Template talk:fr-ca

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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This is a regional dialect, not an L2 header language. It must not have a code template. Robert Ullmann 14:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Move to {{fr-CA}}, since (according to http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry) the correct region subtag is CA (Canada) rather than ca (Catalan/Valencian). (I might be swayed to vote delete, if you would be so kind as to explain why regional variants must not have code templates.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

(note that the IANA subtag registry has had so much junk dumped into it that it is not, if it ever was, useful; there is a reason we refer to the ISO standards)

Because then "fr-ca" passes all the checks for L2 language headers, language lines in translations tables, prefixes for topic cats, context etc. It effectively adds Canadian French to the L2 set. (and thence many, many others we do not want). We deleted {{tlh}} (Klingon) for precisely this reason. If {etyl} needs another parameter, fine. But with {fr-ca} (or -CA) you will see {{context|pejorative|lang=fr-ca}} used, and have to endlessly explain that that is supposed to be {{context|Canada|pejorative|lang=fr}} and all manner of similar problems. Robert Ullmann 15:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Delete. Those are good reasons, thanks for explaining. :-)   (Ordinarily I'd say we shouldn't delete this until a better solution is in place, but currently it's used in only one entry, [[Canadien]], and it doesn't seem to be needed there, as (deprecated template usage) Canadien is the ordinary French word, and the OED Online gives the etymology as simply “[Fr., = Canadian.]”. So we won't need some complex purgatory between when we delete this template and when we solve the general problem.) —Ruakh_TALK 16:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The Canadian Oxford, which goes into more detail on Canadian English, says that Canadian comes from Canadian French. I suppose it's reasonable to accept that the word entered the English language in Quebec or New Brunswick rather than in Paris.

I'm fine with deleting this template, but I was going to wait until there was a solution proposed to replace it. There's an ongoing discussion at WT:BP#Replace all etymon templates with proto and etyl (oh, I guess R.U. replied here at Requests for Deletion, so I'll stop waiting), and I've posted a query at template talk:etyl#Regional language tags. —Michael Z. 2008-08-12 22:29 z

Re: "I suppose it's reasonable to accept that the word entered the English language in Quebec or New Brunswick rather than in Paris.": Firstly, I'm not sure that's true; do Anglo-Canadians learn specifically Quebecker (or otherwise Canadian) French in school? I thought they learned a fairly neutral form of the language. Secondly, even if that is true, I don't really see how it's relevant; (deprecated template usage) Canadien is a standard French word. Heck, even the very phrase “Canadian French (deprecated template usage) Canadien”, taken alone, is misleading, because it implies that the term is a specifically Canadian word; there might be a good reason to use it anyway, e.g. if the term entered Canadian English from Canadian French back before it became standard French (which I strongly doubt), but without knowing what the reason might be, I don't think we should. (I don't mean to dismiss the CanOD's scholarship, but I don't think we should include claims from it without knowing what they mean.) —Ruakh_TALK 00:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ignore my speculation then. I still don't see the sense in your argument.

The Canadian Oxford editors make use of Oxford's lexicographic database, and network of contributors to do more detailed research on Canadian English terms. Unless the OED entry has been updated since 2004 with information that contradicts the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, then it is logical to go by what the CanOD says.

“I don't think we should include claims from it without knowing what they mean”—Are you implying that we know what the OED's “claims” mean, that we should accept any of its scholarship? It sounds like you're completely dismissing this particular dictionary, the world's most authoritative source on Canadian English. —Michael Z. 2008-08-13 22:18 z

Sorry, I don't mean to dismiss the CanOD, or any other dictionary. But lifting a claim that we don't understand — what does it mean that this standard and universal French word came from Canadian French, specifically? — should we start marking British loanwords as being from French French? — seems very iffy to me, especially when other dictionaries don't make the same claim. (I'd feel differently if the CanOD were public-domain, like the Webster's 1913 entries that we import, but I don't know, taking their claims this way feels kind of like theft to me.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

(Firstly, what we are indicating is that this English word, used mainly in Canada, came from Canadian French.)

A look at Category:Regional English, Category:Regional French, and Category:Canadian French tells me that Wiktionary is well invested into the concept of regional versions of languages.

The way I see it, Oxford has a copyright on the wording in their dictionary, but not on the facts they are conveying—this is probably uncontroversial. If we learned of such a fact from the CanOD, then they deserve credit via a citation in the “References” section—I think this is pretty standard academic practice, too. (I don't think we can easily or reliably determine whether it was their own primary or secondary research which first established such a fact.) This is no different than “lifting” the OED's claim that Canadien came from French. —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 05:42 z

I fully agree with your first two paragraphs, and I'm not sure what I've said to suggest otherwise. I also agree with your third paragraph, in that it's not possible to copyright facts, but to me it still seems like theft to take a claim that we can't support because we don't even know what they mean by it. *shrug* At any rate, this whole discussion is an aside — if we agree that {{fr-ca}} is the wrong way to do it, and only one entry is using it, I don't see why we can't edit that entry for now and delete {{fr-ca}}, and re-edit that entry once we figure out what the right way is. —Ruakh_TALK 15:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I've removed it from the article, so it's okay to delete {{fr-ca}} and {{lang:fr-ca}}. —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 23:21 z

Keep There are enough terms (Quebecois, felquist, poutine, tuque etc.) to legitimize such an etymology template, whatever its name may end up being. Circeus 02:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

But {{fr-ca}} isn't an etymology template. Certainly etymologies need to be able to say "from Canadian French ____", but that doesn't mean we need a language-code template for Canadian French. —Ruakh_TALK 04:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Then what's the better way to represent this in Wiktionary? —Michael Z. 2008-08-13 22:18 z

I don't know. :-)   My thought — and I'm not sold on this, so feel free to shoot it down — would something like {{etyl-fr-CA}}, so it's specifically an etymology template in the etyl- namespace, rather than a generic French language-code template in the fr- namespace. (It could then use an underlying {{etyl-variant}} template or something, which could parameters for all the sorts of things we need when we're specifying a specific language variant: language name for categorization, language variant name for display, Wikipedia article title for linking, etc.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, this section of Wiktionary might as well be written with hanzis. I just meant that the function it performs for etymology is useful, and should be preserved in some fashion. Circeus 02:21, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

What about adding a separate regional parameter to {{etyl}}, for something like {{etyl|fr|region=CA}}. This is for etymologies only, so it would only indicate locale, as indicated by a dictionary's etymology saying “Canadian French”, and not necessarily dialect. This wouldn't modify the language code (fr, not fr-CA), nor have any impact on L2 headers. The word would remain in, e.g., category:French derivations, and maybe also be added to a sub-category:Canadian French derivations.

Keep in mind that there may well be terms which come from Quebec French or New Brunswick French. Should these be treated likewise, but with a w:ISO 3166-2 country subdivision tag? (e.g., CA-QC or CA-NB. See w:ISO 3166-2:CA) What happens if a dictionary refers to a region without a subtag, like Brayon French (Brayons are French New Brunswickers from Madawaska)? —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 05:42 z

I am keeping that in mind, which is why I don't want to try to overload {{etyl}} to support all the different possibilities, or if we do do that, I don't want that to go directly in every entry. (Imagine the headache for a user adding lots of etymologies from Quebecker French, having to type something like {{etyl|fr|region=CA-QC|wikipedia-article=Quebecois|category=Quebecois derivations}} on every one, and occasionally typo-ing. Surely something like {{etyl-fr-CA-QC}} would be better?) —Ruakh_TALK 15:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I would presume that {{etyl|fr|CA-QC}} or {{etyl|fr|CA|QC}} would refer to another template to automatically fill in the text and link, just as it already does. It's better to always use one template, and add an optional parameter as an “advanced feature”, than to add editing and maintenance headaches by creating a fleet of new templates.

Anyway, this bears discussion elsewhere. I'll think about this for a bit, and perhaps introduce a better proposal at the Beer Parlour. —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 23:21 z

(Not sure where to indent this, so I'm starting over.) Since we are (or should be) getting string functions soon, we should be able to parse {{etyl|fr|es|region=CA-QC}}.​—msh210? 23:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

But typing {{fr-ca}} is so much easier than typing {{etyl|fr|es|region=CA-QC}}! --Jackofclubs 06:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, but without actual consensus; if, after reading this comment, you still think the template should exist, please feel free to re-open the discussion. I'm just pretty confident that this comment will satisfy everyone's concerns. :-)

• Robert Ullmann (talk • contribs)'s concern appears to be a valid one, and just as important, no one here seems to be objecting to it. And people really were using fr-ca as a general language code, e.g. in {{term}}, thereby creating links to non-existent (and unwanted) ==Canadian French== language sections.
• Bequw (talk • contribs) modified {{etyl}} a while back to check for the existence of special {{etyl:…}} templates, in this case {{etyl:fr-CA}}, to be used with non-languages. This allows {{etyl|fr-CA}} to work exactly as {{etyl|fr-ca}} did. This should completely address all {{etyl}}-related concerns. (Note: if desired, {{etyl:fr-CA-x-Quebec}}, or whatever, can be created as well.)
• No one here seems to be arguing for any use of {{fr-ca}} except in {{etyl}}.

—Ruakh_TALK 23:55, 28 June 2009 (UTC)