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vijayjohn wrote:I envision the following: one forum for European languages, one for NAILs, one for CSAILs (or we can even split it), one for Asian languages, one for AILs (African languages), one for Austronesian languages, one for Australian languages, and one for Papuan languages. The forums for NAILs, CSAILs, and AILs already exist.
I personally would also like to suggest Yuman-Cochimi because this is another language family that is attested on both sides of the border with Mexico.
I would also suggest expanding Na-Dene to Dene-Yeniseian; the connection between Yeniseian and Na-Dene seems to be as well established as it possibly could be, and this would also have the advantage of avoiding yet another Eurasian forum.
Caucasian (i.e. Armenian, Northeast Caucasian, Northwest Caucasian, and Ossetic)
księżycowy wrote:A few questions and suggestions, if I may....
For what purpose? In particular with the European and Asian suggestions.
I personally would also like to suggest Yuman-Cochimi because this is another language family that is attested on both sides of the border with Mexico.
Is anyone interested in these languages?
Where as I don't have a huge issue with this, who's interested in the Yeniseian languages to bother with this? Most of them are extinct to begin with. Only Ket is still spoken.
If Karvelian is having it's own subforum, why are these all lumped together? (And yes, I know the idea is to broaden the Georgian forum.) At the very least I don't like Armenian and Ossetic in the mix like that.
I would also personally like to see either the Turkic Languages subforum expanded to include Mongolic, or a separete Mongolic forum.
vijayjohn wrote:I personally would also like to suggest Yuman-Cochimi because this is another language family that is attested on both sides of the border with Mexico.
Is anyone interested in these languages?
I don't know, but where would they go otherwise? Some of them are spoken only in California, some are spoken only across the border in Mexico, and some are spoken on both sides.
vijayjohn wrote:So we have a default forum for each continent instead of having to create so many forums that everything would be impossible for users to find, and also to help balance the number of subforums per continent so that we're not overrepresenting European (and Asian, but especially European) languages even more than we need to.
I mean, I'm kind of interested. But I'm alternatively fine with putting Ket in an Asian subforum instead.
The idea I had in mind was to have a space for them without creating even more forums for Eurasian languages than we already have. This isn't the only possible arrangement, though. Even if we had a Kartvelian forum, a Northeast Caucasian forum, a Northwest Caucasian forum, an Armenian forum, and an Ossetian forum all as separate forums, then we would have eleven forums for transcontinental languages, which might not be so bad (given that we also have twenty-five forums specifically for European languages even under this proposal). Alternatively, we could merge them in a different way, e.g. Kartvelian with Northeast Caucasian and Northwest Caucasian in together one forum and Armenian and Ossetian together in another, or even just all of them together in a Caucasian forum as proposed earlier.
Hmm, okay. What about Tungusic? And what would a forum with both Turkic and Mongolic (or all three of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic) be called?
księżycowy wrote:Sorry to take so long to get back to you so late Vijay.
I just don't want those subforums to end up being like the other geographic forums are. It's a bit messy that way, having a bunch of languages from all over the place in them.
I guess we can leave with up to further discussion?
Like I said, I don't really care that much.
And I thought we were trying to move away from geographic groupings as much as possible.
Actually, maybe we can leave the Turkic forum along and just make a Mongolic and Tungusic subforum? Is there enough interest between the two of them? I know I'm quite interested in Mongolian, and (to a lesser degree) Manchu.
As for a name: Mongolic and Tungusic Languages. Why make things complicated?
vijayjohn wrote:I think this would be easier to handle if we just had sub-subforums instead.
Or I'm open to proposed alternatives if you can think of any.
Sure, but, well, there are 141 language families according to Ethnologue...but somehow I doubt we'd want to make 141 forums for them.
I'd be fine with this. I know a tiny bit of Mongolian, and learning a Tungusic language someday would be cool!
księżycowy wrote:I mean, our goal isn't to represent every language in the world. That's impractical.
księżycowy wrote:There is no reason we can't change things up if some one ends up interested in something that's not represented.
księżycowy wrote:So, since noöne has come out and said that they totally object, can I assume this is what we're going with?
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