UniLang

księżycowy wrote:That reminds me, Vijay, if this thing get's created, do you want to mod it together? I figure between both of our knowledge of Australian Aboriginal languages and your knowledge of Papuan languages that will give us some good coverage.

What about atalarikt?
Or ... me?

That's fine with me, too.

Irusia wrote:

vijayjohn wrote:I agree with all of this, except I don't even see what needs to be moved there.

I wrote the list of threads which need to be moved.

Yes (and thank you!), but I mean what needs to be moved into the Southeast Asian forum.

Irusia wrote:

vijayjohn wrote:I agree with all of this, except I don't even see what needs to be moved there.

I wrote the list of threads which need to be moved.

Into the Pacific Subforum, yes. We're talking about the SEA subforum.

Irusia wrote:What about atalarikt?
Or ... me?

Well, ultimately it isn't up to any of us anyway, but as I understand it, you guys would probably be better suited for the Indonesian and Tagalog suforums.

Tagalog subforum?

You mean the SEA subforum?

Right, I forgot they merged that with the SEA subforum.

Also:

księżycowy wrote:Well, ultimately it isn't up to any of us anyway

No, but we can always ask.

Yes, which is essentially what we're doing right now.

And for the record, I wouldn't mind modding with any of you. I'm just trying to think of were our strengths are atm.

księżycowy wrote:Yes, which is essentially what we're doing right now.

I'm not sure whether they'll recognize that, though. My understanding is they expect us to PM them directly if we're interested in being a mod (or in seeing someone else becoming a mod).

Lol this discussion became so rapid-fire all of a sudden.

księżycowy wrote:Well, ultimately it isn't up to any of us anyway, but as I understand it, you guys would probably be better suited for the Indonesian and Tagalog suforums.

Atalarikt also speaks other Austronesian languages and he knows a lot about them. Aren't they included? And Tagalog should also be included there as I understand. I am also interested in Australian and Papuan languages, I tried learning some Kuman and was going to learn Anindilyakwa. Probably I'll return to them after reaching other goals.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure whether it really matters who moderates what. What seems to typically happen on this forum is that no one cares about any of these languages anymore after about five years, and it seems unlikely to me that we'll end up having to deal with random posts in any languages spoken in the Pacific islands except Tagalog and Indonesian/Malay.

In fact maybe even the names of the subforums don't matter all that much

At this point, I'm honestly not sure, Irusia. I thought it was a Oceanic, Papuan and Australian Aboriginal language forum.

I would think Austronesian would go in the SEA subforum.

But please correct me if I'm wrong.

vijayjohn wrote:I'm not sure whether they'll recognize that, though. My understanding is they expect us to PM them directly if we're interested in being a mod (or in seeing someone else becoming a mod).

Generally speaking yes. The only exceptions being the creation of a new forum (which is highly unlikely at this point) or the "recycling" of an old one.

I mean, I never PMed anyone to become the mod of the NAIL forum the first time. I just offered it in the thread where we were discussing collapsing the Eskimo-Aleut forum and the Lakota forum.

Lol this discussion became so rapid-fire all of a sudden.

Seems to be, yes.

księżycowy wrote:I would think Austronesian would go in the SEA subforum.

But please correct me if I'm wrong.

Austronesian languages are mostly spoken in the Pacific islands, so if it were up to me, I believe I'd put them into a Pacific forum (with the obvious exception of Malay/Indonesian, which has its own forum. I'd also leave Cham in the SEA forum because it's not spoken on any islands, at least AFAIK).

Generally speaking yes. The only exceptions being the creation of a new forum (which is highly unlikely at this point) or the "recycling" of an old one.

I mean, I never PMed anyone to become the mod of the NAIL forum the first time. I just offered it in the thread where we were discussing collapsing the Eskimo-Aleut forum and the Lakota forum.

Okay, but none of the mods have said anything for a while (meaning in the past few hours ) in this thread, which makes me doubt whether they'll manage to determine who gets to moderate what.

vijayjohn wrote:Honestly, I'm not entirely sure whether it really matters who moderates what. What seems to typically happen on this forum is that no one cares about any of these languages anymore after about five years, and it seems unlikely to me that we'll end up having to deal with random posts in any languages spoken in the Pacific islands except Tagalog and Indonesian/Malay.

Trust me, you're talking to the mod of the NAIL forum. I know all to well how much foot traffic our "outliner" forums get.

But that doesn't mean we don't try though.

Austronesian languages are mostly spoken in the Pacific islands, so if it were up to me, I believe I'd put them into a Pacific forum (with the obvious exception of Malay/Indonesian, which has its own forum. I'd also leave Cham in the SEA forum because it's not spoken on any islands, at least AFAIK).

Ah, I was making a distinction between Austronesian and Oceanic when Oceanic is part of Austronesian. I get you now.

I'm still not necessarily convinced of that. These are geographic groupings, not linguistic. Some Austronesian is in SEA as well, geographically speaking.

Yeah, but even in SEA, most of the Austronesian languages are in those islands that happen to be both in SEA and in the Pacific Ocean. The only ones that are spoken in mainland SEA are Cham, Chru, Duano, Haroi, Jakun, Jarai, Orang Kanaq, Orang Seletar, Rade, Roglai, Temuan, and five varieties of Malay. There's also up to six language varieties plus Urak Lawoi' spoken on islands that are not in the Pacific. In other words, it's most of Chamic, a bit of Malayic, and Moken. No one seems to be interested in learning any of these languages except Malay, so while it's a handful of languages, I don't think it would be a huge loss, either.

My basic point is, some of the Austronesian languages are already in the SEA subforum, and I see no good reason to move them. What advantage will they have in the Pacific subforum over the SEA subforum?

I mean, it would just seem to make sense to include them in a Pacific forum since they're also islands in the Pacific, but okay, I see what you're saying. In that case, I guess we could leave the Philippine, Malaysian, and Indonesian languages in the SEA forum and use the Pacific forum for the rest, although as I understand it, we'd probably have to lump the languages in Western New Guinea into the Pacific forum and there are Papuan languages spoken to the west in Indonesia, too, which we'd also lump into the Pacific forum.

In other words, the problem is where the boundary lies between the SEA languages and the Pacific ones, but as long as we can agree on where that boundary is, that shouldn't be a problem, either.

Hold on, I'm confused right here. Does that mean Austronesian languages spoken in the islands of Papua (e.g. Biak and Motu) should be in the SEA subforum instead?

No, at least not under my proposal. We just need to decide what counts as Southeast Asian and what counts as Pacific (or whatever other label we use).

Vijay is on the money.

As far as criteria, it's kinda already decided for us if we continue this way. What countries are SEA, and which are not? Any language in a Pacific island/country (aka Oceania, not in a country considered SEA) would be eligible. Aside for obvious exceptions (i.e. languages already having a home).

This is a problem for the Papuan languages because there's one thread for all of them and while they are mostly spoken in Oceania, some of them (including the two I've been studying relatively seriously) are spoken in Southeast Asia. (Waris, which I started dabbling in last year, is spoken in PNG but right on the border with Indonesia).

Also, do Formosan languages count as languages "in a Pacific island/country"? They're not Oceanian, but they are spoken in the Pacific and aren't Southeast Asian, either.