Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atlantic (Semitic) languages

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. A merge could still be proposed. There is no consensus for deletion Eddie891 Talk Work 03:47, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Atlantic (Semitic) languages[edit]

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Atlantic (Semitic) languages (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Long article for minority theory which never saw any wide support. I don't believe a version of this article is salvageable due to how widely rejected the theory is and the fact that the theory is only being advanced by a single author. Fails WP:NOTABILITY as a standalone article, though likely warrants mentioning in Theo Vennemann's article. Essentially this is an entire article dedicated to a single rejected theory by a single author without any mainstream support. Warrenmck (talk) 00:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Warrenmck (talk) 00:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History and Europe. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 01:18, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with this nomination rationale is that since the last time someone argued this at AFD in 2008, and it was pointed out that there were people independent of the creator writing about it, even if only to reject it and explain why, the world has only gained more experts covering the subject. 2 years after the AFD discussion Paul Roberge (professor of Germanic languages and professor of linguistics) gave it a detailed write-up, explaining the hypothesis and then how xe thought it was flawed, in Roberge 2010, p. 408–409, for example. 1 year after the AFD discussion Marc Pierce (professor of Germanic linguistics) did a assuming-that-the-hypothesis-is-true-does-it-explain-anything paper in Pierce 2009, for another example.

    It isn't becoming less covered in-depth by third parties with credentials in the field, as the years go by.

    • Roberge, Paul (2010). "Contact and the History of Germanic Languages". In Hickey, Raymond (ed.). The Handbook of Language Contact. Blackwell handbooks in linguistics. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781405175807.
    • Pierce, Marc (2009). "Modern English key and the Problem of Loan Words in Germanic". Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics. 122: 305–310. JSTOR 41430712.
Uncle G (talk) 03:25, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • My concern with this line of reasoning is the underlying theory itself is functionally static; there's no wider acceptance or development. Occasionally somoene points to it to criticize it, but WP:NOTABILITY would arguably require more than two (!) paragraphs in a text about the topic from a mainstream perspective saying "this theory exists and doesn't have wide support", which is about the sum of the mention in "Contact and the History of Germanic Languages". In fact, the mention there seems to be only to highlight that this (potential substrate) problem has existed for a while and has been tackled in several ways, by highlighting one novel approach, rather than discussing it with any serious depth. I think the suggestion below, about a possible redirect/merge to Theo Vennemann, makes more sense than an article itself. Warrenmck (talk) 23:21, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: WP:ATD would be a redirect/merge to its progenitor Theo Vennemann. Curbon7 (talk) 21:21, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Potential keep -- Sometimes it is useful to have an article on a subject such as this even if the consensus is that it is wrong. This means that the argument on the subject are available for the uninitiated to read. Such an article needs to end by explaining the arguments for the consensus view that the theory is wrong. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:42, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I am bit torn here. The Insular Celtic part of Vennemann's Atlantic proposal is nothing new, as the article also states. Speculations about a Semitic substratum in Insular Celtic predate Vennemann's project of trying to relate the unfamiliar (potential traces of pre-IE languages in specific branches of IE) to the familar (attested language families, thus completely ignoring the likely fact that pre-IE Europe was home to lost language families). These earlier speculations make up a topic that is clearly notable with WP:SIGCOV (for a review see e.g. this article[1]). AFAICS, only the article Atlantic (Semitic) languages hosts at least some information about this notable topic.
OTOH, the combination of the Semitic substratum hypothesis for Insular Celtic with the assumption that "un"-IE elements in Germanic languages go back to the same substratum, that's clearly a one-scholar project that has gained much less scholarly attention than the "classic" Semitic substratum hypothesis, and also less attention than his "Vasconic" hypothesis. Vennemann's work is notable as a package, but his "Atlantic languages" aren't. So I am inclined to propose to merge the Atlantic hypothesis to Theo Vennemann#Theories, and to incubate the notable parts (about Morris-Jones and Pokorny) somewhere for a future article Insular Celtic substrate hypothesis. –Austronesier (talk) 17:40, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting as the Keep is weak and there is no support right now for Deletion. I'd like to hear from more editors and know where Uncle G ultimately stands.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 01:49, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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