking to its importance. The article on Perpetual motion doesn't dedicate any time to ongoing research into perpetual motion machines, and that's a far more well-trod topic than this. Warrenmck (talk) 22:32, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I can see an argument that placing it in a tabular format lends it a kind of gravitas, and thereby a level of credibility that it doesn't deserve, which would argue for prosification; although I could also imagine the opposite in some other fringe topic where an appropriate chart or table could highlight what's wrong with the theory. I wonder if this formatting issue is something that's been considered in other articles on fringe topics and what the conclusion there was. Mathglot (talk) 21:41, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Genuinely trying to answer your question rather than WP:BLUDGEON but at least within a lot of spurious proto-family articles the general attitude what’s been no reconstruction tables, as they don’t represent anything actually real. Obviously it’s not exactly a bright line, though. Warrenmck (talk) 21:46, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

reboot

I've made some significant cutbacks so far. You seem to want to remove it entirely (the data; maybe removing tabular format is okay) but I can't support total removal of it. Mathglot (talk) 22:26, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm actually curious how you can have that section without WP:RS and WP:UNDUE issues? The one book cited for the data certainly isn't reliable, given its reception in linguistic circles, and without that source none of the tables would be includable. Specifically, from WP:RS:

Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.

The source in question was published in an academic press and, importantly, was pilloried. That's the primary source, a rejected book written by someone self-publishing their own fringe journal. If the inclusion of that book isn't WP:UNDUE then I don't know what would be. This also falls flat against Isolated studies issues, since this is, by definition, an isolated study using a fringe technique.

I do understand the desire to preserve content on Wikipedia. But the simple fact is that there's been an apparent multi-year effort to normalize linguistic fringe theories on reddit. I don't think this is an organized bad-faith cabal or anything like that, but a lot of work has been done to make patent nonsense look like it has a place at the table with serious scholarship. Even with the edits you've put back in, it's challenging to read the single quite important citation of

"beyond this nothing can be known of it."

immediately be followed up with paragraphs of pseudoscience. "Beyond this nothing can be known" is actually the complete and total understanding of the scholarship on the topic at present. We have a fundamental disagreement with the current state of the article, and while I definitely don't want to start edit warring I do object to the continued presence of fringe sources treated with real weight. There's also been a big discussion about the role of this type of data in these articles on WP:FTN and the solution you're putting forward is quite different than what was discussed there, though obviously there was no uniform consensus. I would put forward, and I don't mean this as a request for you to stop editing or cede to my (or any other editor's) outside knowledge, but if you're not adjacent to linguistics there's a chance you're misunderstanding the degree of fringe you're looking at, here. Warrenmck (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I really think some fundamental misunderstandings of core Wikipedia policies and guidelines are muddying the waters here, which was why I called for a reboot, and started to address the cutbacks. But we seem to be back to the misunderstandings, and this doesn't seem like the right venue for an extended discussion of what things like WP:Notability and WP:Reliable sources mean. I also feel like we're stuck in a loop, and I hesitate to repeat for the second or maybe third time things I would have thought were basic, such as you can most certainly have an article entirely about a 100% discredited fringe theory, as long as there is significant coverage of it in reliable sources (i.e., highly WP:Notable; maybe highly FALSE at the same time, but that is irrelevant). Reliability is a measure of quality of a publisher, not about whether they *agree* with the subject of what they are covering. The point being, the term "reliable source" ≠ "source that agrees with covered theory"; "reliable source" means "quality publisher we trust". Whether the book was pilloried or not is entirely irrelevant as far as its notability; once that bar has been passed, reliable sources that describe the characteristics of the theory may be used to cite descriptions of it in the Wikipedia article about the fringe theory. Finally, if I understood you correctly, you made a claim that the book itself is the only source that discusses it, and that there is no secondary, reliable source that covers it. If you were right about that, the article should go to Afd, but that's clearly not the case; Google scholar shows 74 results for the title of this article, and 178 results if you use "proto-World" and add Ruhlen's name.

there's a chance you're misunderstanding the degree of fringe you're looking at, here.

The "degree of fringe" is completely irrelevant. I recognize and appreciate your professional chops, here, and hope to tap that in the future on other articles, but I think you're confusing some core policies of Wikipedia that have English words as descriptors, such as Notable, or Reliable, or Fringe, and which do not mean the same thing here, as they do in English discourse. (Someone recently made an offhand comment in an entirely unrelated discussion, that perhaps we should call it "Wikinotability", to make that distinction clearer.) The point is, it doesn't matter *how fringe* Ruhlen/Gell-Mann's theory is, we can still talk about it here (as long as it meets [wiki-]Notability, which is beyond question). But I really do feel that this is getting well beyond the scope for what is appropriate at an article Talk page about Proto-Human language, because we are no longer talking about that at all, but are sliding into meta-topics for which this is not an appropriate venue. We should go either to your Talk page, or if you think the issues run deeper than that, the project Talk pages WT:Notability or WT:Reliable sources. If we can't agree on what Notability, Reliable, or Fringe (in the Wikipedia sense) mean, then we won't make any progress here. Mathglot (talk) 00:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to try to very briefly only address the core thing because I don't think we benefit from a huge conversation back and forth, as you've pointed out we're possibly going to be spinning wheels here.

"as long as there is significant coverage of it in reliable sources"

This is what I don't see, to be fair. There are a very small handful of unreliable sources. A book being pilloried matters acutely when reliability of scholarship is one of the criteria for inclusion. The only discussion of Proto-world from reliable sources is either historical or is a footnote saying that it's not a thing any more. Both of those sources are already included in the article.

"The point is, it doesn't matter *how fringe* Ruhlen/Gell-Mann's theory is, we can still talk about it here"

I think we're confusing terms. I don't mean "how fringe on an axis of reasonable to fringe", I mean "how fringe" as in "how few people are actively paying attention to this". I'm trying to argue a distinction between something like a flat earth theory, which is both intensely fringe and has millions of adherents and interested parties, and Proto-world, which is equally fringe in terms of the fringe-mainstream axis, but has a number of publishing adherents and interested parties who, at present, can probably be counted on one hand. Is that any clearer? I think I chose a terrible term to use when making that point.

(as long as it meets [wiki-]Notability, which is beyond question)

I have, and will continue to dispute that the ongoing fringe theory of Proto-world meets wikipedia's notability guidelines. I accept that the historical proposal does, and that a passing mention of the ongoing fringe support is warranted.

If we can't agree on what Notability, Reliable, or Fringe (in the Wikipedia sense) mean, then we won't make any progress here.

I mean, we clearly do not. I think that getting a third party perspective could be helpful, because I think leaving this article full of fringe theories given weight is a bad idea. Ad again, I think we're going to spin our wheels here. But you did see the conversation in WP:FTN, it seems, and I really should point out that the discussion on including this type of content there was substantially different than the stance you're taking here. Warrenmck (talk) 00:21, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, now we really are getting somewhere, because if you

dispute that the ongoing fringe theory of Proto-world meets wikipedia's notability guidelines

then we are completely wasting our time discussing all this here, and your path is very clear: nominate the article for deletion. To do that, first read the deletion policy, and then follow the procedure described at Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. I just wish you would have said that at the outset. Mathglot (talk) 03:05, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot Except the historical proposal absolutely meets WP:NOTABILITY? Again, I'm trying to be clear that there's two things in this article: "Proto-Human Language (historical proposal)" and "Proto-Human Langauge (Fringe theory)" where the latter is marked by ongoing work by a tiny number of people. We have articles on Humorism without feeling the need to elevate the voices of those still trying to make the humors a thing. And what I did, in blanking the pseudoscience section, is exactly what should be done here to address what's wrong with the article. There is no reconstruction of any element of Proto-Human, be it words or sounds, that is not ''firmly'' a fringe theory. Practically every discussion at FTN and in the Wikiproject is in favour of blanking this sort of information in these proposals as WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. I really do feel the solution here is to go right back to the edit I made that you reverted before all this started. Warrenmck (talk) 01:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

No, that's completely against policy, and not how things are done at Wikipedia. There is no policy- or guideline-based reason to remove sections describing a fringe theory if the topic of the article, as embodied in its WP:TITLE, is a fringe theory. If that were the case, you could run right over to Holocaust denialism and delete it right now. I think your training and career as a professional linguist may be actually clouding your vision a bit about what it is we do here. I fully agree with you, that if this were a reliable academic journal, there isn't a snowflake's chance in hell that we would give extensive coverage to an article about some rubbish theory, and the reputation of someone who submitted such claptrap would probably be ruined, possibly forever. But, Wikipedia is not an academic journal, it is an online encyclopedia, and we absolutely do publish extensive, detailed articles about claptrap, when the topic is WP:NOTABLE. It is really crucial that you see and understand this difference, because I'm getting the impression that failure to distinguish the two is leading you badly astray. So, yes to Phlogiston theory, yes to Cold fusion, yes to Moon hoax, yes to Holocaust denial, yes to Alternative theories of Hungarian language origins, and yes to Proto-Human language. Please do not remove relevant, well-sourced material, that is on-topic from this article, solely because it describes a groundless theory. It's perfectly okay to cover this entirely encyclopedic topic. If it makes you feel any better, make a WP:MOVE request to change the title of this article to Proto-Human language (rejected theory) or something, I won't object. But you can't apply rules of what's appropriate for inclusion or exclusion in an academic journal here, as that's simply not what we are about, and those rules don't apply here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:55, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

"There is no policy- or guideline-based reason to remove sections describing a fringe theory if the topic of the article, as embodied in its WP:TITLE, is a fringe theory"

One last time, then I'm going to RfC because this is clearly getting out of hand with regards to civility. The notion of a Proto-Human Language isn't a fringe theory in the way that [[Moon hoax]] is. It's a fringe theory in the way that Humorism is: it is a theory of historical interest with no meaningful adherents at present due to overwhelming evidence against it. I think you are mistaking the fringe element of Proto-Human as being what it is, rather than a theory of historical interest. We have a very similar situation over at the article on Altaic languages, as well. This relates directly to attitudes around monogenesis in the early 20th century. If you believe this article should be about the fringe theory, then yes, it should be AfDd, which it probably wouldn't succeed at due to the number of credible-looking fringe journals (see the FTN discussion on this).

What I'm saying is that less than a half dozen authors primarily self-publishing about a long-dead theory do not make the article about the historical topic one about the fringe theory, just because they're ostensibly the same thing. Again, '''you are taking a distinct perspective than the wikiproject and FTN''', I'm seeing "delete this" from multiple sources familiar with the topic. Your perspective isn't the only one nor is it magically the most valid, but note that I'm trying to build consensus for how to proceed. I've given you my perspective, you've given me yours, clearly we disagree. Warrenmck (talk) 02:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

You said,

it is a theory of historical interest with no meaningful adherents at present due to overwhelming evidence against it.

I totally agree. Then you said,

If you believe this article should be about the fringe theory, then yes, it should be AfDd

I totally disagree. Articles on topics that are WP:NOTABLE may be included here; your Afd request will go nowhere. Then you said,

...which it probably wouldn't succeed at due to the number of credible-looking fringe journals

You're right it won't succeed, but not for that reason. It doesn't need to have *any* support from academic journals, and it still won't succeed, because there is plenty of sourcing to be had about the article. It's possible that every, single, reference to it is loud disapproval, laughter, derision, doesn't matter. As long as there is significant coverage in reliable sources, it's in. The threshold for notability of an article and inclusion at Wikipedia has zero to do with truth, or with sources *agreeing with the theory*—that's what I'm trying (very unsuccessfully, it seems) to explain. Tbh, I haven't looked at the FTN about this, but you must be misreading something there, the most likely situation is that they believe you are discussing removal of Proto-world content from *other* articles about language origin, and that would make perfect sense, and get my vote. But there is no more chance that this article *about a fringe theory* gets deleted, than there is for Holocaust denial, or for Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin. Risk for all three is near zero. Mathglot (talk) 02:33, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I do not think that the ongoing research on Proto-Human meets Wikipedia:Notability at all, I think it's a fringe movement consisting of maybe four or five people self publishing in a fringe journal maintained with a hotmail address. If you discount the one book which is being cited in the article, which to be clear I believe should be discounted as a source per Wikipedia:Reliable sources:

Isolated studies – Isolated studies are usually considered tentative and may change in the light of further academic research. If the isolated study is a primary source, it should generally not be used if there are secondary sources that cover the same content. The reliability of a single study depends on the field. Avoid undue weight when using single studies in such fields. Studies relating to complex and abstruse fields, such as medicine, are less definitive and should be avoided. Secondary sources, such as meta-analyses, textbooks, and scholarly review articles are preferred when available, so as to provide proper context.

Considering not only is this an isolated study that's being cited heavily in here, but one met with overwhelming derision:

Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.

I'm not sure how it's even possible to include the section you want to keep while following Wikipedia's standards for acceptable evidence. Warrenmck (talk) 02:44, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

You are aware, are you not—that every derisive mention in a reliable academic journal *increases* its likelihood of meeting the WP:NOTABILITY threshold? Three brief, derisive mentions in passing are very likely not enough; ten derisive mentions might be enough; one hundred page- or book review-length analyses in reliable sources of why it is complete garbage and bollocks is definitely enough to pass the notability threshold, and then the chance of deletion becomes vanishingly small. Mathglot (talk) 02:59, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

But if there's several reviews calling it bollocks, does it warrant recreating the content in Wikipedia to present that bollocks to a wider audience? Or is it more appropriate to say "there has been continued research onto the topic, but it is considered fringe by scholars" with perhaps a slightly larger amount of exposition? Because right now the "Claimed Characteristics" is presenting complete nonsense and there's even a citation at the top of the section pointing that out. Warrenmck (talk) 03:15, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I almost forgot my favorite: Cal-Ugrian theory. Should give you a chuckle.

Mathglot (talk) 02:05, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Gedankenexperiment

Here's a question for you: if there were a move request for this article, to move it to Proto-Human language (rejected theory) would you support or opppose it, and why? Would that alleviate your concerns about the article content? Question #2: do you think Wikipedia may have an article about a theory that has no support whatsoever by anyone at all, academic or otherwise, other than the author themself, assuming there is tons of coverage of it in newspapers, magazines, maybe a few book chapters on how it's the poster child of crackpot theories, an exposé in Nature on how to wreck your academic career, and bleed-ins to the popular press, all uniformly in opposition? Mathglot (talk) 02:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

For question #1: Support insofar as it gets the content out of here long enough to AfD as its own article, to give you perhaps a too honest reply? I've already said I do not believe the fringe theory meets notability guidelines due to the fact that its A Thing™ among like a half dozen people. It's not exactly the flat earth movement.

Question #2 isn't equivalent. It's more akin to: should I be allowed to piggy back on a historical but now rejected theory, such as Humorism, convince a small group of my friends I have a point, publish on it in isolation, then rely on all the historical mentions of Humorism to turn half of the article into a discussion of my new theories? You're losing track of the temporal aspect of this situation; the current interest in Proto-World is wholly decoupled from whatever historical importance it had, and even that wasn't exactly mainstream. I don't think there is the press talking about this you seem to see, though I could easily be wrong. Don't get me wrong, I get the argument you're making, I just fundamentally think you're thinking about the nature of this as a fringe theory wrong. I think you're extrapolating the historical support and discussions it had to the present, and making it out to be a much more significant fringe theory than it is. Warrenmck (talk) 02:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Afd does not delete articles based on the content of the article; it deletes articles because the topic is not notable. Or sometimes, when it is notable, but there's really no way to expand it because notable or not, very little has been written about the topic, and the small amount of content could find a better home as a section of another, broader article. (Asterisk on "based on the content": if Afd-ers believe there are no reliable sources about the topic, and then you come by and add five solid, citations that nobody else could find after the Afd started, then in that sense, the "content" could affect the Afd outcome; but usually when we say "content" we mean running text, and that's what I meant above.) Any fringe theory meets notability, if there is enough significant coverage of it. Mathglot (talk) 03:17, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

For Q2, keep it simple: assume not one of your friends is persuaded: you're all alone in your belief—nobody is persuaded, much to the contrary. But—a very big BUT—it has attracted an amazing amount of write-ups in reliable sources all over the place, all rejecting it. That's Q #2. Mathglot (talk) 03:17, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

"Afd does not delete articles based on the content of the article; it deletes articles because the topic is not notable."

My core argument has been that the topic of Proto-Human, as an ongoing fringe theory, is decidedly non-notable. I'm aware of how AfDs work, been through plenty of them before! That's why I made the comment that I didn't think it'd succeed, as a comment. :)

I think the construct you're building fro Q2 is wholly distinct from the topic at hand; you're not going to find many credible sources talking about the modern conception of Proto-World, outside of a few reviews calling the book mostly hogwash. I think this is what I'm struggling with in your argument; I don't see this mass coverage of Proto-Human outside of historical discussions you seem to be referencing. Are you referring to the reviews for the book?

" Or sometimes, when it is notable, but there's really no way to expand it because notable or not, very little has been written about the topic, and the small amount of content could find a better home as a section of another, broader article. "

Now you're talking! I've got a sandbox I've had going for a few days for this exact reason, Proto-Human just was one I had tentatively considered outside of this proposal due to the historical interest. Take a look at WP:FTN for a larger discussion on that. Warrenmck (talk) 03:44, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I think we've both aired our views enough that we understand each other; hopefully others will weigh in. Wisdom of the crowds, and all that. (That maybe came out wrong; you can and should say all you want, but I think I should retire, at least until there are more voices here, or some new appraisal.) Thanks for all the time you've devoted to this, I know that your only concern is for the benefit of the encyclopedia (me, too); we just don't see eye-to-eye on how to do that. Best, Mathglot (talk) 04:35, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree, like I said on your talk page, I think we’re both operating in good faith and want what’s best for the article here, we’re probably just going to spin in circles from this point. :) Warrenmck (talk) 04:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

One last comment, because the sandbox you linked just above is new to me: the topic of that article (afaict) is "macrofamily", and within that topic, Proto-World represents only a tiny minority of voices, and so per WP:DUE, need not be covered at all. If you wanted to remove it entirely from your sandbox, or perhaps mention it only in a footnote/explanatory note, I could support that. Hope this ends us on a good note. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 04:51, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Just a follow up question for you, @Mathglot, since I was looking back at improving this again a bit more and don't want to accidentally reignite any disagreements we had. Do you have any objection to me changing the status to "Widely Rejected" again? There are more serious proposals with that label on wikipedia and considering the fringy nature of this one I'm a little uncomfrortable leaving it with a better looking label, than, say, Altaic languages (which is, in fact, widely rejected). I just realized I didn't want to jump back to a change that we'd gone back and forth on reverts with, but that one was part of a larger suite of changes. Warrenmck (talk) 04:27, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Not sure what "status" is, but if we are talking about, say, an Infobox field that briefly summarizes general opinion about Proto-Human, I'd have no objection; it's clearly the overwhelming majority opinion. Mathglot (talk) 08:11, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Third opinion

Merging this article with linguistic polygenesis

I propose merging this article with Linguistic polygenesis into Draft:Linguistic monogenesis and polygenesis. The reasons are provided at User:Pcg111/Reasons for merging linguistic monogenesis and polygenesis. Thank you, Pcg111 (talk) 09:21, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Pcg111 While they're closely related concepts, I think they're distinct enough that this wouldn't be a benefit to Wikipedia. Proto-human isn't particularly taken seriously, regardless of poly/monogenesis, because people actively attempt to work on Proto-Human despite it being well outside our ability to resolve, even if it existed. You'd end up needing to dedicate time to discussing why a lot of the work on Proto-Human is bunk while discussing the idea of Proto-Human in monogenesis is worth scholarly consideration. It ends up blending bad linguistics and good linguistics in a way that I think we'll struggle to keep the balance going. I'm broadly in favour of merging the fringier macrofamily proposals but I think Proto-Human in particular warrants staying. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 10:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Whoops! I read "this article" as, well, this article... Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 10:03, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Warrenmck Sorry, could you explain more? Pcg111 (talk) 10:05, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier has me pretty well covered here, in a much more articulate manner! :) Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:17, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Warrenmck But the polygenesis article is a stub, and it isn't likely that it'll change. Pcg111 (talk) 10:08, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Ping the Linguistics Wikiproject on that one, could be good to get some eyes on expanding it. It's outside my wheelhouse, though. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:12, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Warrenmck I already talked with Austronesier. Thank you. Pcg111 (talk) 12:15, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

What Warrenmck alludes to is that it has long been a straw argument by proponents of the reconstructability of "Proto-Human" that "Proto-Human" equals "linguistic monogenesis", while scholars who reject these efforts subscribe to linguistic polygenesis. There are other good reasons to reject these efforts; all reconstructions of "Proto-Human" are methodologically poorly executed, and given the time depth between the era when monogenesis actually must have occurred to the dates for generally accepted reconstructed proto-languages, all comparanda presented by Ruhlen, Bengtson etc. are indistinguishable from chance resemblances.

Proto-human language as the concrete object of linguistic reconstruction and the question of monogenesis vs. polygenesis are two entirely different topics. –Austronesier (talk) 10:20, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier So should we create a different article for monogenesis? Pcg111 (talk) 10:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

P. D.: Sorry for any error or misunderstanding, I'm a beginner on Wikipedia (and historical linguistics) and I'm a non-native. Pcg111 (talk) 10:25, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier And scholars (like Campbell) discredited the so-called global etymologies, and they haven't expressed that they subscribe to polygenesis. Pcg111 (talk) 10:29, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. As for the articles, I think it would be best to expand Linguistic polygenesis into Draft:Linguistic monogenesis and polygenesis. However, the monogenesis part shouldn't depend too much on fringe stuff ala Trombetti, Ruhlen etc. as if monogenesis could be substantiated by the reconstruction of "Proto-Human", but more on literature about human evolutionary history. Many anthropologists address the question based on other methods, such as the evolutionary emergence of the physiological capacity for language articulation and population bottlenecks in the early history of anatomically modern humans. –Austronesier (talk) 10:32, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier Thank you for your opinion. I think that the anthropology-related hypothesis to the origin of language are being addressed in the article Origin of language. I agree with the rest of your ideas. Pcg111 (talk) 10:36, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

You're right, there already is lots of information in that article about the general emergence of languages. But apparently the question of monogenesis vs. polygenesis isn't addressed there, so there is still much room for your planned draft as covering an important aspect of Origin of language. If you can expand the topic let's say into a Start- or C-class standalone article, you could even add a summary section about it to Origin of language. I'm afraid I don't have much time to help out with the draft, but you can ask for collaborative support at WT:LING. –Austronesier (talk) 10:47, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier Thank you. Pcg111 (talk) 10:49, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose merging. Proto-human language is distinct enough and has sufficient content to have its own article, as Warrenmck has said. Any other article would be able to summarize some of its key points, but it should not be merged. That being said, I have merged Draft:Linguistic monogenesis and polygenesis with Polygenesis (linguistics). @Pcg111: Thank you for your contributions. — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 23:24, 27 May 2024 (UTC)