Talk:Rouran language

Pamela Kyle Crossley (2019)

@Wario-Man: An unregistered user has again introduced the information that, to me, is rather encyclopedic, but I have no access to the source to check if there is any way to rephrase it to make it fit better or if this should just be removed altogether. Since you've reverted that edit once, can you give a look into it? Similar edits exist in Rouran Khaganate and the source is used in simple:Ruanruan, but for a slightly different claim. - Sarilho1 (talk) 09:10, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

@Sarilho1: The reason why I reverted IP's edit was because of bad usage of "ref" but the edit itself was OK. You can access the book/source here and copy-edit/neutralize the used content if you think it's necessary: page 49, last paragraph Another point is this article was targeted by Special:Contributions/AsadalEditor and Special:Contributions/MeLoveGames (both are long-term sockmasters) and some other problematic IPS/users, so you better review and verify the whole content of article. You may consider rewriting it. --Wario-Man (talk) 13:22, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Ruanruan seems to be an ethnic slur.

Rouran people used Rouran (柔然) as an autonym, while the Northern Wei regime，established by Xianbei people, called them Ruanruan (蠕蠕). As the character 蠕 is written with a 虫 (hui3, insect; bug) radical, it is very seemingly that the term Ruanruan is an ethnic slur. Hence, I suggest to move the page to Rouran language.--Cosinepi-fly (talk) 16:09, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I'd support this. Theknightwho (talk) 22:40, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Also to add to this:

1. It makes sense for the name to match the term we use for Rouran Khaganate, since that was where it was spoken. "Ruanruan Khaganate" is a term that's also used in literature, but we don't even mention it on that page. Clearly the names used for the polity and the language should match if there's no obvious common name.
2. Rouran is used twice as much, according to the literature. It's also trivial to find recent uses of the term in reference to the language.

Theknightwho (talk) 18:18, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Contentious edits to the article

@Theknightwho and I appear to have gone back and forth on some edits here, with me saying some come across as WP:PROFRINGE. They brought it up on my talk page but here feels more appropriate for discussions about content.

My specific issues with content that seems unintentionally WP:PROFRINGE isn't Vovin himself, but rather

Alexander Vovin noted that Old Turkic had borrowed some words from an unknown non-Altaic language that might have been Rouran, arguing that if so, the language would be non-Altaic, unrelated to its neighbours and possibly a language isolate, though evidence was scant.

This, at least to my read, is Altaic as a language family and not a sprachbund being presented as fact. The current understanding of Altaic in linguistics presents no conflict between something being a language isolate and it being considered Altaic (not a majority position even among Altaicists, but see the Ainu language as an example). The other issue I take is using the Altaic sprachbund colour for this isolate when there's not really evidence that any authors meaningfully consider it part of the sprachbund, in case I'm missing something.

I've reverted the Altaic sprachbund colouring in the infobox and I think that Vovin's contribution needs to be reworded not to imply the reality of Altaic as a genetic thing. If we want to include this in the Altaic sprachbund then we need to have a more strong link to languages which are traditionally factored in by altaicists and not just a single paper proposing a possible linkage to a language that is itself considered Altaic. We run up against WP:OR and WP:VERIFY issues if we just try to extrapolate the implications of Rouran being Mongolic, which it isn't definitively. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 08:41, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

My main problem with the removal of the Altaic coloring from the infobox is because Mongolic languages use a collective Altaic coloring instead of an individual color.🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 01:48, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

And besides, languages like Avar, which are technically unclassified, use the Altaic color since the language affinities it has been proposed to belong to fall under the Altaic sprachbund.🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 01:51, 27 August 2024 (UTC)