Jump to content

Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Navajo Wikipedia

Add links
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

This is a proposal for closing and/or deleting a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is subject to the current closing projects policy.

The proposal for closing nv: is rejected and the project will be kept open.

  • A Language Committee member provided the following comment:
    I have been in touch with a representative from the Navajo Language Academy (which is linked from the official Navajo Nation website) about the concerns expressed in this proposal, and they helpfully reviewed a large number of pages from the Navajo Wikipedia, and concluded that the language in the articles were native or near-native level. The correspondence with the language academy representative has been forwarded to the language committee's internal mailing list for archival purposes. Posted on behalf of User:Jon Harald Søby by MF-W 15:03, 3 July 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Type: 1 (routine proposal)
  • Proposed outcome: closure
  • Proposed action regarding the content: move to Incubator
  • Notice on the project: [1]
  • Informed Group(s): (Which chapters, wiki projects, and other community groups have been informed, if any.)

Proposal

[edit]

Hi all,

Before I begin I would just like to say even though my account is new I have known Wikipedia since the early days, just didn't edit much. Now for the proposal.

I didn't want to do this because I really do believe that indigenous languages around the world should be saved. But I don't think that Wikiibíídiya, the Navajo Wikipedia, is helping. I did my research and I finally have my proposal ready.

Firstly, there is one active user: User:Seb az86556. He or she has been quite controversial by the looks of things. Whether it's refusing to speak English despite his ability to, deleting talk page messages without a reason or his talk page where he either is aggressive towards other uses, engages in edit warring or just doesn't reply at all.

Secondly, its scope is quite limited to species with complex names that have been assigned to them. I'll speak about this more in the third point.

Thirdly, the biggest reason: this could be another Scots Wikipedia. There is no way to verify a lot of these country, city and species names given on there. I did my research and it's true that Navajo used unique code names during World War II for modern topics and geographical locations, but many of these are unverifiable in any dictionary I found online. I had a look around on English Wiktionary (where Seb has also been active) and it appears that he has been accused of inventing or coining Navajo terms just for Wikipedia. The terms used on Navajo Wikipedia are complex and while given the structure of the language I cannot identify the literal meaning I would assume a Navajo tribal leader would be able to verify it (or anyone whose mother tongue is Navajo, though all of these people are in the Navajo Nation in the US and many are old). Furthermore it appears that he once used English loan words but has discarded most of them and dismissed them as "garbled English". Prior to 2017 many country articles used English loan words but these have since been deleted and replaced by other ones.

I think the best solution for now is to close the wiki and move it to the Wikimedia Incubator. I know that most project closure proposals don't end up being accepted, but I think it is worth a go. This is for the own good of the Navajo people and their effort to revive the language. It may also be useful to contact native Navajo speakers.

Sisimiut2000 (talk) 08:32, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

[edit]
  • Support Looks like a very well written rationale, if a wiki can't make sure to help cooperating between different situation of users, then it should be closed despite its activity, sadly with tears, zhwikisource is currently such an example per the U4C case. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:42, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The massive difference though is that Chinese has over 1 billion native speakers in China alone. Navajo has about 170,000 speakers in total and is only spoken by Navajo people in the Navajo Nation which covers a remote area (mostly in Arizona but spilling over into New Mexico and Utah). At least other Indigenous wikis (e.g. Cherokee, Māori, Northern Sámi) have collaborative efforts even if they are small and don't use fake words. I really do hope more Indigenous languages get wikis (whether they be in the Americas or Australia or anywhere else) and I hope the Navajo Wikipedia returns one day as a collaborative effort, but for now it needs to be cleaned up. Sisimiut2000 (talk) 02:47, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, the current nv.wikipedia is having full of unhelpful contents, that's all we know. I would further support re-incubating on Incubator after closure. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:49, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Sisimiut2000: Are you saying that Seb az86556 and SwearingCreeper are the same person? If not, what does the comment on Wiktionary have to do with this? SwearingCreeper is a sock of a globally locked user and their behavior seems irrelevant. 96.89.118.93 14:53, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Firstly, I had no idea that that user was a sockpuppet. Secondly, I was more referring to the accusation of the other user creating bullshit words that are incomprehensible. At least when other wikis coin words they loan them from other languages or make a calque so it's obvious what's being meant. Not all of them are fake though, but many are. For example there are sources online confirming that nahatʼeʼiitsoh (kangaroo; apparently "big kangaroo rat") is a Navajo word (and thus Nahatʼeʼiitsoh Bikéyah = "kangaroo land" seems logical for "Australia"), but lots of the others are unverifiable in any dictionaries or info online (for the record in Greenlandic "kangaroo" is kanngorooq and in Danish it's kænguru while Australia is just Australia in Greenlandic and Australien in Danish). Sisimiut2000 (talk) 02:38, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sisimiut2000 In your proposal, you wrote "it appears that he has been accused of inventing or coining Navajo terms just for Wikipedia." The user who's been accused of doing that is not the one active user at Navajo Wikipedia, so you should clarify this to avoid accusing someone of things that are clearly false. You should distinguish what you're saying about Seb az86556 from what you're saying about Navajo Wikipedia in general, otherwise it's hard to trust your evidence. 71.236.131.237 17:13, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The talk page message says: "We have had issues before with users creating entries here for Navajo terms that were coined by nv.wikipedia users and have no usage in printed Navajo texts or dictionaries." Given that Seb is the only user who is active currently and has created almost every article there and has been active there since 2009 (16 years), it's quite clear that Seb is being referred to. Even if Seb does speak Navajo (AZ is the abbreviation for Arizona I looked it up and 86556 is a ZIP code mostly located in Apache County, the part of Arizona where most of the Navajo Nation is), it's still unclear how he came up with any of these protologisms. Sisimiut2000 (talk) 01:00, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi all and thanks for initiating this discussion, @Sisimiut2000: I'm the director of Wikitongues, which supports mother-tongue contribution to Wikimedia and language revitalization projects more broadly (including outside the movement). One of our fellows this year is a Diné (Navajo) educator who could help you work through the language questions that would inform a final decision. He may also be interested in getting involved. If he's interested, is there a process through which I could organize a discussion between him and the community? To my knowledge, he's not a Wikimedian, so it would like need to be off the talk pages. —Thank you! Bogreudell (talk) 22:31, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This would be helpful, thank you. As for the behaviour of Seb let's leave that to the Wikimedians, but I would be interested to see if any of the words can be verified. Surely Ałnánoodǫ́ǫ́z Dineʼé Bikéyahdę́ę́ʼ ńdíshchíitah naʼashjéʼii azisí isn't actually what Navajo people call the Caledonian sac spider, for example.

    I looked at the word for Greenland, Haʼaʼaahjí Hakʼaz Dineʼé Bikéyah, which apparently means "Land of the Cold Eastern People". Seems to make sense if it were a WWII codename so I believe this could be true, though I would've expected a modern version to be either a loan from "Greenland" or a literal translation of "green land". The word for "Iceland" (Tin Kéyah, "ice land") sounds pretty accurate, but then I looked at the word for "Iceland gull", which is apparently Náhookǫs biyaadi tónteel tsídii, which does not contain the word "Iceland". Sisimiut2000 (talk) 03:58, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sisimiut2000: Sounds good. I will reach out to our fellow and gauge his interest. If he's not available, he may be able to point us in the direction of someone who is. I'll be in touch soon. On a separate note, I noticed on your profile that you're a Kalaallisut speaker. Are you familiar with the ongoing dicussion about Greelandic Wikipedia? Bogreudell (talk) 19:57, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the late response, but yes that sounds good. And yes, I am aware of the discussion about the Greenlandic Wikipedia, I have voiced my support for it and raised my concerns for keeping the wiki open. Sisimiut2000 (talk) 17:18, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Sisimiut2000, now is my turn to apologize for the late response. Our fellow is interested in learning more about this. He can certainly help the community validate certain words and may be interested in organizing a native speaker team to helm the project if we determine it needs that to be kept out of the Incubator. What's the best way to go about this process? He's not a Wikimedian, so we may need to start off-Wiki, say on a Zoom/Google call. Could I start an email thread and if so, with whom should I start it? Bogreudell (talk) 18:16, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds great. Not sure how to go about it, perhaps you could get him to just read the wiki I guess? They all seem to be categorised and connected to Wikidata so you can just search the English article and check if there is a Navajo version available. Note that the wiki is mostly species names and geographical articles, though both have obscure names. Sisimiut2000 (talk) 06:23, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As far als the "strange" lemmata used in Navajo Wikipedia are concerned, according to en:Navajo language#Vocabulary neologisms seem to be the rule in Navajo rather than the exception, and these are said to include also quite complex "Navajo descriptive terms". I do not see how the impression of a non-speaker that these neologisms are strange should be in any way relevant, as the methods of lexical expansion differ radically from one language to the other.--~2025-60094-9 (talk) 10:21, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support: Potential Scots wiki situation, we have no confirmation from actual Navajo speakers that the language in use on the wiki is true to the Navajo that the Navajo tribespeople use. --~2025-26748-92 (talk) 01:38, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I'm rather shocked to see this have any support at all when so far no one has presented any evidence that anything is actually wrong. Even the nominator acknowledges that they are not sure anything is wrong. Instead, we have someone who does not speak Navajo, complaining about someone who does speak Navajo, on the basis that it is possible that they are speaking Navajo incorrectly. This is, to be sure, a possibility; it's also a possibility for any other small wiki. I'd love to hear what the scholar Bogreudell mentioned has to say. Obviously if there is a problem that should be addressed. But this seems like a massive rush to judgment. And even if the nominator's concern proves well-founded, it's not clear that wiki closure would be the correct remedy. If you strip away the exoticness of this being Navajo, "This wiki is introducing original research in the names of places and species" isn't exactly what we normally think of as a critical issue requiring closure. Although, per ~2025-60094-9, a much simpler and good-faith explanation would be that these are descriptive titles not meant to represent canonical names. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 16:42, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Support --Bitterbutter (talk) 16:24, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support the fact that nobody on Wikimedia seems to have any clue about the Navajo language is a problem in itself. Let’s say there isn’t a problem here (which I highly doubt given the long, strange animal name examples presented below). We still have a wiki with ~1 active user and no way of providing oversight and accountability because nobody here seems to speak Navajo. That is not a healthy or functional system. --Dronebogus (talk) 13:24, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The fact that (as far as I'm aware) lots of Navajos refuse to use advanced technology like computers and actively oppose outsiders gaining knowledge of their language has no bearing on WMF policy. If there is even one forward-thinking tribesman who doesn't share those views and is fluent enough to maintain the wiki in an acceptable state, they should be allowed to do so, especially given the aforementioned fact that coining new words is the norm. As Francophonie&Androphile said, since when was a dispute over nomenclature grounds for closing a project either? Let's not forget that there is already a divide between Wikipedias where the policy is to use relatively obscure common names and those where only Latin names are used in article titles for species not well-known in the language's home region. In my opinion, other indigenous languages should take a page out of Navajo's book; if healthy linguistic purism efforts in the form of word coinage to avoid degeneration into what is essentially an English pidgin holding little appeal for potential learners is considered "original research", then that is some original research that I have no opposition to. Passengerpigeon (talk) 06:53, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If nobody who speaks Navajo uses it, it serves no purpose. If only one person who speaks Navajo edits it, it’s impossible to know if it even is in an acceptable state. If new learners are using words made up by one random guy on the Internet no other fluent speaker uses (and has anyone actually established this user even IS fluent?), it’s outright anti-educational. Dronebogus (talk) 04:25, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    These all sound like great questions for one of the people supporting closing an active project with 23,000 articles to figure out before proposing that and casting aspersions on the wiki's main editor. We have to destroy the wiki in order to save it? That seems to be the gist of it, yeah? A bunch of noble anglophones will make sure the poor Navajo don't have to read 23,000 Wikipedia articles in a language that we've decided, for no particular reason other than ~vibes~, is being used incorrectly? You realize that there are scholars of Navajo, yes? You could contact one and ask their opinion of the wiki rather than speculating wildly and offensively. I don't know who it would be more absurd for LangCom to listen to here: Generally, the people who are supporting deleting this wiki despite not having even a basic familiarity with the well-known challenges of translating taxonomic names into a language that has never had an encyclopedia written in it, or specifically the person who is banned from proposing deletion of even a single redirect on their homewiki, but still for some reason sees themself competent to pass judgment on the fitness of entire wikis. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 20:00, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A favorable, if brief mention (pp. 38–39) in a 2013 thesis from the University of Arizona's graduate program in American Indian studies. Second link under "Want to learn Navajo?" on the Navajo subreddit. The only criticism I can find is a non-fluent speaker repeating a secondhand criticism that some of the lemmas might be flawed, which would be a great thing to follow up on with a fluent speaker, to know if this is a 1% issue or a 99% issue, but again I'll stress that's the only criticism I can find ever levied on that subreddit. Here is someone who appears to be Navajo and to use the language in conversation citing nvwiki. Here is a thread where people affirm the use of arbitrary-ish names for proper nouns in Navajo, and no one argues there's anything wrong with the nvwiki article under discussion or wrong with nvwiki in general. Is anyone else starting to get the sense that we should ask Navajo speakers what they think before deleting their Wikipedia? Surely nothing bad has happened before when English-speakers decide that indigenous communities don't need educational resources in their own languages... -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 20:35, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    1) your ad hominem argument is completely irrelevant since you are referring to an editing restriction that applies to enwiki and only enwiki. 2) changing my vote to neutral as whatever is or isn’t wrong with Navajo Wiki it isn’t worth the negative publicity (or worse, personal reputational damage) of supporting its closure. Dronebogus (talk) 06:04, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Passengerpigeon: Setting aside the absurdity of the situation at hand, I'm desperately curious what led you to a username I haven't used since 2012. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 20:08, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tamzin: Do you mind that? If you do I apologise. It's just a weird habit I have and in your case it is because you were one of the first people I spoke to on a talk page when I first began editing. Passengerpigeon (talk) 20:17, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wouldn't say I mind, just caught me off-guard haha; does mean you'll only be understood by others with a very long memory. Nice seeing you again! -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 20:37, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – There are some indigenous communities who are strongly opposed to advanced technologies or have difficulties adopting new and advanced technology. Leaving this project vulnerable to a repeat of Scots Wikipedia situation can be detrimental for future native speakers contributing. Navajo language vocabulary may be conservative, however this may change as formulation of new terms using existing archaic terminology may be easier in the future. Ahri Boy (talk) 12:36, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ahri Boy: I'm sorry, are you saying Navajo speakers don't know how to use computers? Some of the comments above were already bordering on racially prejudiced but I would think this crosses the line. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 02:07, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean the slow adoption and poor preservation. This is why people in these communities should learn how to preserve in digital spaces so the future members of the indigenous communities can remember the preserved traditions of the ancestors. Preservation NGOs like Wikitongues could help prevent extinction of minority languages. I should be err on the side of caution. Ahri Boy (talk) 02:18, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I also found a Reddit thread about the attitudes towards outsiders preserving Navajo language. I'm adding not a vote notice. Ahri Boy (talk) 03:21, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ahri Boy: @Tamzin: You'll note that the Reddit thread you linked refutes the arguments that you just made in favor of locking the wiki, and since reading the replies to it I have realised that my earlier views about the Navajo were misconceptions and take back what I mistakenly said in my first posts (the specifics, that is; I was and still am arguing Keep). By all accounts they don't in fact live like the Amish nor do they want to keep their language a secret at any cost. Passengerpigeon (talk) 01:25, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ahri Boy: "the side of caution" is closing a wiki with 23,000 articles because people who don't speak the language speculate there's a problem? That doesn't sound very cautious to me. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • The most important thing to be done is to find an independent expert (e.g. university professor) to audit the content of wiki. Until then, most of arguments for or against closure (based on the alleged made-up terms) should be considered unfounded.--GZWDer (talk) 03:32, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahh... Somebody should seek assistance from Arizona State University and Diné College on auditing. Ahri Boy (talk) 03:45, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Some time ago, at WikiConference North America, @Bogreudell: and I had a conversation with a native speaker of Navajo, who looked at a sample of articles, including the contents of the pages in the table further down on this page, and determined that they are written in correct Navajo. Therefore, the reason for the proposed closure is simply not there. It concerns me a bit that this closure proposal was purely based on conjectures, on a non-speaker saying "this wiki might be a Scots Wikipedia situation" without providing solid evidence of this contention, and that several people simply took this at face value and supported closure based on flimsy evidence. In addition, the native speaker of Navajo that we worked with expressed interest in working with his community to improve this edition, so going forward, it would be better to engage with them more before further considering closure. DraconicDark (talk) 20:28, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose closure. After further consideration closing this wiki without hard evidence of a severe problem is a terrible idea and I can’t believe I supported it in the first place. It would be a great loss to the Navajo language and culture to shut down a valuable, even if imperfect, resource for its promotion. Instead of shutting it down on a vague hunch we should actively engage with Navajo speakers and language experts to make the wiki better. Either it’s fixed or improved— a win-win either way. I’m sorry if my initial lack of sensitivity offended anyone. --Dronebogus (talk) 04:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dronebogus I think you can re-support it instead of de facto pro-Tamzin "oppose" since their rationale was checked by 221(g) process as null and void. ~2026-23305-80 (talk) 06:22, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Recently (just some hours ago), I contacted a Unicode staff which, by his own-call, knows some grammars of American aboriginal languages, very likely include Navajo, that staff told me even simpler than above: I'm sure that this Wikipedia is really fake. He then told me that by his colleagues' check, the Seb az86556 eventually doesn't seem to have an US nationality, and probably holds a Green card. In such cases, the simply not there claim as DraconicDark or others claimed above is therefore and thereafter Null and Void. --~2026-22478-81 (talk) 00:30, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I know Unicode has grown surprisingly powerful, but this is the first I've heard that they have the ability to unmask anonymous users and research their citizenship status. If your friend exists, I'm sure he wouldn't mind creating an account, verifying his credentials, and also giving us some insight into why Unicode is apparently now employing private investigators? -- Tamzin[[[User talk:Tamzin|cetacean needed]]] (they|xe|🤷) 18:57, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tamzin So you expect a CBP officier to register our account? ~2026-23305-80 (talk) 05:00, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Your Unicode staff friend with expertise in American aboriginal languages (which are about 50 distinct families and isolates) also works for U.S. Customs? What an accomplished polymath. -- Tamzin[[[User talk:Tamzin|cetacean needed]]] (they|xe|🤷) 11:29, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tamzin I guess that you unfairly "boldly" ignored by his colleagues' check ~2026-23305-80 (talk) 23:56, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Anyway, are there really canvasing votes above available? If not, I suggest to remove the box which said "If you came here because someone asked you to..." ~2026-23305-80 (talk) 05:03, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’m re-re amending my vote to neutral because I am totally lost as to what is going on at this point. --Dronebogus (talk) 06:24, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There could be issues, and these issues could indeed be extremely serious, like the ones at Scots Wikipedia. However, are there any issues? Are any of these issues serious enough to warrant closure? Who knows. Also, I am unimpressed by how many of the people here think of Navajo people as historic relics who don't know how to use a computer and what-not. The younger generation definitely does, and, yes, most of this younger generation knows other languages. Still, this doesn't seem serious enough to warrant closure. I think if the nominator wishes to strengthen their argument, they should do as Tamzin instructed—contact experts in Navajo and ask them to take a look. You can cold email a lot of them, someone is ought to respond, and if not, then I'd still be against closing a Wikipedia that seems to be doing well based on speculation. EasternShah (talk) 23:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Unless a native Navajo speaker can verify that there are problems on this wiki, I don't see anything actionable here. We don't close wikis based on speculation. There needs to be some solid evidence of actual problems. Perhaps the Wikitongues fellow can help. Also, after spending 20 minutes poking around the Navajo Wikipedia, I don't think the statement that "its scope is quite limited to species with complex names that have been assigned to them" is accurate. Yes, it has a LOT of species articles, but it also seems to have extensive articles on many other topics, including geography (Tótaʼ Dineʼé Bikéyah), Native American tribes (Dilzhíʼí), history (Naaki góneʼ yéigo daʼahijoogą́ą́ʼ), biographies (Pope Benedict XVI), etc. In fact, I was surprised how broad its coverage is for a wiki mostly written by a single person. Nosferattus (talk) 03:08, 26 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose As per DraconicDark above. No wiki with considerably large numbers of pages should be closed, otherwise they will suffer the fate of Norfuk-Pitkern Wikipedia which has very low activity now. ङघिञ (बातचीत करें !) 15:42, 18 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – While certainly sad, as it's an important language, that is all the more reason to try to prevent another Scots wiki. If I remember right the Scots wiki has permanently changed the Scots language, and I would hate for that to happen to Navajo, especially as its an even smaller, even more down-trodden language.
Zenryzap (talk) 12:56, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Zenryzap: Do you possess any evidence to suggest that anything like the scowiki situation is happening on nvwiki? -- Tamzin[[[User talk:Tamzin|cetacean needed]]] (they|xe|🤷) 13:02, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That was said in the proposal, assuming all that info is accurate, one belligerent person having a majority of the edits sounds like a recipe for the same disaster Zenryzap (talk) 13:05, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you assume that info is accurate? Even the nominator doesn't claim to have any hard evidence of linguistic issues. -- Tamzin[[[User talk:Tamzin|cetacean needed]]] (they|xe|🤷) 13:11, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
poking around nv wiki for a bit, looking at article histories specifically shows that Seb is most certainly the dominant editor, and with a language of under 200k speakers, there is no doubt that any mistakes or made-up words could easily bleed through the lexicon and give one person a great deal of power over an entire language. Even if a scots wiki disaster isn't happening it very easily could.
Options are ban Seb, and basically render the wiki mostly dead or just kill it. Zenryzap (talk) 13:37, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
But no evidence has been provided that Seb has done anything wrong. You are simply assuming that. If you are accusing him of evidence without misconduct, that would be a personal attack. As far as anyone knows, Seb is a native speaker of the language, and no one has found any complaints from other native speakers about his proficiency. -- Tamzin[[[User talk:Tamzin|cetacean needed]]] (they|xe|🤷) 14:48, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
An assumption is not a personal attack. Zenryzap (talk) 21:45, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Zenryzap: Please just be a grown-up and apologize for personally attacking a dedicated Wikipedian based on what had already been established in this thread to be unfounded claims, rather than abdicating responsibility. -- Tamzin[[[User talk:Tamzin|cetacean needed]]] (they|xe|🤷) 22:02, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to ask Zenryzap firstly, how he came to the conclusion that "the Scots wiki has permanently changed the Scots language", and secondly, that the case of the Navajo wiki might be similar to the Scots case. In the case of the Scots wiki, the main editor was an American youth of Scots heritage who had tried to learn Scots from deficient internet sources and who had free hand on Scots wiki because of the passivity and tolerance of native Scots speakers. In fact, both circumstances are connected by the anti-normative attitude of people promoting Scots usage in Scotland, who created usage-based internet resources for Scots by just harvesting anything tagged as Scots on the internet to put together a dictionary, whithout paying attention to the question whether the material included was correct according to native norms. This dictionary was then used by an ethusiast American youth to learn the language, with the well-known disastrous consequences. On Scots wiki itself, the said youth could write as he would like to as there also, a language policy to monitor the usage of non-native users according to their adherence to native norms had never been put in place, although the position of Scots as a heritage language that has little completely competent mother tongue speakers and many semi-speakers might have suggested the need of such a measure, even more so if we take into account that the dominant language spoken by most semi-speakers is English, the most direct cognate of Scots and at least partly mutually understandable with Scots, a situation that easily creates the feeling in semi-speakers or language learners that they have mastered their second language although they have not. The American youth was simply victim to this semi-speaker fallacy, and he did not become aware of the problem for a long time because nobody told him about it, as other people present on Scots wiki at least as passive readers if not as authors were mostly adherents of the widespread not only Scots but also general British convention that you should never openly reprimand anybody for their incorrect language usage as that would be normativist, authoritarian, purist, if not openly "nationalist". In fact, such an attitude might be feasible among users of a dominant language like English, where implicit basic norms remain stable just because of the large number of people who have learned them when learning the language as a mother tongue, while norm-based second-language-teaching to foreigners and in foreign countries creates a situation where even most foreigners with whom the average English speaking British (or American) person comes into contact have already acquired essential norms of standard English. However, for a language like Scots, for which the people transmitting the language as a mother-tongue in their families are now a small minority among a large number of passive speakers or semi-speakers, this anti-normativist attitude makes a language revival of traditional native Scots nearly impossible. If you adjere to the anti-normativist point of view, you may in fact either consider that Scots is a language that can only actively be used by a small number of competent mother-tongue speakers, while the semi-speakers should refrain from actively using Scots and limit themselves to consuming cultural products created by others and preserve them as heritage, or you may simply accept that "language is changing" an that the incorrect semi-speakers' usage has to be accepted as the new norm. The first attitude can be exemplified by those competent Scots speakers who in the course of the Scots wiki debate pleaded for completely shutting down Scots wiki or limiting it to Scots heritage topics as all other topics were simply unfit to be treated in Scots, while the second attitude would have been the consequence of unconsciously continuing the way the American youth had begun. It seems that Zenryzap assumes that this is what in fact has happened, although there is of course a third possible scenario, in which Scots wiki and Scots language planning abandon their anti-normavist laissez-faire attitude - in fact, Scots is the only native minority language of the British Isles that has ever adhered to such an attitude, the protagonists of Celtic language revivals never did so.
If we now compare the situation on Navajo wiki to that on Scots wiki, we see an autoritarian admin who promotes a form of purist Navajo uncomprehensible to outsiders, shutting out English-speakers who put questions to him on Navajo wiki in English with the argument that the language of Navajo wiki is exclusively Navajo, being therefore accused by the shut-out people of intolerance, while being at the same time accused by people with zero competence in Navajo of being excessively purist in using Navajo neologisms for terms for which most of the languages of the world use loanwords. It is quite evident that the attitude of this admin is similar to that of users of those European languages where puristic normative language planning is mainstream, thus exactly the opposite of the situation on Scots wiki when the American youth began his contributions.
You may of course always, by assumimg bad faith, suppose that the said admin of Navajo wiki is not in fact a native or at least competent speaker of Navajo but rather an impostour, and that the neologisms he uses would be considered bad language by real native speakers. But in that case the burden of proof lies with you. In any case, there may hardly be found any two minority languages in the Anglosphere among which speakers' and language planners' attitudes to their language diverge so much as between Scots and Navajo. In fact, it were these attitudes that created the Scots wiki debacle in the first place, and it is a Navajo admin with the exactly opposite attitude that is blamed here to have replicated the Scots wiki debacle. Difficile est satiram non scribere. --~2026-36409-60 (talk) 22:17, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
ok i rescind my reply. jesus christ. Whatever. Zenryzap (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

[edit]

Ethnonyms and linguonyms

[edit]

In an October 2014 RfC "language restriction on Navajo Wikipedia" at metawiki, 정안영민 (not an L1 speaker) mentions that the word Ásáí is used to refer to Arabs (in the titles and bodies of such articles as w:nv:Ásáí Dineʼé Bikéyah Ntsaaígíí for Saudi Arabia or w:nv:Ásáí Dineʼé Bikéyah Yázhí Ałhidadiidzooígíí for UAE) or the Arabic language (w:nv:Ásáí Bizaad). If the usage already existed there is no problem, but if it was coined by a nvwiki contributor or contributors then it may be a scowiki situation. — Arlo Barnes (talk) 10:03, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If Navajo code talkers in WW II had adhered to your suggestion, first asking the Japanese if they would rather be called "Japanese" or "Nippon", then asking the Germans if they would rather be called "Germans" or "Deutsch", further asking them if they felt comfortable with the idea that their submarines and aircraft be called "submarines" and "aircraft" in Navajo as in English, finally conscientiously implementing the recommendations of real-life referents, I believe that they would have enhanced the chance of Germany and Japan winning WW II, but I doubt that they would have done any service to either the US or to the Navajo community or language.--~2025-30328-77 (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very different situation. I doubt anybody is planning to use nvwiki in wartime. Also, the code-talkers weren't only speaking in Navajo, but also actually in code, which isn't helpful for an encyclopedia with a general audience. Arlo Barnes (talk) 23:14, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem on scowiki was not coining new words, it was that all the articles were written by someone who didn't speak Scots. One of those problems is quite minor, the other is a fundamental failure of the wiki. They should not be conflated. Nosferattus (talk) 20:46, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Species names

[edit]

As I pointed out before, Navajo Wikipedia uses very long and complex species names for species of animals that don't always have long or complex names. For example, these are the names of tortoises in the Testudininae family (a family of tortoises native to North Africa, Southern Europe and parts of Russia depending on the species):

Scientific name Common name Other names Navajo name Translation (per Glosbe)
Testudo graeca Greek tortoise Moorish tortoise
Spur-thighed tortoise 		Ghą́ą́ʼaskʼidii Biłikahii Bikéyahdę́ę́ʼ nihookááʼ chʼééh digháhii Maghreb earth tortoise
Testudo hermanni Hermann's tortoise Tó wónaanídę́ę́ʼ nihookááʼ chʼééh digháhii łitsooígíí European yellow earth tortoise
Testudo marginata Marginated tortoise Doohatsʼíí Yátiʼ Dineʼé Bikéyahdę́ę́ʼ nihookááʼ chʼééh digháhii Italian earth tortoise
Testudo horsfieldii Russian tortoise Horsfield's tortoise Biʼééʼ Łichííʼí Bikéyahdę́ę́ʼ nihookááʼ chʼééh digháhii Russian earth tortoise

Given none of these species are native to the Navajo Nation or anywhere in the US and these names are long and complex and don't appear like loan words it seems unlikely that Navajo speakers actually use these words to refer to the species. For example why wouldn't Hermann's tortoise be a literal translation, and why would Greek tortoise be Moroccan tortoise not Greek tortoise (even though it is found in both Greece and Morocco, the English name is Greek tortoise)? Sisimiut2000 (talk) 00:02, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sisimiut2000 I responded to you above, but just to make sure you saw it - our fellow is interested in helping us on this, and may be open to organizing a team of native speakers to improve Navajo Wikipedia to prevent its reversion to the Incubator. Bogreudell (talk) 18:16, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I have replied above. Sisimiut2000 (talk) 06:24, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So what would be the correct way to title these articles, assuming there is no native Navajo name for these species? Should we force them to use Latin? This seems like a decision that should be left to the editors of the Navajo wiki. Nosferattus (talk) 02:34, 26 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Navajo_Wikipedia&oldid=30781119"