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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Nafaanra/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Marskell 18:09, 15 October 2009 [1].

Nafaanra

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Review commentary

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Notified: User talk:Mark Dingemanse, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages.

FA from 2005, some referencing/1c issues, WP:LEAD is a bit short. Much of article appears to be descriptive rather than historical. Images: File:Nafaanra language.svg and File:Nafaanra Delafosse1904.png could use standardization with commons:Template:Information. Image File:Nafaanra literacy class.jpg could use confirmation of status with WP:OTRS. Cirt (talk) 11:02, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't see why "much of the article appears to be descriptive rather than historical" is a problem. +Angr 12:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Referencing seems to be very robust, especially in relation to article size; plenty of notes, plenty of references. It's easily comparable to current FAs. A more detailed motivation/specification concerning 1c issues would be enlightening. Peter Isotalo 12:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Done; thanks. Images need alt text as per WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2009 (UTC) Done. Could you check if it is appropriate? G Purevdorj (talk) 08:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given the overall shortness of the article, a short lead may be justified. Then, it would indeed be possible to find a few unattributed statements (eg on the translation of the Old Testament), but that might be dealt with by the FACT tag rather than by a wholescale review. And while I didn't check the sources of this article, it inspires confidence that it made best (and critical) use of these sources. So I don't see much that would call into question the FA status of this article. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:12, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The section "Geography and demography" would benefit from clarification.
(Para 1): "Nafaanra is bordered by Kulango languages to the west, ..."
(Para 2): "The Nafana people live in the north-west corner of the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana, concentrated mainly in Sampa (capital of the Jaman North district) and Banda. There are two dialectal variants of Nafaanra: Pantera of Banda, and Fantera of Sampa.[2] Bendor-Samuel gives a 79% cognate relationship on the Swadesh list between the two of them.[3] The Banda dialect is considered central. The terms 'Fantera' and 'Pantera' come from other peoples and are considered pejorative by the Nafana.[2]"
  • "Nafana" apparently refers to the language sometimes, and at other times to the people and to a geographical area. This is confusing This section would benefit from some added context to orient the general reader, in my opinion as I find the article difficult to decipher.
  • Also, I think the article would benefit from a "History" section, again to orient the general reader, and place this language in an overall context.
  • "Delafosse was the first linguist to mention Nafaanra." Who was Delafosse? How did he come to be the first linguist to "mention Nafaanra". Did he name it? Is there a story here on how he came to be the first? (I now notice that there is a wikilink to his name, way down in the references.)
  • I suggest this article be organized more clearly, so that the relevant information is together in the article. (See above comment on Delafosse.) —Mattisse (Talk) 12:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Para 1 basically says "language group A is bordered by language group B". Not sure how that can be improved. I've tried to tweak para 2 by explaining what a Swadesh list is, but I'm not sure what else needs to be done. Is it the "central" comment that's troubling you?
    • I've searched the article for instances of "Nafana" and "Nafaanra" and I can't find any inconsistencies in usage. The former refers to the people, the latter to the language. The only exception is the description of the historical map.
    • I've linked to the article on Delafosse in the first instance. However, I'm not sure it's actually relevant or necessary to describe the European "discoverer" of the language in any greater detail since it wouldn't have any relevance on the nature of the language itself.
    • The organization of the article quite closely follows the language template developed and maintained by WP:LANGUAGE. What little historical information there is is basically present under one heading, which in this case seems like an acceptable solution. I don't believe that creating a history section from what little related content there is would improve the article. There might be a need for more historical information in general, but it's difficult to tell if such information is actually available without proper knowledge of the sources. Peter Isotalo 05:11, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, lead. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Questions:
  • Is the number of speakers growing/shrinking/remaining constant?
  • Is there much published in Nafaanra?
  • Have any famous plays/books/poems/TV shows/radio shows been created in the language?
  • Are there any famous speakers of the language?
  • These are just a few questions that occurred to me while reading the article. JKBrooks85 (talk) 22:38, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The current situation of the language is not my area of expertise, but I'm just guessing that a relatively small West African language with speakers in the tens of thousands (without a literary tradition) is unlikely to generate notable works of literature or sustain major media outlets. Oral tradition is probably lively, but that requires dedicated research and can't exactly be googled. As for "famous speakers", not even FAs on major languages like Turkish have such info and it's not considered to be a relevant requirement by WP:LANG. Peter Isotalo 08:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. There is no published information about current sociolinguistic trends so the first question has to remain unanswered.
  2. It seems there is not much published in Nafaanra besides the New Testament and some literacy materials. The Old Testament is still under revision (Carol Jordan p.c.). I did find some more audio here but I'm not sure how relevant that is.
  3. As for questions 3 and 4, I don't know about famed speakers or famous creative works, but of course any language is intrinsically important as intangible cultural heritage. — mark ✎ 08:32, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • True. For me, listing noted or internationally acclaimed works is a way for readers to connect to the subject. Even if they've only read a translated work, it gives a frame of reference. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • For once, a map in which you can read the embedded text!
  • The logic of "however" escapes me: "Nafaanra is bordered by Kulango languages to the west, while Deg (a Gur language) and Gonja (Kwa) are found to the north and east. The closest eastern neighbour, however, is the Mande language Ligbi (whose speakers are also called Banda), interestingly enough also an outlier to its own family."
  • Ref 4 is from 1980: "The Nafana people relate that they come from Côte d'Ivoire, from a village called Kakala. Their oral history says that some of their people are still there, and if they go back they will not be allowed to leave again.[4]" Is this still the case?
  • Double, not single quotes.
  • 17th, not a superscript "th". (See MoS)
  • "or are unable to speak"
  • See MoS on spelling out numbers: "15–25% of the Nafana people are literate in Twi, whereas only 1–5% are literate in Nafaanra." Start with "Of the ...,".
  • Some awkward sentence structure, such as "Dompo, thought to be extinct until a field work trip of Blench in 1998 proved the contrary, is their first language." Why not "Dompo is their first language, thought to be extinct until a field work trip of Blench in 1998 proved the contrary."?

That's just from the top. Needs work on the writing. Tony (talk) 09:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for having a look at the article, Tony. I've done my best to fix the issues you mentioned here. I'll run through the rest of the article as soon as I can, if someone doesn't manage to do it before me. If there are reoccurring issues that you feel need fixing, don't hesitate to point them out.
Peter Isotalo 07:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The article is predominantly written by two linguists editing under their own names, and their home pages indicate expertise in this area. I'm not quite clear on what is meant by "The Banda dialect is considered central." I'd be inclined to remove the second sentence of "The Nafana people relate that they come from Côte d'Ivoire, from a village called Kakala. Their oral history says that some of their people are still there, and if they go back they will not be allowed to leave again.[4]" and just leave it as something like "The oral history of the Nafana people relates that they come from Côte d'Ivoire, from a village called Kakala.[4] This is consistent with the linguistic affinities between Nafaanra and Tagwana, the language spoken in that area of the Côte d'Ivoire.[2]" DrKiernan (talk) 09:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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