How reliable is wikipedia when it comes to linguistics?

[xBlackHeartx]

I know everyone bashes on wikipedia, and my own college claims that using wikipedia as a source in your works will count off, regardless of the class.

But when it comes to linguistics, I have a hard time finding anything as detailed as wikipedia. Besides, the individual articles on the ipa symbols seem reliable to me (though some, such as the article for click consonants, leaves much to be desired). And looking through the article for the German language, I don't really notice any glaring errors (I'm an intermediate in German that once listened to German music pretty much exclusively, I actually quit studying because I found that I knew and understood German words that I didn't know the English translation to).

As of late, I keep going to the article on the Korean language, because sources are so few, and also highly contradictory. No one seems to agree on what the tense consonants are. People claim its everything from fortis to simple allophony involving aspirated, voiceless, and voiced consonants, and even phonemic tone. No one knows how to pronounce those damned consonants, and I really can't force myself to move on until I can. Then again, I mostly just want to study the language for 1. to get a deeper understanding of an agglutinating language, and 2. I spend hours a day watching k-pop, so I figured it would give me some encouragement and also let me turn my obvious addiction into something actually productive.

The younger people apparently don't bother to distincguish aspirated, tense, and tenuis consonants reliably (often they just pronounce whichever at random). Koreans are apparently learning to differentiate their secondary articulations more by the tone it gives the syllable. And of course phonemic tone isn't obvious in song anyway, so I guess its kinda moot for me.

But the question still stands, how reliable is wikipedia? Besides the tense consonants of Korean, I've also noticed some disagreement over the vowels. For instance, different sources say that ㅡ is either a ɨ or ɯ sound. Also there's inconsistency of whether ㅓis a ə, ʌ, or ɔ. Though I think the latter may be a set of allophones. Personally, this vowel typically sounds rounded to me. Though ㅗ also often sounds like its between o and u to me. Korean vowels are so weird...

[vijayjohn]

I would say while Wikipedia is by no means the most authoritative source for linguistic information there is, it does tend to be pretty detailed in its descriptions. It doesn't seem too bad overall, but then Wikipedia can only be as good as its sources, given the way it's structured.

[linguoboy]

I'm an intermediate in German that once listened to German music pretty much exclusively, I actually quit studying because I found that I knew and understood German words that I didn't know the English translation to.

That last statement is baffling to me. Why is that a reason to quit studying anything?

As of late, I keep going to the article on the Korean language, because sources are so few, and also highly contradictory.

Wikipedia is only as good as its sources. So if it seems less contradictory than the original sources, that must be because it's ignoring some of them.

The younger people apparently don't bother to distincguish aspirated, tense, and tenuis consonants reliably (often they just pronounce whichever at random). Koreans are apparently learning to differentiate their secondary articulations more by the tone it gives the syllable.

That's not what the Wikipedia article says at all.

/p, t, tɕ, k/ are voiced [b, d, dʑ, ɡ] between voiced sounds but voiceless elsewhere. Among younger generations, they may be just as aspirated as /pʰ, tʰ, tɕʰ, kʰ/ in initial position; the primary difference is that the following vowel carries a low tone.[7][8] /pʰ, tʰ, tɕʰ, kʰ/ are strongly aspirated, more so than English voiceless stops. /tɕ͈, tɕʰ, tɕ~dʑ/ may be pronounced /ts͈, tsʰ, ts~dz/ by some speakers, especially before back vowels.

What the article quite clearly states is that only the plain and aspirated series fall together and then only in initial position and, when that happens, the phonemic distinction is preserved as tone on the following syllable. (The parallels to tonogenesis in Central Tibetan.) So it's not random and doesn't involve tenuis consonants at all.

[mōdgethanc]

Wikipedia is generally pretty reliable, I think. The one area where I feel it's gotten less reliable lately is phonetics which seems to attract a lot of weirdos who are now running the asylum.

[Drink]

I would put it this way: It's often great at explaining things (though not always), but don't trust it as authoritative. It's a good resource to get familiar with something, but take everything with a grain of salt, and when it contradicts another source, go with the other source (but also use common sense, because not all other sources are reliable either).

[linguoboy]

when it contradicts another source, go with the other source

I would never make a blanket statement like that. As I say above, Wikipedia articles are only as good as their sources, which they're supposed to cite explicitly. This allows you to evaluate them yourself. If the source cited is more authoritative than your other source, you'd be a fool to disregard the one cited by Wikipedia.

For instance, the Wikipedia article on the Osage language extensively cites the work of Carolyn Quintero, who is the world's expert on the language. In her books, she discusses the work of previous researchers and explains why her analysis differs. Trusting, say, the work of La Flesche (whose writings on Osage are shot through with interference from his native Omaha) over hers simply because you happen to have La Flesche in print and only have access to her research through it use on Wikipedia would be shortsighted.

(but also use common sense, because not all other sources are reliable either).

"Common sense" isn't much help here. Evaluating sources is a skill that needs to be developed over time. It's not always intuitive what should be trusted and what shouldn't.

[Drink]

when it contradicts another source, go with the other source

I would never make a blanket statement like that. As I say above, Wikipedia articles are only as good as their sources, which they're supposed to cite explicitly. This allows you to evaluate them yourself. If the source cited is more authoritative than your other source, you'd be a fool to disregard the one cited by Wikipedia.

For instance, the Wikipedia article on the Osage language extensively cites the work of Carolyn Quintero, who is the world's expert on the language. In her books, she discusses the work of previous researchers and explains why her analysis differs. Trusting, say, the work of La Flesche (whose writings on Osage are shot through with interference from his native Omaha) over hers simply because you happen to have La Flesche in print and only have access to her research through it use on Wikipedia would be shortsighted.

(but also use common sense, because not all other sources are reliable either).

"Common sense" isn't much help here. Evaluating sources is a skill that needs to be developed over time. It's not always intuitive what should be trusted and what shouldn't.

I don't think you're really saying anything different from me. Maybe you just didn't quite understand what I meant.

[linguoboy]

I don't think you're really saying anything different from me. Maybe you just didn't quite understand what I meant.

Try a little harder to explain what you meant and I'll try a little harder to understand your explanation.

I just don't feel that "don't believe it if someone else says something different unless you think the other person is wrong" is very useful advice for anyone.

[Drink]

I don't think you're really saying anything different from me. Maybe you just didn't quite understand what I meant.

Try a little harder to explain what you meant and I'll try a little harder to understand your explanation.

I just don't feel that "don't believe it if someone else says something different unless you think the other person is wrong" is very useful advice for anyone.

I didn't mean "unless you think the other person is wrong", I meant "unless you think the other person is not trustworthy", which is an entirely different thing. Of course you're not going to be very good at making these judgments when you first start out, but you won't be that bad at it, and you get better over time.

[linguoboy]

I didn't mean "unless you think the other person is wrong", I meant "unless you think the other person is not trustworthy", which is an entirely different thing.

Not entirely different, but I'll grant there's a distinction. Either one makes what they say "not reliable".

Of course you're not going to be very good at making these judgments when you first start out, but you won't be that bad at it, and you get better over time.

That's the hope, but it's not always the reality. I've seen plenty of people who are bad at it and I've observed people get worse over time. To take one example, the whole anti-vaxx movement is results from millions of people's inability to judge which sources are reliable and to gravitate over time more and more toward those which are false but which reinforce their existing worldview.

[Drink]

I didn't mean "unless you think the other person is wrong", I meant "unless you think the other person is not trustworthy", which is an entirely different thing.

Not entirely different, but I'll grant there's a distinction. Either one makes what they say "not reliable".

In the former case, you're judging what he's saying (which is very hard to do if you have no knowledge of the topic), in the latter case, you're judging the person, which means taking into account things like whether he generally sounds knowledgeable, whether he sounds like he has an agenda, and what others in the field say about his work.

Of course you're not going to be very good at making these judgments when you first start out, but you won't be that bad at it, and you get better over time.

That's the hope, but it's not always the reality. I've seen plenty of people who are bad at it and I've observed people get worse over time. To take one example, the whole anti-vaxx movement is results from millions of people's inability to judge which sources are reliable and to gravitate over time more and more toward those which are false but which reinforce their existing worldview.

Yeah, I guess all people are different. But I'd like to think that if someone is genuinely trying to learn and genuinely tries to overlook his own agendas, he will able get better at these things.

[linguoboy]

In the former case, you're judging what he's saying (which is very hard to do if you have no knowledge of the topic), in the latter case, you're judging the person, which means taking into account things like whether he generally sounds knowledgeable, whether he sounds like he has an agenda, and what others in the field say about his work.

Which brings you dangerously in ad hominem territory. I would argue that only the third of those questions is really relevant in determining reliability. Everyone has an agenda; some people have several. This doesn't necessarily affect the overall reliability of their work, but it can have a huge impact on how it's presented. An important part of evaluating sources is learning how to see past the presentation. Someone who "generally sounds knowledgeable" maybe be bullshitting and someone who sounds very tentative may actually be the best-informed person in the field.

Yeah, I guess all people are different. But I'd like to think that if someone is genuinely trying to learn and genuinely tries to overlook his own agendas, he will able get better at these things.

I'd like to think that most people are "genuinely trying to learn", but my experience says otherwise. Learning is hard work. Most people would rather avoid it and instead find some reason why what they know already is all they ever need to know.

[melski]

As an active Wikipedian, I can say that Wikipedia is quite good (a Nature study showed that Encyclopedia Brittannica had the same amount of errors). It all depends on sources. If the article has warnings at the top, be very cautious; if not and if the references section is quite plentiful, you can consider most of it legit. But as always, the more "obscure" the topic, the higher the risk of scam/fake/biased article. That's why if you find a mistake or something missing, go ahead and add it to the Wikipedia article!