Category talk:Flemish language

Deletion debate

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Category:Flemish language

Tagged by EncycloPetey, who's since decided to skip the RFD and speedy-delete the whole lot. It has an ISO 639-3 code, why is this here? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:40, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Nope, I've started an RFD discussion (albeit in the main RfD page). This discussion you've started is a duplicate. So far, I've only corrected the erroneous given name entries and appecndix, all of which (and the language category) were created in error by Alasdair. The ISO includes codes for dialects as well as for languages. The code "vls" is for Vlaams, which is the dialect of Dutch spoken in Belgium. --EncycloPetey 23:44, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Nope {{vls}} is for Flemish. Have fun restoring all the categories you just deleted without a consensus. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:50, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

See our definition of "Flemish", which is "Flemish variety of the Dutch language". See also w:Flemish. The term Vlaams is the native Dutch for the same thing. If you have a reason to overturn community consensus that Flemish is a dialect of Dutch, it would be helpful to present it instead of capering about. --EncycloPetey 23:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I just love the way you feel like the rules don't apply to you. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Good grief, not another "nyah, nyah, nyah" tantrum from you. What "rules"? --EncycloPetey 23:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

community consensus that Flemish is a dialect of Dutch - what community consensus? There is none. -- Prince Kassad 23:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, see Talk:Flemish and Wiktionary_talk:Main_Page#Scots? for just two of the places this topic has been discussed before. --EncycloPetey 23:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Pete, Perhaps there's some chance of getting you to stick to the issue, instead of your usual smoke-and-mirrors approach. Seems to be you're happy to point out rules when you're following them, but when you're breaking them you just deny they exist. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:00, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Pointing to previous discussions on the issue (see my previous post) is sticking to the issue. The only smoke and mirrors here are your ad hominem attacks and mention of unspecified "rules" that somehow aren't being followed in some undescribed way. --EncycloPetey 00:04, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

O.K., but those previous discussions don't really support your case. They certainly don't demonstrate a community consensus against ==Flemish==. —Ruakh_TALK 14:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there might be a confusion. The name "Flemish" is very ambiguous. It is commonly used for Dutch as spoken in Belgium, but it also has a secondary meaning which we are missing on our entry on Flemish, as a group of dialects spoken in the southwest area of the Netherlands. What the code vls actually refers to is the West Flemish dialect, spoken around the area of Zeeland in the extreme west of the Netherlands. Flemish dialects include other divergent varieties like East Flemish or Brabantish. The differences between West Flemish and Dutch are greater than between Afrikaans and Dutch. Therefore, I propose that the name of the language be changed to West Flemish. -- Prince Kassad 00:02, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes there's an argument for deleting it. The same would apply to (at the very least) Afrikaans, Anglo-Norman and Scots. Anglo-Norman is, as you put it (EP) "uniformly consider[ed] […] to be a dialect of [Old French]". You're not gonna start rubbishing your own arguments, are you? Mglovesfun (talk) 00:04, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

You didn't quote me. You fabricated an opinon by inserting words I didn't even use. The issue is Flemish, not some other language. Please follow your own advice and "stick to the issue". --EncycloPetey 00:07, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Stop playing the naivety card. You know damn well what square brackets mean. One day I'll find a way of getting you to actually talk about the issue at hand. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Try asking on-topic questions for a change, instead of off-topic ones. --EncycloPetey 00:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how you can be so confrontational and complain when you are confronted. What I object to is the speedy deletion with no prior discussion of categories using an active ISO 639-3. If you saw someone do that, you'd probably block them for a week. Why should the rules not apply to you? Mglovesfun (talk) 00:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I see you've decided to redefine "sticking to the topic" again, and are now inventing things I would "probably" do, then getting mad at me for those imaginary actions (which you have done, not me). Please tell me (as I've asked before many times and never received an answer from you) which "rules" are you talking about? --EncycloPetey 00:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Not probably, you just did it. I'm happy to test the theory if you like. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Deleted Category:Late Latin. That's not a valid language, no consensus for inclusions. Let's see if you restore it. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:29, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not a language category. --EncycloPetey 00:31, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

From WT:DELETE "Administrators have no special status in determining which pages to delete. Their job is to implement the consensus of the community. If there is any uncertainty about whether there is such a consensus, it is safer not to delete the page, but instead flag it RFD or RFV." Mglovesfun (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

If you could just stop trying to justify the speedy deletion and say "ok, sorry, let's talk about it" it would make a big difference. You can speedy delete a load of categories and expect nobody to care. I'd like to see a greater sense of responsibility from you, but sadly, based on past performances, there's no reason for me to expect that. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:42, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Flemish doesn't reveal a consensus, it seems they were pretty split on the matter. This was back in 2003. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:06, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

See also User_talk:Vildricianus/Archive4#Flemish. There are many more. I've just pulled a couple of examples of where the topic has been previously discussed. I made no attempt to do an exhaustive search. --EncycloPetey 00:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussions, just so far none that back you up. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually I think it purely comes down to personal opinion. For example we don't allow Ancient Hebrew. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

All our language choices ultimately come down to opinon. It's just that some of those choices are easier to make because of stronger opinion. --EncycloPetey 00:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Just this isn't one of those cases. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:22, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a pretty strong consensus among editors who actually speak the languages that Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian should be merged into Serbo-Croatian. I'm actually thinking this might be a vote issue, rather than a deletion one. I say that because presumably we wouldn't just want to get rid of this category, but also not allow translations into Flemish. That would be a policy issue. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:14, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I suggest updating WT:LANGTREAT eventually, if/when this issue comes to a conclusion. --Daniel. 01:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

So... it's clear from this discussion, whether it was clear from anywhere else or not, that there's disagreement over whether or not to allow Flemish. Let's do have a civil BP discussion (perhaps leading up to a vote) on this (especially noting what Prince Kassad does about the possible multiple meanings of "Flemish"), and let the entries remain in the meantime. — Beobach 00:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

The code {{vls}} stands for West Flemish, not Flemish in general. So regardless of whether or not to allow Flemish as a language, we should not be using that language code for it. —CodeCat 14:51, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

In any case, let's consider the situation in more detail. The local dialects that people speak in Belgium are generally southern Brabantian, western Limburgish and West Flemish (maybe there is an East Flemish too but I don't know). These people also know standard Dutch, the standardised literary language that is taught in schools (I believe), used on televised news, and is also spoken in the Netherlands. If you then agree that there is also an intermediate Flemish language (whatever it is, given that it's not identical to either of the other two), then that would imply that a huge amount of people in Flanders is actually trilingual! That seems rather absurd to me, to be honest. —CodeCat 14:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the former discussions above show a tendency to merge Flemish into Dutch, but not a really strong consensus. CodeCat and Prince Kassad seem to think we should change the content of {{vls}} to West Flemish. At this point we would either need to delete all the categories, rename them all to West Flemish, or create a code for Flemish ({{gem-fle}}?) to allow them to continue to exist. I don't really think I can support one option over all the others, sorry. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:18, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I stumbled upon this discussion coincidentally. Being a Flemish myself, I will try to clarify some things. First of all, "vls" does stand for Flemish as a whole, not just West Flemish (see http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=vls). The vls.wikipedia.org is in West Flemish, which is in fact a mistake, but there is so much variation in Flemish dialects that they chose the traditionally "Flemish" dialect. Anyway, the whole situation is quite complex, I could explain a lot, but I will say that Flemish has never been standardised (not as a whole nor its dialects), and the Dutch language is used as standard (which is quite distinct from some Flemish dialects, even more than some languages that are considered separate languages, as Afrikaans is from Dutch). The last decades have seen a convergence to the Dutch language, with a new level that is called "tussentaal" ("in-between-language"). What CodeCat said, that we are trilingual is in a way true BUT these three levels (standard Dutch, tussentaal, dialects) are not considered separate languages so you cannot speak of "trilingual". Even if I support Flemish as a distinct language, it is not practical to include it in Wiktionary because there is no standardised version and because there are different levels (would we use tussentaal or dialect? which dialect?). The term "Flemish" itself is quite ambiguous because a lot of people who speak linguistically Brabantian would refer to their language as Flemish. Most younger people speak tussentaal and are taught to refer to their language as "Nederlands" [Dutch] while older people speak more dialect and will often refer to it as "Vlaams" [Flemish] ("West-Vlaams" [West Flemish] and "Antwerps" [Antwerpian] are popular dialects and those terms are also often used). Anyway, I think the best solution is to include Flemish words into Dutch and mark it with "regional", "Flemish", or whatever, and we can use the categories under Category:Regional Dutch. I hope it is more clear and please ask if I need to clarify something. By the way, as a general note, it doesn't seem good that you are discussing about something of which you actually don't know a lot about. SPQRobin 17:23, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Re "it is not practical", this is far from a unique case. Occitan and Catalan are also quite fractured and have lots of different norms. So is Romansch. We'd generally use regional labels like {{Brabantian}} to distinguish between different dialects. Certainly as I was reading it, I was very much surprised. You started with "it's a valid language" and then went to "but exclude it anyway". Mglovesfun (talk) 10:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem with treating Brabantian as Flemish is that there is a sizable group of people that speaks Brabantian in the Netherlands. And I don't think anyone would consider calling those Flemish. So the problem for me is really that a Dutch-Flemish split would have to cut the Brabantian dialects in two in a rather arbitrary manner. —CodeCat 11:14, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

@Mglovesfun: But Occitan, Catalan, etc.. do have norms and they are recognised as languages on their own. Flemish is not recognised and doesn't have norms, it's spoken and when it's written, it's written with Dutch spelling and/or phonetically. The vocabulary of Dutch and Flemish are for a large part the same, so having a separate category for Flemish is not practical in the sense that we would need to duplicate existing words. There is a lot of vocabulary that is specific for the Netherlands, or specific for Flemish, or some dialects of Flemish, so in that way it is better to use subcategories of Dutch and (as you said) labels like {Brabantian} or {West Flemish}, or ... or {Flemish} for when it's used in the whole of Flanders.. Btw, I didn't say it is a valid language (it is however categorised as such by Ethnologue), but I did say I support Flemish as a distinct language (but explaining that is off-topic).
@CodeCat: I agree... that is the problem with political borders that cut dialect areas in different pieces. SPQRobin 18:21, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

So in summary, this is a valid category, but we should delete it despite that because of difficulties normalising spelling, conjugation, pronunciation etc. Perhaps the weirdest RFDO of my time on Wiktionary. Well, let's put it this way; if someone wants to empty all the contents of the category tree (apart from Flemish derivations) I will delete the empty categories, and move {{vls}} to {{etyl:vls}}. BTW Occitan has norms, God knows how many though. Perhaps ten different norms. Old French doesn't have any, and we don't exclude that. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Fails, though that's the easy part. The problem is, there's no consensus on what to do with these entries. Some say merge them into Dutch, and some say chance the content of {{vls}} to Vlaams, some say to West Flemish. So essentially this/these categories fail, but cannot be orphaned as there's no consensus what to do with these entries. Oh the joy of bureaucracy. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)