Wiktionary:Votes/2019-12/Banning Proto-Albanian entries

Banning Proto-Albanian entries
Voting on: Banning the creation Proto-Albanian entries, whilst still permitting reconstructions in etymologies.

Schedule:
 * Vote starts: 00:00, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Vote ends: 23:59, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Vote created:  20:45, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion:
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Requests_for_deletion/Others
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Etymology_scriptorium

Support

 * 1)  Proto-Albanian reconstructions are arbitrary, and just as we don't create entries for Proto-Armenian, they should be equally forbidden. --  07:34, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure Armenian therefore Albanian works. As you see below at least Matasovic is fairly confident that we can learn much about Proto-Albanian from all the loans. I don't know as much about Armenian, but it has had some issues in the past, see Godel 1970 on this, he called the "present state of Armenian etymology" "anarchic" [|lang_fr&id=QoCVDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA139&dq=Proto-Armenian+reconstruction+methods&ots=9thV0OX7gO&sig=FKYbo45qN1g06hQPbWGls11khY8#v=onepage&q=anarchic&f=false]; I do hope those issues have been resolved.--Calthinus (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  --Vahag (talk) 08:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 2)  Fay Freak (talk) 13:42, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * , they just become hotbeds for never-ending controversies. --Robbie SWE (talk) 17:29, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Incredibly weak argument. Just sayin. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 17:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak or not, it's still my opinion and the other people supporting this proposition make even more compelling arguments. --Robbie SWE (talk) 00:09, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  Even though I created these entries, I support the idea of moving them to the Albanian entry's etymology section under the label "Early Proto-Albanian". Kwékwlos (talk) 07:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Why not just "early Albanian"? Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 'Early Albanian' does not refer to the proto language, but the modern one. ArbDardh (talk) 17:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)ArbDardh
 * 1)  With only one language, there is no common ancestor to reconstruct. —Rua (mew) 15:05, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * per Rua. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 02:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * sure, this is generally a good policy but here, it's misinformed. Yes, relying on internal reconstruction rather than the comparative method has problems (really that should make "Pre-" languages but we do also have Proto-Basque with its own body of research). However, this does not apply to Albanian, because we know the forms that an enormous chunk of the vocabulary had at the time it was loaned into Proto-Albanian, as they are Latin. The intervening processes that led to the modern forms of these words must apply to the rest of the Albanian lexicon unless we entirely throw out the foundational assumptions that still are the basis ongoing diachronic phonology research and literally every other proto-language reconstruction. How do we know it was the period that Proto-Albanian indicates that they were loaned into? Because researchers choose to reconstruct Proto-Albanian specifically then; they also (except for relatively less involved Matasovic who ends it much later) choose to end their postulated Proto-Albanian at the point of the Gheg-Tosk split so a limited comparison is possible. Instead of me, instead of anyone here, why don't we listen to the University of Zagreb's ubiquitous Indo-Europeanist Ranko Matasovic (a taste of his career: []): The comparative and historical research of Albanian is also fortunate in that the Albanian vocabulary is loaded  with  loan-words  from  Latin,  Greek,  and  various  forms  of  South Slavic,  some  of  which  are  very  old.  Since we  can  discover  the sound changes that affected these loan-words, we are often able to reconstruct  in great detail the shape of Proto-Albanian native words[]. It is true that the syntax and many aspects of the morphology of Proto-Albanian are shaky -- Vladimir Orel admits as much-- but the phonological forms of reconstructed roots are more grounded than you think. I will respect whatever the ultimate outcome is here, but I do ask you both to reconsider in light of the scholarly view. --Calthinus (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I certainly do not believe that internal reconstruction is an ill science, and I wouldn't disrespect those who attempt to reconstruct earlier stages of Albanian. And although I believe those arguments you posited are in fact good ways to reconstruct aspects of a language, I don't think that is enough to achieve the level of accuracy that we expect in wiktionary. Without the comparative method, much of the speculation regarding Albanian reconstructions will never be confirmed (or dismissed). I believe it's a good practice not to reconstruct proto-languages with a single descendant. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 22:06, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This is a fair point if we want to impose a high bar -- but then, what about all the remaining issues in the other proto-languages? Frequently cited sources on Proto-Indo-European, built off a paper trail perhaps an order of magnitude larger, still apparently cannot agree on the numbers 2 and 3. And yet we have entries for PIE (which I find very helpful and would not want to see deleted).--Calthinus (talk) 22:26, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Just a minor nitpick, the numbers two and three aren't that controversial. The forms *duwóh₁ and *dwóh₁ are Lindeman variants. And the form *tréyes is masculine, while *tríh₂ is neuter. There're many controversial topics in the field but I doubt this'd be considered one of them. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 00:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure. But in a world where ksira vs. xira ambiguity is "horrific" (ks > x is a regular shift occurring within PA), the issue of rival citation forms must apply to both sides of the argument, no double standards. You will protest: but people familiar with PIE will recognize this. Correct. Likewise, people actually familiar with Proto-Albanian immediately recognize that ksira vs. xira is very much the opposite of an actual issue. And Proto-Albanian entries would likely only be really used by Albanists and Romance linguists -- PIE people have little use for PAlb: its huge time gap from PIE makes it less useful, and its remaining inherited vocab size is small, and controversial. But for the purposes of studying Romanian and Albanian themselves, Proto-Albanian is very useful to have. I find the recent expansion of specific reconstructed Proto-Albanian roots on Wiktionary to be a thing that is very helpful as a quick reference, and I had long wished Wiktionary would have more coverage of Albanian diachronic variation. You are trying to take that away from me, so, yes, I am going to adamantly be an arsehole about pointing out the double standards here -- don't take it personally (I do respect most of the people I am arguing with here, really). --Calthinus (talk) 03:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * per Rua. I don't know much about Albanian, but I don't see how you could reconstruct a language based on one language alone. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:15, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I am afraid the reasoning "only one language => no good reconstruction of a proto-phase (unattested phase)" may be a little bit too simplistic. The reasoning has a plausibility, but is it correct? Have you or Rua looked at Orel? I have found an Orel pdf online. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:54, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, Vladimir Orel's works on Proto-Albanian have been published by Brill in Leiden, which, in regard of other considerable etymological publishings by Brill, could be an argument for the authenticity of Proto-Albanian reconstructions. HeliosX (talk) 17:32, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  Before allowing reconstructions, WT:About Proto-Albanian would need to be updated to say what stage is being reconstructed and to provide a standard orthography for en.Wikt at minimum. Furthermore, I have yet to see any consensus between the Proto-Albanian reconstructions of Orel, Camaj, Demiraj, Matasović, or Schumacher & Matzinger, to name a few scholars. Without serious work laying out how Proto-Albanian should be reconstructed on en.Wikt, I prefer not non-reconstruction to the Wild West we have at the moment. —*i̯óh₁n̥C[5] 01:39, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , one of my concerns is again echoed above. -- 22:18, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The disagreements between these researchers, as far as the same stage is concerned, are AFAIK not radical, and mostly in detail, just like in other proto-language reconstructions. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  per above. ←₰-→  Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  15:30, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 2)  It's very narrow-minded to say that a reconstruction of a language is impossible just because its descendants don't have separate armies and navies, especially when said language belongs to the single best investigated language family of the world, has a rich morphology and historical contact with other well-investigated languages. Still, I don't see a point in having pages that would only serve to duplicate content, leading to inconsistency. Crom daba (talk) 19:11, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * How would they only serve to duplicate content? Reconstruction pages can also include pronunciation and other information that wouldn't appear in an etymology. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:21, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , It would be good specified a proto-forms that all scientist agree with. Gnosandes (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Please clarify your stance. Are you supporting allowing Proto-Albanian entries as long as there is a consensus on what the reconstructions should be? Because right now you're voting in support of deleting the entries and banning any more from being created. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 21:32, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) . HeliosX (talk) 19:23, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 2) . ArbDardh (talk) 19:47, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 3) . Torvalu4 (talk) 16:04, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 4) . I don't have any preference one way or the other, but after reading the |the discussion I must say that the arguments provided by the ban-supporters are not convincing. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 17:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * At risk of sounding like a broken record, the reconstructions are arbitrary. What stage do we reconstruct when comparative methodology of proto languages is thrown out the window? Orel contrives some golden 1st century period, but we have no idea what "Proto-Albanian" really looked like then. As a result, his reconstructions are also most often not in agreement with those of Demiraj, so even if you buy into this romantic fantasy, we have no standard to speak of. It's really just an ill-conceived sudo-scientific mess. -- 03:03, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Could you reply here, per our conversation on Discord? -- 05:37, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Despite the fact that the reconstructions precede Gheg-Tosk split, I am still not convinced they are not legit based on borrowings from Latin and Greek. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 13:12, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * And how does one rectify that scholars do not uniformly reconstruct "Proto-Albanian"? Do we just follow Orel and ignore Demiraj? Another arbitrary choice for an arbitrarily reconstructed language. -- 00:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ow, that is definitely not a problem. We'll just add alternative reconstructions in such cases. Commonpractice in Proto-Turkic and Common Turkic, for instance, where Claeson posits voiceless initial stops, most others - voiced. Because most Wiktionary editors more or less arbitrarily follow most others and not Claeson, we add descendants to the entries with voiced initial stops, and the other entries would then just link to the main entries as "alternative reconstruction of term X (according to author Y)".
 * The real problem right now is that entries are unsourced, which is truly unacceptable. Albanian editors will have to add sources to all entries. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 07:57, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You should be, because theories with no consensus are weak ones, but I'll put a pin in that. The more problematic reason for the discrepancies is that we don't know the chronology of many changes and if they happened before, during, or after the word was borrowed from Latin into Albanian. If you can't establish that, you can reconstruct them a half-dozen different ways, making their reconstruction a joke. -- 10:16, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think so at all, taking into account Joachim Matzinger's datings of particular sound changes as well as borrowings from Ancient Greek and Latin in this thesis paper from 2016. A timetable, for instance, is given on p. 7 in case that anyone needs to look it up concretely. HeliosX (talk) 17:32, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You're certainly welcome to disagree, but you need just look at how the reconstructions of Orel and Demiraj differ. Compare *jāgnja to *γyogᵒeA, *skalā to *halna-, *ksirā to *xirā, *lauga to *vlog-, etc. ad nauseam. -- 18:54, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As I noted earlier, different phases of Proto-Albanian are given different names in different publications, and "Proto-Albanian" itself if we consider Matasovic's dating of its last phase to the 1300s CE (!!) covers the greater part of two millenia. You have drawn your examples from different authors talking about different periods of Proto-Albanian. You drew ksira from Orel's Early Proto Albanian (see p97, Concise Historical Grammar) it seems. Per Orel himself EPA ks- regularly develops into later PA x-, to modern Albanian h-... the same fate as loanwords with x- from Slavic. So Orel himself postulates an LPA xira too, meaning ksira vs. xira is a case of consensus. For example. By the way, skalna to halna too: see Orel page 97-98 : EPA *sk is reguarly metathesized to *ks > Alb h in Proto-Albanian roots with voiced occlusives... the same development takes place in roots with the sonorants *l, *r ... and then he gives the near identical example of how skola becomes ksola > xola > hola. What you think is authors whose work is a "joke" disagreeing, is actually them agreeing, and you conflating different periods.--Calthinus (talk) 21:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The point of my examples was to show that the various scholars in the field do not provide a uniform reconstruction of "Proto-Albanian", and until you have that, you cannot reconstruct a language. I appreciate that they're "difference stages" but the chronology and order is still lacking in agreement. -- 01:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * (at what point do we outdent here?) I want to apologize as some of this comes off as heated from me. I (and Florian) clearly see whatever disagreements there are as not issues that demonstrate the effort is not worthwhile, you (and or John) may disagree, I dont know. I do agree that there are real problems arising from the lack of a standard dating terminology. What a better discussion to have would be is "how do we decide on a policy mapping terms to periods to use" and which authors to go with. We could put a warning on a proto-Alb reconstruction page alluding to these issues. We could list rival forms where appropriate. I support most of all giving info and also providing info about what we are uncertain about. That is the most informative way to go about it, no? --Calthinus (talk) 03:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd like to add as well, in cases where the form is actually disputed, I think if we are going to reference it on the entries of its reflexes, it's much nicer to have a reconstruction page we can link to that informs readers about the dispute....no? --Calthinus (talk) 03:24, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The most informative way, in my opinion, would be to limit reconstructions to etymologies, and listing the various scholarly reconstructions. Committing to one single form gives the reader the false impression that this is the current most agreed upon academic reconstruction. Such a thing can be said for our entries for PIE, Germanic, Celtic, etc., but not Proto-Albanian. -- 06:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If you limit reconstructions to etymologies we have no central pages to link to where competing versions can be presented. Not all sources are available to everyone at all times. The likely result of your proposal is de facto reliance on Orel's forms, without the users who add them even knowing there are competing forms, because Orel 2000 is available online, and Demiraj and others are not. So what are we trying to accomplish here? And if anyone tries to fix it, you'd think they'd want to locate all the pages that might need to be compared between different sources. Well an index would be nice for that. You seem to want to delete the index for Proto-Albanian too per the discussion on the board. That is certainly a good way to make sure we cannot account for any real inconsistencies between Orel/Demiraj/whoever if we do actually discover some.--Calthinus (talk) 15:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Category:Albanian terms derived from Proto-Albanian -- 19:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * One example of not legit reconstruction based on borrowings in Latin and Greek: On they posited a Proto-Albanian *batsā and even an Indo-European *bʰaḱeh₂ based on Modern, which as I have explained on its entry derives via  from a contraction of , from . But Kwékwlos servilely created *batsā. And such is a common thread in Orel’s books, I am referring to an older discussion about Proto-Afro-Asiatic reconstructions and how assuming one be. Any benefit claimed to arise from Proto-Albanian entries – and it has to be searched with a magnifying glass – is not worth the horror of the terrible mistakes and inacceptable inexactitudes made by that language being free for entries, and the occupation of hunting down and treating these chronic ailments. Fay Freak (talk) 01:28, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This information is just wrong because neither Ancient Greek nor Proto-Albanian  have been borrowed. Any doubt about the possible common Proto-Indo-European root does not prevent the Proto-Albanian etymology. HeliosX (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , logically, is correct here, but further, the scholarship on Proto-Albanian, especially Orel who is widely cited and well-regarded in the academic community regardless of the opinions of anonymous encyclopedia editors, has already suggested a solution to that issue -- it is a loanword, likely from a substrate, not directly from PIE > ... > Albanian. See Matasovic, page 8 []. --Calthinus (talk) 21:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  If the reconstructions are considered to be unreliable and insufficiently scientific, they should not appear in etymologies of Albanian entries either, but the vote proposes that they be allowed in etymologies. Surely, we do not want claims sourced to pseudoscience in the mainspace; the vote proposer suggests the Proto-Albanian reconstructions are "sudo-scientific mess". --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If you think that "Proto-Albanian" reconstructions should be banned from etymologies as well, you should vote yes on this and start a follow up vote. By voting no, you're supporting the creation of more entries. -- 05:35, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * By voting oppose, I am opposing the proposal as written, no more and no less, consistent with my reasoning above. I do not know whether Proto-Albanian is pseudoscience. If Proto-Albanian is pseudoscience, it would be good to collect reliable sources that say so, or at least some sources that say so. As the initiator, you can create a follow-up vote that bans Proto-Albanian altogether, consistent with your claim that Proto-Albanian is pseudoscience. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:42, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand what you're doing, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A vote to ban Proto-Albanian altogether has a much poorer chance in passing so this is the only vote that will be created on this issue. -- 06:45, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Re: "A vote to ban Proto-Albanian altogether has a much poorer chance in passing": I don't know why that would be so. If Proto-Albanian can be shown to be pseudoscience or at least not reliable enough (e.g. too tentative) for the English Wiktionary standards, it has to go altogether. Being banned altogether is what happened to Altaic or Proto-Altaic in Votes/2019-01/Banning Altaic, while there was an older vote that did not pass: Votes/2013-11/Proto-Altaic.
 * Re: "this is the only vote that will be created on this issue": My guess would be that someone will create another vote if the present vote fails; we'll see. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:29, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Gauge the room yourself and read the discussions and the votes here. Your oppose vote is a vote for Proto-Albanian. It's really as simple as that. -- 07:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * We've clarified that already: "By voting oppose, I am opposing the proposal as written, no more and no less". --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:14, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ~ In cases like these, people usually abstain. I think that's probably the best way for you to voice your concerns without making it difficult to get rid of Proto-Albanian. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If the supporting editors make a reasonably strong case, it should not be too difficult to get rid of Proto-Albanian altogether. A vote is a high-visibility artifact, compared to a RFD for a category, and has a good chance of attracting many eyeballs. I outright oppose keeping inaccurate information in the mainspace, and that is what the present vote intends to do by its own admission. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:33, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  if I understand the proposal correctly, this would seem to also ban reconstruction pages, of this sort-- Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/óynos. Although work on Proto-Albanian is not as voluminous as PGmc or PIE, it would also be entirely wrong to treat Proto-Albanian as something with zero evidence aside from internal reconstruction using native vocab to go off of, as is the case with many "proto-" languages. Many Albanian words coming from ancient Latin loans (Greek loans, less so, but there are some). Albanian overall is more "Latinate" in its lexicon than native -- some 60% is of Latin origin although not all of it is so ancient. The items of interest include those as basic as dog, fish, hundred, friend, to see, sky, etc. Suffice to say the data is ample for the forms of much of the vocab before the sound changes that would transform them to their modern Albanian forms. Although this limits the source material for modern Albanian reflexes to construct roots from, it does help decrease our uncertainty of the phonological shape of Proto-Albanian, especially "Later Proto-Albanian" -- i.e. after the absorption of many Latin elements. One may protest "but loanwords do not preserve their original phonological shape"; this is at least somewhat handled for example, Latin s > Alb /ʃ/, probably because /s/ was not in the arsenal at that time, i.e. the reflex of neither palatalized PIE *ḱ nor *kʷ was /s/ then. And after their regularization, unless we throw out Neogrammarianism, the treatment of these loans and their development into their Old and Modern Albanian forms help us understand the intervening processes.  I see above in the "Support" section the work of respected linguists such as Orel and Demiraj called "a joke"? Unless you are an acknowledged expert on the issue, that's a bit much. People disagree, they build on each others' work, sometimes they are wrong, corrections are made, but really, "a joke"? Especially as misunderstandings are possible: for example, what Orel calls "Early Proto-Albanian", others call "Pre-Proto-Albanian", and what some others call "Early Proto-Albanian" is (part of) "Late Proto-Albanian" for Orel. Proto-Albanian is not the only proto- language with these issues, proto-Celtic reconstructions still feature discrepancies (although like Proto-Albanian some of these boil down to dating/terminology), and there is still no consensus over the correct form of PIE laryngeals, among other factors. The exact forms for some real core vocabulary items in Proto-Indo-European remains disputed by sources still in use. Is the number two duwo- (Sihler) or du̯oh₁? Is three *tri, or is it *treyes? Of course I acknowledge (as we all should) that Proto-Albanian is far more problematic overall than Proto-Indo-European, but we have reconstruction pages for PIE despite these issues also existing, and as for Proto-Celtic (which we also have), its construction cannot be unharmed by the loss of every Celtic tongue (many surely totally unattested) that wasn't isolated on remote islands which were once the extreme periphery of the Celtic world -- a vexing issue that thankfully we don't have to deal with for Albanian, because authors choose to reconstruct the form that existed around the time of Roman contact, as that is the most verifiable thing to do. We are pretty clear our reconstructions are not verifiable, so what is the problem, exactly?  Apologies for length. Cheers all,--Calthinus (talk) 05:44, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No need to apologize for the lengthiness, your contribution to the debate is both relevant and insightful. Contributions like these are much needed for people previously unfamiliar with the issue (like myself) to form an informed opinion. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 23:04, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The "joke" isn't in their efforts, but the idea of some perfect world where "Proto-Albanian" is reconstructible, and all scholars agree upon that standard; there isn't and they don't. Orel is a good researcher with many exceptional accolades to his name, but this project is not a database for the works of a single author. As points out, if we were even to start allowing Proto-Albanian entries on en.Wikt, a standard would first need to be developed and settled upon, and efforts towards that have yet to be made. Perhaps when they are, we can vote to include them again. --  23:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you for clearing that up. But it doesn't look to me like the scholarship supports your view. I have posted a link to the Indo-Europeanist Matasovic discussing this: and he concurs, the loans increase our confidence substantially. Not only the works of Orel but also many of his predecessors and successors remain well recieved. Of course with controversy on certain points as there is for all reconstruction projects, but I have not yet seen controversy about whether proto-Albanian "is reconstructible". In the discussion on the board, I very much agree with : a lot of the justifications here seem based on things that are just wrong, like using armies and navies (i.e. "these are dialects not languages" w/o regard to when they diverged) to determine whether we can use the comparative method. The Gheg-Tosk split was before the 6th century fyi. I do agree there are issues and if we keep it, a clear policy for whose dating terminology should be used should be laid out.--Calthinus (talk) 00:00, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I want to clarify something else that may have not been clear: this is not a vote to ban Proto-Albanian etymologies, but only entries, and those etymologies should be written to include differing scholarly reconstructions. Only, to my knowledge, is calling for an outright ban. , can you reply to Calthinus' views on scholarly (dis)agreement? -- 00:14, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not going to go through all of the numerous phonological disagreements between R:sq:Demiraj, R:sq:Orel/R:sq:Orel:2000, R:sq:Schumacher-Matzinger, and Ölberg (2013, Untersuchungen zum indogermanischen Wortschatz des Albanischen und zur diachronen Phonologie aufgrund des Vokalsystems), each of which contains lists of sound changes from PIE to Albanian. But I will look at one problem facing PAlb.: as far as I am aware, no one has ever given a PAlb. phonemic inventory. Proto-Albanian language shows phonemic inventories (which Calthinus added) as supposedly stated in R:sq:Orel:2000, but no such explicit inventories exist in Orel's text. The inventories presented in Proto-Albanian language are instead cobbled together from Orel's described sound changes with very few references to the other Albanists mentioned above (many of whom disagree with Orel). Indeed, none of the above sources list explicit phonemic inventories for PAlb.—to my knowledge, no published Albanian scholar has explicitly listed the PAlb. phonemes with an explicit orthography. This is very different from the situations in Proto-Slvic, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Italic, and Proto-Hellenic (for example), which have long had standard orthographies and widely accepted phonemic inventories. If this project is to provide entries for PAlb., we need to have an orthography and sound system upon which scholars agree. The information presented in Proto-Albanian language is a digested summary of the opinions of one scholar, who did not himself actually provide a unified description of either "EPA" or "LPA". What's more, Proto-Albanian language does not provide an orthography for PAlb., but only IPA transcriptions for EPA and LPA. En.Wikt does not encode protolanguages in the IPA, so the "policy" described at WT:About_Proto-Albanian is useless. Furthermore, the PIE reconstructions given at Proto-Albanian language (e.g. PIE *g'hn̩taː for, ostensibly some bizarre form of , and PIE *ln̩gwh- for < ) demonstrate a lack of understanding of the modern standards for Indo-European reconstruction. Overall, I see no evidence that any published scholar has laid out even the most basic element of Proto-Albanian, its sound system or orthography. Failing that, we cannot speak of a "scholarly consensus" around the PAlb. sound system, since no scholar has ever fully described it. Proto-Albanian_language ineptly compiles the views of a single scholar without an understanding of PIE reconstruction and without providing a workable system for reconstruction on en.Wikt. —*i̯óh₁n̥C[5] 01:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Not "together" but individually Orel does state which phonemes at least were present in EPA and LPA by listing each and giving its reflexes, that is precisely how the treatise is structured, no he does not give you charts, perhaps because as I have discovered on enwiki they end up... large. However that is irrelevant anyways because the question is not if we know the phonemic inventory of PAlb. That's also a double standard, as there is no consensus on PIE laryngeals, other issues regarding the dorsals, I suppose we have moved on from Glottalic theory but who knows, and then there's the whole thing of "to *b or not to *b". But again that's not even what matters. It is whether Proto-Albanian is, to use Victar's words, "reconstructible" or otherwise "sudoscience". That is a fringe view, I am sorry. PAlb is not "sudoscience". I also entirely disagree that the "orthography" of an unattested language is its "most basic element". Does Proto-Italic have a standardized "orthography" when people still argue over very basic things like whether Venetic is included? Some writers arent even sure if Italic is one clade or if it is like the (minority) Baltic and Slavic theory where its just areal convergence/parallel evolution (thank goodness Albanian doesn't have those issues!). But even if it was "basic", as long as we are consistent and clear in how transcribe it here on Wiktionary, why does it matter? All that matters is that for each term we are reasonably "confident" in our sources (i.e. as confident as one can be for a proto-language -- if we want to argue no reconstruction pages ever, at least I'd see a consistent argument). --Calthinus (talk) 02:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, no, Orel clearly states what EPA and LPA are. Page XII: "Early Proto-Albanian-- immediately before the beginning of contacts with Latin/Proto-Romance (1st century CE)". Demiraj disagrees with him by ~200 years on that point of when earliest contact happened but that is relatively minor as everyone agrees the bulk of imports from Latin came a bit later. Same page, "Late Proto-Albanian-- following contacts with the Proto-Romance and ancient Slavic dialects still close to Proto-Slavic (6th to 7th centuries CE)". That is remarkably concrete in fact. What about the dating of PIE? Oh, wait the Kurganists and Anatolianists are still spilling ink on that, now with new rival Bayesian models in their arsenals.--Calthinus (talk) 02:40, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Here is another source on Proto-Albanian, in the Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Note that in this source LPA is called "PAlb" and EPA is "PPAlb" . I believe in particular and  that this should assuage your worries about the ordering of phonological changes and inventories, as here is a source that presents both inventories and the order of changes, and is published by some of the most prolific authors in the field (google scholar cites: Joseph, for example). Additionally, they give a long list of recent work in the area that I hope will be of great use if you or any one else wishes to further inspect the matter. Cheers! --Calthinus (talk) 17:25, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  mellohi! (僕の乖離) 22:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 2)  Per above arguments. Proto-Albanian reconstructions that reflect an ancestor of Modern Albanian around the time Latin loanwords started to be adopted are absolutely scientific, and advanced by other scholars beyond Orel. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:31, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * as per above comment by @Florian Blaschke and detailed reasons given by @Calthinus.Resnjari (talk) 19:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ineligible to vote. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 22:24, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) . Gnosandes (talk) 05:13, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 2) . NativeNames (talk) 17:48, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Abstain

 * 1)  I just don't know enough about the issue to make a decision. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:45, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Abstain Let me abstain at this point and provide some notes:
 * 1) There is Proto-Albanian language, referencing mostly Orel: Orel, Vladimir (2000). A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian and Orel, Vladimir (1998). Albanian etymological dictionary.
 * 2) Apart from Orel, "scholars like Demiraj, Schumacher, Matzinger and others" are mentioned by Florian Blaschke as sources for Proto-Albanian, in Requests for deletion/Others.
 * 3) Category:Proto-Albanian lemmas has 84 lemmas.
 * 4) An example Proto-Albanian form is Reconstruction:Proto-Albanian/ainja, which has as descendants the Old Albanian nja, and Albanian një. Another example is Reconstruction:Proto-Albanian/aktṓ, from which Albanian tetë is descended. In Reconstruction:Proto-Albanian/balgā, Old Albanian baljëgë is given as a descendant from which further descendants are derived, Albanian, Italian, Romanian, and Serbo-Croatian. None of the pages has any reference. balgā was created on 15 April 2012; the other two are from 2019.
 * 5) The prefix "Proto-" in "Proto-Albanian" refers to the the forms being unattested and reconstructed. (Trivial for most readers, but anyway.)
 * 6) If Proto-Albanian forms get separate pages, references can be added to them. If they don't, inline references can be added to Proto-Albanian items in etymology chains in Albanian entries or Old Albanian entries.
 * 7) Separate pages for Proto-Albanian can get inflection tables if such information could be sourced.
 * 8) The languages or dialects descended from Proto-Albanian include Gheg and Tosk. "Gheg and Tosk are different enough that you can, indeed, make meaningful reconstructions", said Chuck Entz. In the English Wiktionary, Gheg and Tosk are treated as parts of single Albanian language. Going by ISO 639-3 codes, the descendants would be "Arbëresh (aae), Arvanitika (aat), Gheg (aln), and Tosk (als)", per Mahāgaja. Examples of Gheg vs. Tosk can be found in Gheg Albanian and Albanian dialects; some further reading is Albanian language # Dialects, britannica.com.
 * --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Orel has done some work on Proto-Albanian inflection in his Concise Historical Grammar... If the opportunity arises, it could indeed be possible to create such inflection tables as per his reconstructions. ArbDardh (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2020 (UTC)ArbDardh
 * @Chuck Entz: you changed tetë to etë in my post in, but the Proto-Albanian entry really says tetë so I put it back. Was it inadvertent or do you think it should be etë? --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I was just restoring it to your original version, since it was changed without your permission (albeit with the best of intentions). Chuck Entz (talk) 08:53, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Oops, there I go. Thank you, and I'll keep tetë in the post as accurate. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:59, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) . I  the proposal in theory, but am not qualified to judge. Canonicalization (talk) 10:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 2)  per Calthinus' objection and because I now realize the issue is more complex than I thought. I'll let those who know more decide (especially since the vote is so close). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It takes knowledge to declare what you know, but wisdom to admit what you don't. I wish more users exhibited the wisdom to abstain in votes. -- 00:02, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Votes are created because support is sought from the wider community, that is from people who are not experts at a particular area, but who have the ability to assess presented arguments, weigh them against one another and form a well-informed opinion. People vote against your proposal because your arguments are weak, not because of lack of "wisdom". Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 13:32, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Much wise. Many wisdom. -- 19:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * : I'm not qualified to vote one way or the other, but from what little I've read, I'm swayed by the arguments that some form of Proto-Albanian may be worth including, but that there need to be guidelines on the language: in particular how to integrate different scholars' reconstructions, what stage of the language should be represented on Wiktionary, what its phonemes are and what transcription system to use. — Eru·tuon 02:27, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  Octahedron80 (talk) 02:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 2)  I've concluded I'm not informed enough about Proto-Albanian to assess the quality of the arguments in either side. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 20:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I have no strong feelings one way or the other. Oldstone James (talk) 17:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ineligible to vote, see Voting policy. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 21:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1)  because I don't know much about internal reconstruction or Albanian. However, I do think that this decision should not be Proto-Albanian-specific, i.e. we should consider expanding the decision to other proto-langs with very few direct descendants. (See here for a list) Julia ☺  ☆ 02:06, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Decision
Failed 9-10-7. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 02:21, 12 February 2020 (UTC)