Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Voseo

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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. (non-admin closure) [Belinrahs|talktome⁄ ididit] 17:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Voseo[edit]

Voseo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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This is just a long dictionary article in the Wikipedia. It's well done, but being a well done dictionary article doesn't make it encyclopedic. Encyclopedic doesn't just mean long, it has connotations of generality, but this is just a single word. It hasn't done enough; it's done too much by being here at all. The wikipedia doesn't even do English verbs, never mind about foreign pronouns.

I call for Merge to pronoun. - Wolfkeeper 17:25, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Speedy keep, disruptive nomination. This is not an article about a word (not that it would matter if it were, since words are valid topics of encyclopedia articles), nor is it a textbook chapter for Spanish learners; this is an encyclopedia article about an aspect of the sociolinguistics of Spanish. Per WP:Speedy keep, this AFD need not run its course as it falls under the class of both "nominations which are made solely to provide a forum for disruption" and "nominations which are so erroneous that they indicate that the nominator has not even read the article in question". +Angr 22:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article has a foreign word for a title though, and it inherently cannot be renamed in any sensible way to be anything else; are you saying that all words that are an 'aspect of sociolinguistics of Spanish' are valid articles? Isn't that potentially every word in Spanish? And wouldn't that argument apply to every other language as well? I don't see that this argument leads to any kind of wikipedia I would expect. I'm finding it rather easier to believe that this article is ineligible here, and that this is not a valid article topic.- Wolfkeeper 22:49, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Kindergarten and Beijing have foreign words for their titles too; are you going to try to get them deleted on that account? When voseo is discussed in English, it is invariably called voseo.[1][2][3] +Angr 23:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

&Keep. This seems to be an expansion for Spanish of the concept at T-V distinction. It isn't an article about one word, but about an aspect of one of the world's most significant languages. Perhaps it needs more inward links from other Spanish-related articles. Sussexonian (talk) 00:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep I agree with +Angr, this is an article about an aspect of Spanish linguistics not a dictionary entry, and articles about aspects of linguistics like Chinese classifier are perfectly acceptable. There is no danger of getting an article like this written about every Spanish word because not every word (or for that matter every minor linguistic point) has a usage history interesting enough to have reliable secondary sources like this one (in English no less) [4] or this [5] written about them, and thus would fail notability. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep Nomination seems a good-faithed but misguided attempt to remove a good article from Wikipedia on wikilawyering grounds.--Kotniski (talk) 07:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete for the reasons given in the nomination. In reply to Angr if this article is about "sociolinguistics of Spanish" then it should have a title like the "Sociolinguistics of Spanish". -- PBS (talk) 13:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • He said an aspect of it. Anyway, having a less than ideal title is no reaon to delete something (and the reasons given in the nomination are just wrong - this isn't a dictionary entry).--Kotniski (talk) 13:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: This article is not a definition of a word, it is about the differences in various forms of Spanish in the way the 2nd person pronoun is used. It is an article about a specific branch of Spanish linguistics, the naming is appropriate as there is no suitable English equivalent that would not be somewhat unwieldy. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:29, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Despite the claims above, this article is indeed essentially a dictionary entry. (Note: I did not say "dictionary definition".) It includes a definition of the word, its history and usage patterns, and in general contains nothing that wouldn't be found in a theoretical ideal dictionary entry. It is not Wikipedia's place to duplicate the purpose of a dictionary. Powers T 14:52, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So you think this article could be moved to Wiktionary? I rather doubt it, it's far more extensive, and isn't even about one specific word.--Kotniski (talk) 15:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I never said that. Wiktionary's house style is surprisingly much more terse than some comprehensive print dictionaries. I apologize if I missed something in the article, but I didn't see any extensive discussion of any other words. Certainly the lede indicates that the article strictly about the word "voseo". Powers T 16:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I misread the article; I had thought it to be about a pronoun "voseo", rather than to be about the use of the actual pronoun "vos". I apologize for the error, as while I see how it happened, it really shouldn't have. Powers T 20:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep. Don't be silly. For a start, voseo is a noun, not an adjective: the term (not the word) describes the habit or practice of using vos instead of tú. Secondly, it is one of the geographically significant differences between Eastern hemisphere and Western hemisphere Spanish (there are many other local differences in each hemisphere): as such, it is mentioned in even basic grammars of Castilian, especially those aimed at foreigners (such as enwiki). Finally, I can find a featured article on thou, a similarly obscure part of English grammar for most foreign speakers, so there is no reason why this article couldn't be improved. Physchim62 (talk) 16:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • On what grounds do you suggest a speedy keep? Powers T 16:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the nominator lists four reasoans for deleteion, the first three of which are obviously incorrect. I hesitate to call this a disruptive nomination as Angr (talk · contribs) has done above, but I would hope that the nominator would be willing to have article titles that s/he doesn't understand in an encyclopedia of over three million articles. The fourth argument, that Wikipedia "is not a textbook", could have been avoided by comparison with similar articles on foreign-language grammar: WP gives the evidence (and hence the information), but does not try to be didactic. This nomination has no basis in deletion policy, and so should be closed forthwith. Physchim62 (talk) 19:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm sorry; I meant which of the criteria at WP:Speedy keep apply? As far as I can tell, only if the nominator provides no deletion rationale at all, or if that rationale is clearly issued in bad faith, and if no one else has agreed with the deletion, can an AfD be closed as Speedy Keep (ignoring procedural issues such as wrong forum and banned users). Powers T 20:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is an important linguistic/sociolinguistic phenomena. (Aside: I took an entire class on it when I studied in Spain, and I'm not even a linguist!) Agree with Physchim62 above, esp. the part about thou. --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû 18:36, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, for two reasons. First, I think it's a topic of encyclopedic interest, and I think this article does a decent job covering it. Second, the "delete" voters don't seem to know what they're talking about. I realize that that's an ad hominem reason, but I think it's a valid one: if the nominators can't be bothered to the skim the first few paragraphs and see what the article is about, then I can't imagine their opinions about it are worth very much. (I say this because they seem to think it's a dictionary entry for the word voseo. It's a dictionary entry for the word voseo in exactly the same sense that Platypus is a dictionary entry for the word platypus: that is, it's about a topic that is identified by a single word, and that single word is the title of the article. Anyone who wants to claim that this a dictionary entry should be claiming that it's a dictionary entry for vos.) —RuakhTALK 18:42, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Yes, that does seem to be an ad hominen attack. This is a foreign word that heads up an article that describe the usage of foreign words. The title word is not in any English dictionary. This seems to be a specialist linguistics term, but the Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. The Wikipedia is not a usage guide (WP:NAD). At the very minimum, the article need to be at an English article name. If the resultant name is too obscure, then the Wikipedia probably shouldn't have the article; as the concept is obviously too obscure for the audience. The Wikipedia is not a specialist linguistics encyclopedia; should the rules be bent or broken to try to make it this???- Wolfkeeper 19:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • WK, I support your attempts to remove dictionary content, but after reading the article more carefully, I don't think that applies here. Articles about language are very useful in an encyclopedia, as long as they don't simply describe the usage of a single word. This article describes a concept and its cultural impact in Spanish-speaking areas; its title is irrelevant to this discussion and can be changed with a move request if necessary. Powers T 20:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • (ec) You're right, Ruakh. Although I don't appreciate the aspersion, as I merely misread the article, rather than skipping over it as you imply. I've retracted my recommendation above. Powers T 20:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep this seems like a perfectly encyclopaedic article on one aspect of Spanish sociolinguistics. While some of the content, for example the conjugation tables, would be at home in a dictionary in context with the surrounding article (which is not dictionaric) they are equally appropriate here. Thryduulf (talk) 20:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm seeing little of the keeps (really, folks, try actually reading WP:SK instead of assuming that strength of argument == strength of bold adjectives) which suggests that this article really stands alone from T-V distinction, given that it's barely sourced. While the actual nomination isn't very strong, a cursory examination of the article suggests that in its present form it's more of an essay on language, and it should be trimmed and merged into the master article until it's incubated. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:46, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I agree because this topic is an aspect of sociolinguistics important to Spanish. Captain Gamma (talk) 14:19, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I've changed my mind on the article; although the title is a foreign word, and it could (and should) be translated into English without changing the article in any material way (although it might be a bit clumsy). This isn't the case with some of the other word articles like thou or prithee; it would not be possible to translate thou or prithee, including translating the title, and keep the article the same. This article is not a dictionary article in that sense. I don't think that needing renaming is enough to delete, that's just a guideline, and the material would be OK if merged (as in a proper merge rather than a delete merge.)- Wolfkeeper 20:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or merge. Quiensabe (talk) 22:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Agree completely with Angr. This is no more dictionary entry than, for example, Rhotic and non-rhotic accents is. garik (talk) 13:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep T-V distinction is already very long. This is a widely used term in English linguistics publications (usually referred to as "the voseo" or "the voseo phenomenon") and refers to much more than a bit of grammar description. It is both a sociolinguistic and philological phenomenon and is the subject of numerous studies in its own right. Just some examples where it is discussed in depth or is the subject of an entire article/monograph:
Braun, Terms of address: problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures, Walter de Gruyter, 1988
Penny, Variation and Change in Spanish, Cambridge University Press, 2004
Malkiel, Linguistics and philology in Spanish America: A survey (1925-1970), Mouton, 1973
Klee and Ramos-Garciá, Sociolinguistics of the Spanish-speaking world: Iberia, Latin America, Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 1991
Baumenl-Schreffler, "The Voseo: Second person singular pronouns in Guatemalan speech" Language Quarterly, Volume 33, pp. 33-44, 1995
Newall, "The Loss of the 'voseo' in Chilean Spanish: Evidence in Literature" University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 13: Iss. 2, Article 13, 2007.
Stevenson, The sociolinguistic variables of Chilean voseo, University of Washington, 2007
Benavides, The evolution of voseo, University of Texas at El Paso, 1993
The WP article is not currently well-written. It needs to have much more emphasis on the sociolinguistic aspects of the phenomenon and more reference to scholarly English language publications. At the moment it is simply descriptive and the lead needs to be seriously re-written so it doesn't sound like a simple definition or how to guide. But I don't see why the need for serious improvement qualifies an article on a notable subject for deletion. Voceditenore (talk) 14:02, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Further comment The voseo phenomenon is not, strictly speaking, about the T-V distinction (another reason why not to merge), it's about the development of an alternative form of the "T pronoun" in Spanish. Voceditenore (talk) 14:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep, important gramatical disctintion, not a dictionary entry. Mariano(t/c) 16:10, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The subject is as notable as the article on Thou. If it can be improved then work on it, but there's no reason to delete. Ladril (talk) 16:25, 18 November 2009 (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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