Category talk:Penutian languages

Category:English terms derived from Penutian languages
A still-disputed macrofamily. These were apparently created solely for (the etymology of), which I've recategorised under Category:English terms derived from Yok-Utian languages. (We appear to lack a category for Miwok languages Utian languages specifically.) --Tropylium (talk) 19:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: There are people who consider Penutian to be a language family; and Yosemite is hardly the only word that could have gone into that category. There should be something at this title.  Are you arguing that Penutian and Yok-Utian are the same thing?  If you are, Penutian should be a soft redirect to Yok-Utian.  If you're not, Penutian should be kept. Pur ple back pack 89   21:09, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Words are not derived from families, they're derived from particular languages; we use the family-category fallback only in the case of when a word could have been loaned from any of several closely related languages, but the details are not known. "Penutian", however, is such a wide concept (compareable to "Nostratic") that anything that could conceivably go under "terms derived from Penutian" should be primarily categorized under a specific language, and further under a specific established family. At most, the only thing under "Penutian" should be the individual language families the hypothesis encompasses (perhaps as a disambiguation page of sorts).--Tropylium (talk) 21:28, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * , I think you should familiarize yourself further with the way terms are categorized before you continue in your current vein. While you may be establishing why words should not be categorized directly under Category:Terms derived from Penutian languages, you haven't made a case as to why other categories shouldn't be that way.  After all, we do have Category:Terms derived from West Germanic languages, Category:Terms derived from West Slavic languages, and Category:Terms derived from Japonic languages, just to name a few really broad ones. Pur ple back pack 89   22:25, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In case my point was not made sufficiently clear: we do not categorize anything at all in disputed or hypothetical language family categories. Unlike West Germanic, West Slavic or Japonic (which are all actually fairly narrow language groups, not "really broad"), the Penutian hypothesis (which groups together dozens of language families of western North America) is not at a level of being generally accepted, and therefore should not be present at all in our category system. --Tropylium (talk) 23:25, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think now you're just making up policy that doesn't exist. If at least some people believe that Penutian is a language, what's the harm in it existing, at least as a soft-redirect to something else like Yok-Utian?  Or of it being a supercategory that includes Yok-Utian? Pur ple back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   23:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There are people who believe in Sumero-Etrusco-Basque, but that doesn't mean we should have a category for it. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:26, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This is probably indeed not written out explicitly anywhere, but it's de facto a policy that we do not maintain things like Category:Nostratic languages, Category:Eurasiatic languages, Category:Ural-Altaic languages, Category:Austric languages, Category:Alarodian languages, Category:Amerind languages, Category:Dené-Caucasian languages, Category:Hokan languages, Category:Mosan languages, Category:Keresiouan languages etc. --Tropylium (talk) 14:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * But we do have Category:Altaic languages. —CodeCat 15:39, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Have any of those been deleted by RFD/O? Being created and then deleted is a lot different than never being created in the first place.  Since these have never been deleted, there's not only no policy basis to delete them, there's no precedent either, just you clamoring "delete! delete! delete!". <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   19:19, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) There's some mainstream agreement that some of the parts are probably valid, but not about the whole. Yok-Utian is the highest-level node containing Miwok that mainstream linguists would probably be comfortable with- though even that is far from proven. The problem with Penutian is that there have been so many configurations set forth over the years that it's hard to say what it is, exactly.
 * As for things like West Slavic and West Germanic, those are sub-nodes of well-accepted trees, so they at least provide the benefit of dividing them up into more manageable pieces. Penutian is a top node (except for proposals from those who claim everything is related), so it needs to have some validity. Japonic is a top node (though Altaicists would disagree), but it's a pretty solid one.
 * While we're lecturing people about the way terms are categorized, I should point out that redirects (soft or hard) aren't a very useful concept as far as categories go. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:23, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * They seem to be useful enough for Wikipedia and Commons to use them (though I know we have a habit of ignoring best practices of other projects). You saying they aren't useful is coming at it from people getting to categories from entries.  If people type in the name of a category directly, it does make sense to have soft redirects there.  (Right now, you may be thinking,"but why would anybody type in the name of a category?"  In this case, it would be to answer the question "How many words in LANGUAGE X are derived from LANGUAGE Y", or "Which words in LANGUAGE X are derived from LANGUAGE Y?") <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   15:12, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does not "use" Penutian as a regular language family. It has an article Penutian languages discussing the hypothesis, and a corresponding category w:Category:Penutian languages, but all the component families are categorized as independent units under w:Category:Language families, while Penutian itself is rather found under w:Category:Proposed language families. I suppose we could do something similar, though.
 * I am regardless quite skeptical about a question like "what words (in English/whatever) derive from Penutian?" even coming up commonly, and given that "Penutian" is not even a concept with an agreed-upon definition, I do not see it as our business to attempt answering such a question. --Tropylium (talk) 14:39, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It most certainly is our business to answer questions such as those! If it wasn't, we might as well delete ALL "terms derived from" categories.  <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   15:54, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I keep repeating myself, but since this does not seem to be getting thru to you: there is no agreement on what languages even are "Penutian", which is a fundamental obstacle to categorizing things as "Penutian" or "derived from Penutian". You cannot ask that we accept it by-default, since there is no default view that could possibly be accepted. If you want to keep around a Penutian category, at the absolute least you will have to argue what exactly you want it to encompass. --Tropylium (talk) 17:17, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * For one, you've been making such specious other arguments, I've been so busy responding to them that I haven't had time to get to that. Secondly, since you're the one claiming that the category needs to be defining, maybe you should be the one burning oil to define it.  Since you've found the Wikipedia category for Penutian languages, the least you could have done is looked in that category to see what languages are in it. That being said, potential languages for this category include: Chinook, Coosan, Klamath, Konkow, Maidu, Miluk, Miwok, Molala, Nez Perce, Ohlone, Sahaptin, Siuslaw, Utian, Wintuan and  Yokuts. <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   18:56, 22 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. - -sche (discuss) 20:46, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Really? The nominator's "argument" has been pretty well discounted above. <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   21:27, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In your opinion. I would say your arguments have been discounted above. You're much more vehement and full of sure of yourself, but conviction and vehemence don't win arguments, logic and facts do. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:42, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The main argument for deletion is the OP believes that the language family is not legitimate or definable. He asked me, when the category is kept, what languages should be included in it.  I gave a list of languages that could be included, so that's that argument gone.  The OP has yet to provide a policy reason that disputed language families should be deleted; a few have been created and kept. <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   01:54, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Giving a list of languages that could be included does nothing to address the uncertainty that he was alluding to: if I were to invent a category of "things that have sgrelm", and say that fish, brass nozzles and sand could all be included, that isn't a defense against the argument that my category is nebulous. Oh, and by the way: Utian isn't a language. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:02, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. AFAICT, such speculative language groupings belong in the appendices at best.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 04:04, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. This should be uncontroversial. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:21, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, should be uncontroversial, because it should be kept without people like you saying it should be deleted. <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89  02:08, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * RFDO-failed. Tropylium, -sche, Eiríkr Útlendi, and I clearly favour deletion; Chuck Entz appears to favour deletion but was not explicit AFAICT so may be counted as an abstain, and Purplebackpack89 opposed deletion, leaving at least a 4-1 majority. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:13, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I support the deletion after the fact. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 21:30, 21 December 2015 (UTC)