Talk:Language proposal policy/2025

Replace term artificial language with term constructed language

It says "If the proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto". Esperanto isn't an artificial language, it is a constructed language. See:

1. ISO 639 uses "Constructed" to refer to a member of the group they refer to has "Language Type" https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/639/data?field_iso639_language_type_tid=36
2. en:Artificial language "This article is about languages that naturally emerge in computer simulations or controlled psychological experiments with humans. For planned or constructed human languages, see constructed language. For formal computer languages, see formal language." So the relevant article is at en:Constructed language.

A more precise term for Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, Lingua Franca Nova, Novial and Interslavic is "planned language".

Suggestion: Replace "artificial language" with "constructed language". TutČas (talk) 10:37, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Why is no one paying attention to this request?:( 85.249.161.112 21:20, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

The Language Committee has been discussing it: https://www.mail-archive.com/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/msg03379.html. IJzeren Jan (talk) 13:01, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Suggestion accepted! I will change the policy's wording now. --MF-W 12:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 12:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Nothing about extinct languages?

So far, this policy said

“

Ancient or historical languages

Only Wikisource wikis in ancient or historical languages are accepted, because resources in such languages continue to be important to the world, even in the absence of native, living speakers of those languages. Where possible, such languages should be bundled with the modern equivalent Wikisource project (such as Old English with English), though that is not required.

”

So something like Ancient Greek (grc) and other historical languages (sorry I didn't find any list of "ancient languages", probably they no longer use this type?) are not allowed for new non-Wikisource wikis, but didn't mention the extinct ones e.g. Unami (unm), where an opening Incubator deletion request suggests that they may be "endangered" and should keep as they may still have "speakers", earlier another example Taivoan (tvx) was rejected for deletion despite the RFL is also rejected, so I urgently need clarification on this matter. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I don't understand your question precisely. What needs to be clarified? --MF-W 12:05, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, these texts are part of #Specific issues section, this sub-section covers ancient and historical languages (assuming they are pointing to SIL's such list of languages provided), but didn't cover extinct. However for now, SIL doesn't have any languages that type is categorised as "ancient", but other non-living languages (if not listed as historical) are categorised as extinct. In recent months there are some users claim that such extinct languages may still have some sort of fluent speakers (through not sure if they're indeed native speakers, either L1 or L2), so far, there's an example of extinct languages which its status is being controversial: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (tmr), and I even can't see any mentions of "extinct" elsewhere in the LPP policy. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 10:44, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Pinging other users who may interested in such issue, based on recent Incubator RFD page debate: @Amire80, Bellenion, Iohanen, Flowingblaze, Danvintius Bookix, שמש מרפא, אייל, Cheder pik, and Eliahu21: (only ping once, as I will subscribe this section until archived.) --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, @Liuxinyu970226 asks about languages that are extinct, but not ancient.

I don't think that there is a precise definition of "an ancient language", but we can probably all agree that Taivoan is less ancient than Akkadian. However, it doesn't matter very much in the first place.

The policy does talk about it, but it doesn't use the word "extinct": "The language of the proposal has a sufficient number of fluent users to form a viable contributor community and an audience for the content."

I should also note that the Language committee doesn't necessarily use the designation as "extinct" to make decisions. It's just one possible source to consider. SIL is related to ISO 639, but it's not the same thing. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:44, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, the reason SIL no longer list any language(code)s under "ancient" is probably due to amendment of ISO 639 standard itself during January-November of 2023. Probably only the ISO 639 Maintenance Agency in Canada knows why they removed the ancient definition in 2023 amendment? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 09:54, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Reversion of my edit

Tacsipacsi and others: Greetings and felicitations. I noticed that you reverted my edit. I performed the edit for the reason outlined in the Wikipedia MOS—that such comments interfere with editing comments and linking—which I assumed is universal in wiki markup, not just because English Wikipedia says so. :-/ IMHO the Translate extension should be changed so that it avoids this problem. —DocWatson42 (talk) 22:46, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

@DocWatson42: I see. Yes, markup is universal, though these comments are a bit special – they are removed by the Translate extension relatively early in the parsing process, so they may not show up in places where they could cause problems. (To demonstrate this, you can write <!-- <translate><!--T:1--> Test</translate> --> without nesting issues. If the inner comment wasn’t a translation unit ID comment, its ending --> would close the outer comment, since comments normally don’t nest.) Speaking of causing problems, do you know what, if any, problems they cause in 2025? The earliest addition of such a rule I found is from 2012 (by a user who edited twice in the past decade, so they’re unlikely to respond), the problems may have been fixed since then.

By the way, the extension follows the syntax you used for non-heading translation units, but w:MOS:SECTIONCOMMENT suggests putting the IDs below the headings, and while it doesn’t explain why, I have at least two arguments against comments above headings:

• if one section-edits the section whose heading we’re talking about, they don’t see the comment, since it technically belongs to the previous section;
• if one section-edits that previous section, they do see it, but it’s out of context there; even worse, the saving inserts an empty line, which then completely breaks the Translate syntax (whether heading or not, there must be no empty line between the unit ID comment and the text of the translation unit).

Tacsipacsi (talk) 23:19, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

So in these particular cases, it doesn't matter that the comments are at the end of the heading, because they will shortly be removed?

Speaking of causing problems, do you know what, if any, problems they cause in 2025?

w:User:Redrose64: Do you want to comment, since you know more about this topic than I?

In the meantime, I just tested in my sandbox, and placing a comment at the end of a heading causes the heading to not be referenced when I edit that section—the change is "credited" to the entire page/article, without a "/* Section heading */" leader in the comment box.

By the way, the extension follows the syntax you used for non-heading translation units[...]

Those points make sense to me. —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:42, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Arguments to avoid in language proposal discussions

Hi, I'm working on an essay about arguments to avoid in language proposal discussions, which are common non-policy-based arguments. Unfortunately these are sometimes used even by experienced Wikimedians. I wanted to share it here, and any feedback is more than welcome! TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2025 (UTC)