Talk:Indo-European languages

Northern Iran

Everyone in northern Iran speaks Persian. My grandparents (father side) are from Tabriz. Please change the picture.

Indo-European originated in Asia Minor

• http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19368988 --Kirov Airship (talk) 11:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

This is old news, and will remain little regarded by linguistic experts as long as Atkinson, Pagel & Co. stick to poor data and methods and completely miss the point.

Perhaps a link to Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses should be included in a prominent place within the article, as for lay readers, i. e., non-linguists, this is clearly a central issue. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Removal of Messapic, Philistine and Thracian from the infobox...

I removed the aforementioned languages from the infobox for the following reasons:

1. Philistine is not confirmed to be an Indo-European language. It was merely suggested, by some linguists, that Philistine might have been an Indo-European language but there's nothing that can conclusively prove it was. Adding it to the infobox would be as ridiculous as adding Hunnic to the infobox, since some linguists have also theorized that Hunnic was an Indo-European language.

2. Messapic and Thracian were indeed Indo-European languages, but they were not subfamilies. In fact, there's no consensus on the exact classification of these two languages. The infobox is meant to list the immediate (i.e. first order) subdivisions of the Indo-European family, therefore it was not appropriate to list Messapic and Thracian in the infobox as their precise classifications within the language family have not been widely determined.

--Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 08:50, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Guyana

Why is Guyana shown in light green on the map? The national language, Guyanese Creole is an English-based creole, therefore rather manifestly an IE language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.48.18 (talk) 06:24, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

True, Guyana should be colored in dark green. Also, Lebanon should be grey. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 14:00, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Characteristics?

I find it strange that an article on the most widely spoken language family that's well-recognized (I'm still holding out for Nostratic, woot woot!) includes no section on typical features of its languages. I'm sure there are a few that have been written about and that we could include, like fused person-number/gender/case (for nouns) and person-number/gender/tense (for verbs) suffixes, generally SOV word order, sex-based gender systems (usually male/female/neuter), and T/V second-person pronoun distinction. Tezero (talk) 22:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

A note on the context, scientific validity and bias of the assertion of the existence of Balto-Slavic

An editor has been repeatedly trying to insert text in the articles on Indo-European, Balto-Slavic and Baltic. There are, by my count, three other editors who are reverting these changes. I want to add my name to those who find these changes inappropriate, and to note that they should be justified in the talk page somewhere before trying again. I observe that the language of these changes is "chatty", not encyclopedic, and is not supported by appropriate citations. I think that appropriate action is warranted by an administrator if this text continues to appear without discussion. TomS TDotO (talk) 10:53, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Would you mind giving a bit of context? What exactly is being inserted? Am I correct in gathering that it's a "manufactroversy" in the vein of Holocaust denial or global warming skepticism, in the sense of an idea that <1% of scholars agree with? Tezero (talk) 15:37, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• The "note on balto-slavic" is written in an entirely non encyclopedic style, as a personal essay, and it has no sources. We can certainly have a section about balto-slavic and the doubt about its validity as a grouping, but it would have to be written in an encyclopedic style and with reliable sources. It would be good to read our guidelines on editorializing and Verifiability.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:46, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Add to the edit warring in four different articles the personal attacks that this single purpose account has posted on individual Talk Pages and you get an individual who isn't interested in encyclopedic content, but only in pushing an agenda. --Taivo (talk) 18:21, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I suggest to move this talk to the appropriate main article. HJJHolm (talk) 15:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

"genetic"

In § Grouping, I'm adding a parenthetical note with a link to Genetic (linguistics):

(The word "genetic" here has nothing to do with human genetics; it refers to relationships between languages.)

The same page is linked from the word "genetic" in the immediately preceding sentence. While normally we wouldn't have a redundant second link so close to the first one, I feel that it's quite important to make it clear that words like "genetic" and "ancestor" here have nothing whatever to do with human genetics. There are already too many people who think that language and "race" are somehow intrinsically linked.

To discuss this, please {{Ping}} me. --Thnidu (talk) 03:03, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Warnow or Tarnow

§ Diversification refers to the work of "Don Ringe and Wendy Tarnow", but in the references and other mentions ("Ringe-Warnow model of language evolution") the second name is "Tandy [or T.] Warnow", confirmed by a Google search for the phrase. AWB finds the name first appearing here in the edit of 18:48, 30 April 2014, described as "(→‎Diversification: Copied info from Indo-European migrations, added link)". I'm correcting it in both articles.

To discuss this, please {{Ping}} me. --Thnidu (talk) 03:35, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:30, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion

A move discussion with connection to this article is open at Kurdish languages' talk page. Please read and join if you can help resolve it. Khestwol (talk) 17:29, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Why remove the political map of Indo-European languages?

Both the political and non-political maps of the IE languages should be present in the article. Why remove something that makes the article more informative? 168.187.250.57 (talk) 10:18, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

because it is added by a sock of a banned editor who is block evading. And because the information presented is misleading. It shows most of Africa as Indo-European and all of Turkey (incl. Kurdish part) as non-Indo-European. We don't need such map. The other map, about the modern IE branches in Eurasia should stay in the top of this article. Khestwol (talk) 10:28, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Looking back at the history of this article, the political map was always there. It's been in the article for many, many years. The onus is on the person who wishes to make the change to explain his/her changes instead of edit-warring. As for the maps, surely we can have both. We can relocate the political map to another section of the article instead of getting rid of it outright. The other maps aren't accurate by any means either. 168.187.250.57 (talk) 10:32, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

• I came up with a solution that makes all sides happy. You see, that's what editors should do on Wikipedia. We should give and take, and not let psychopathic power-hungry admins get in our way. 168.187.250.57 (talk) 10:41, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

The political map is inappropriate for the infobox. This article is about the language family, not politics. Moreover, the non-political map contains information about the branches of the family. Nevertheless, the political map is okay for somewhere in the body of the article. --JorisvS (talk) 10:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)