User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 21

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Origin of Urdu words

Hi, Kwami! Just wanted to discuss with YOU the origin of Urdu as discussed at Talk:Urdu. I am totally confused. I do not have the time to research right now (just 10 days to go for my first exam), that is why I am better asking you. I have always read and we are always told that Urdu formed through mixing of different languages in the Mughal Army. Later on, it gained popularity in the Mughal reign. In the British period, it replaced Persian as official language, at which Hindus resented and Sanskritised Urdu, renaming it Hindi and advocated the replacement of foreign Urdu with the native Hindi. After Independence, Pakistan standradised Urdu and made it its official language and India made standradised Hindi, its national language. And that is the reason for a small number of Urdu speakers, because it was not a natural language associated with any ethnic group. It was just progressed by Muslims and so it came to be labelled as the common language of all Muslims. There must be something in Taivo’s explanation, but it doesn’t fit into this picture. Our textbooks and dictionaries along with our teachers endorse the idea. To quote an example from our Urdu textbook for class nine (relating to spelling conventions): When a word ends in a long ā sound, there are two ways of writing it down, one is -ā and the other is -ah. For words of Arabic or Persian (which I classify as Western) origin, most words having long ā sound at the end are written -ah, whereas words of Hindi (this is ironical, words in Urdu cannot be derived from Hindi, but think the author(s) meant words of Hindu, i.e., Sanskrit/Prakrit origin, which I classify as Eastern) origin are transcribed with -ā instead of -ah in most cases. Now see, this clearly gives the notion that most words belong to these two categories (my teacher actually said this while telling us the rule, besides dictionaries also list those Urdu words also used in Hindi as being borrowed from Hindi) and this process of eliminating words to each language, leaves few words which do not fit anywhere and could be classified as being a native Urdu innovation. That was my point over there. I hope you have understood my view. What do you think about this? Thanks in advance. Regards.

—Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 05:51, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Urdu is Hindustani. It is mixed the same way that English is mixed. Most of the basic vocabulary is Hindi (Indic) in the same way that most basic English vocabulary is Germanic. "Hindi" here doesn't mean Modern Standard Hindi, which is just a version of Urdu that didn't even exist at the time and should really be given a less ambiguous name, but rather one of the Hindi languages, specifically the Khari Boli dialect of Delhi (or, before that, whichever dialect further west that Urdu/Hindustani was originally based on, before the court moved to Delhi). A lot of Persian vocabulary was adopted by Hindustani/Urdu speakers (that is, by local Indians) from the Persian-speaking Moghul court in Delhi, just as a lot of French vocabulary was adopted by English speakers from the Norman French court in London. A lot of Arabic vocab was adopted due to the Muslim religion, just as a lot of Latin vocabulary was adopted by English speakers due to the Christian religion. Each language even had a third influence: Chagatai Turkish in Urdu due to the Chagatai elements in the army, and Danish/Scandinavian in English due to the Danelaw. But Urdu wasn't "invented" from above any more than English was "invented"; you can't remove the "Hindi" (Indic) vocabulary from Urdu any more than you can remove the Germanic vocabulary from English, because at its core it *is* Indic. And whatever the history of Urdu, that is also the history of (Modern Standard) Hindi, because, as you noted, Hindi is Urdu.

BTW, not all of the Sanskrit influence in Urdu is due to Hindu nationalists in the period leading up to independence: All during the Moghul Empire, the majority of the population was Hindu, so even Muslims of that time used Sanskrit words, just as Hindus used Persian and Arabic words.

The problem you're having with the word "Hindi" is that it doesn't mean just one thing. Hindi can be any dialect of the Hindi Belt, such as Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Chhattisgarhi, or Hindustani/Khari Boli/Dehlavi. So when someone says word X in Urdu comes from "Hindi", you need to ask what they mean by "Hindi", because it obviously isn't the modern official language of India. (Maybe some Hindu nationalists really do mean it that way, but if they do, they're ignorant of their own history.) What they usually mean when they say a word is "Hindi" is that it is one of the original words, before the addition of Persian and Arabic. A few words probably came from other Hindi languages after the main era of Persian and Arabic borrowings, just as English adopted Dutch, Swedish, German, and other Germanic words after the main era of French and Latin borrowings, but I suspect there aren't all that many of them.

There are a couple ways that a new language can be created: As an artificial language project, like Esperanto, or as a creole. Urdu is neither: It's simply the local Indic language that was adopted by the Moghul army and court (that's why it was called "Hindustani": it was the existing local language of Hindustan), and it subsequently underwent strong influences from the other languages spoken by the army and court. But the additions are almost entirely vocabulary. Basic vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar remain Indic, not some kind of artificial mixture, just as the basic vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar of English remains Germanic. (Yes, there are a few Persian influences in Urdu pronunciation and grammar, just as there are a few French influences in English pronunciation and grammar, but they are minor compared to the massive inheritance from the Indic origin of the language.)

You have used the spurious invented-language argument to explain the relatively small number of native Urdu speakers, but that's an artificial definition of Urdu. Urdu is really just Hindustani as spoken by Muslims, and there are probably something like 250–300 million Hindustani speakers. The number of "Urdu" speakers is just the fraction of Hindustani speakers who are Muslims; the others call their language "Hindi" even though it's really the same language. There are fewer "Urdu" than "Hindi" speakers because there are fewer Muslims than Hindus in India, and also because the definition of "Hindi" is often expanded to include other languages such as Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Chhattisgarhi, which together add hundreds of millions of additional speakers. If you ignore religion and look just at language, then there are more native speakers Urdu/Hindustani than there are native speakers of Punjabi; in fact, Urdu is one of the largest languages in the world. — kwami (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I’ve understood and got it completely into my bones. There is a serious flaw in the popular understanding of Urdu history. The accepted facts here are just rumours. Thank you once again for helping me differentiate between the actual fact and the accepted fiction. I am highly obliged to you. But just one more thing. When and how did it come into existence (before the Mughal army)? and how come it be so popular in the northern part of the subcontinent (being the lingua franca)? I had read the history of English earlier, but it never struck my mind that the history of my own language would be so similar to English. Well, thanks once again. Regards.

—Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 19:02, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, don't take my word for everything! If you have good linguistic sources that contradict me, I may very well be wrong. The above is merely my understanding of the history based on my memory of the sources I have access to.

As for popular misunderstanding, I think the same kind of thing happens in popular descriptions of English and other languages. Urdu, however, has the additional complication of nationalistic and religious motivations for telling the history a particular way, so it might be more difficult to disentangle the two. That is, in those aspects it might be closer to, say, Croatian than to English. (Of course, no analogy is going to be exact.)

Before the Mughal invasion/conquest (or whatever the acceptable term is), there was (and still is) a a series of interrelated dialects across northern India. Along the Ganges and other major rivers, where the ground was flat and travel was easy, there was a lot of mixing of populations, so the neighbouring dialects stayed all pretty close to one another. Wherever the Mughals set up court, there was contact with the local population. I think Urdu got its start at the capital before Delhi, but I'm fuzzy on the history. When the court moved to Delhi, this incipient Urdu was brought along, and affected the learning of the Dehlavi dialect, so that Urdu shifted bases to Dehlavi but retained traces of that earlier Hindi dialect. (Whatever it was, it was similar to Dehlavi. When dialects are closely related, it's often difficult to tell centuries later which one contributed which elements to the literary language that emerged from them.) So Hindustani isn't exactly Khari Boli. Or at least that's my understanding. A fairly minor detail, however: whichever dialects influenced the emerging standard, they were all "Hindi", just like whichever English dialects went into standard English (and there was a lot of dialect mixing in the history of English too), they were still all closely related, and clearly distinct from Danish, French, Welsh, etc. You see the same thing in other imperial languages: Modern Standard Chinese is based on Beijing dialect, but strongly influenced by the many other dialects of Mandarin that people brought to the captital; Modern Standard German has been influenced by various German dialects; even Koranic Arabic has sources both in the dialects of Mecca/Medina, the new capital, and of eastern Arabia, which was the language of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. If I remember correctly, that's one reason the usage of the letter alif is so irregular: They were trying to capture two dialects with one orthography.

And I'm sorry: The Mughals were originally Chagatai and only later became Persianized. I got it backwards.

As for why it's popular in the north, I think Urdu is strongest where Mughal influence was the strongest, but also where it was closest to the local dialect. I believe the Moghuls first set up court in Peshawar, but Hindistani/Urdu is of little use there today, and I don't think Mughal power was ever all that dominant in Afghanistan, in the south of India, or in Bengal (though maybe I'm wrong about that being a reason). As for why Urdu rather than Persian, easy: Urdu was easier for the local people to learn, because it was so similar to what they already spoke. Braj Bhasa, for example, was one of the main Hindu literary standards in the north, and it's very close to Hindustani/Urdu; you might say it's even a dialect of the same language. Both Persian and Urdu spread with the Mughal administration, but Persian was a quite foreign language to the local population, and so not as good a contact language / lingua franca as Urdu. By the time you got to Bengal, however, the local language was different enough that even Urdu was no longer all that easy to learn, and certainly in the Dravidian south it was a very foreign language, so Urdu never took hold there the way it did in the north. Even today many people speaking Awadhi, Chhattisgarhi, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, etc. will tell you their language is "Hindi", because it's not all that different from Dehlavi. I imagine people had much the same notion in the Mughal era: If their speech was close to that of the court in Delhi, which was the elite language and so the one that many people aspired to, they would say it was a dialect of Hindustani/Urdu; only where it was obviously distinct, or where it had a separate literary history, as in Bengal, would people think they spoke a different language. But I don't know the details of any of this. — kwami (talk) 22:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot all the more! I am more informed now, nonetheless.

—Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 23:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Kwami has done a good job of explaining the linguistic history underlying Urdu. --Taivo (talk) 01:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Nsibidi J. K. Macgregor

What are you reasons for removing the Macgregor claim in the origin section of the nsibidi article? Ukabia - talk 18:16, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

My reason is in the edit summary: that source is over a hundred years old. Picking a source that old because it's the only one you agree with is cherrypicking. We can do better. — kwami (talk) 18:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Much of the article still relies on Macgregors and Dayrells works (so I didn't 'pick' the source, it was already there), and other sources reference them as well. The part about baboons teaching the symbols is widely quoted and an important part of the origin tales of nsibidi. Also I wasn't aware there was a rule on wikipedia for the age of a source, especially when it has been challenged with a recent source, and when much of the research is based on these same sources. Ukabia - talk 19:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

There isn't. I'll take another look. — kwami (talk) 19:22, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

ǃKung people

Hi Kwami. I was wondering if you could take a look at ǃKung people? The lead needs some work. At present, it says that "The ǃKung, also spelled ǃXun, are a Bushman people living in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, Botswana and in Angola. They speak the ǃKung language, noted for using click consonants, generally classified as part of the Khoisan language family." This is a problem in that Khoisan is no longer accepted. I know enough to see that the article isn't right, but not enough to fix it, which is why I'm asking you. 203.118.187.218 (talk) 04:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Sure. Thanks. — kwami (talk) 04:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Ghana edits

I agree some of it is factually wrong but have you read all the edits. a lot of it is correct and the newest and most up to date information. I think rather than delete what seems to have taken hours if not days to do(finding new images, videos and content) try to integrate what he/she has done with what was there previously. Medicineman84 (talk)

You're welcome to restore the improvements, but purposefully adding false statements is disruptive. I reverted to the last version without the false statements. I have already spent many hours cleaning garbage out of that article, and don't wish to spend more. — kwami (talk) 22:51, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Why are you writing your post as if I made the edit? The edits were not made by me. I too have written a lot of this Ghana page. It seems the new person is energetic and has found 2013 quality information for example why report the life expectancy at 60 if it is 68 now! Ghana has vastly changed even within the last 2 years due to several factors including oil production etc etc. I think that is what the person who wrote this article tried to reflect.

Medicineman84 (talk)

Fine. And you're welcome to restore the factual information. — kwami (talk) 01:57, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't have the time !! Maybe you can coordinate something! I just found it rude that someone put in what looked like hours of work with one click without fully reading all of it you deleted it all without even starting a discussion. Admittedly the person did the same thing to the work that was there before but still...

Medicineman84 (talk)

You don't have the time, so I'm supposed to do it? All the work is still there in the page history. Anyone who wants to separate the wheat from the chaff is able to do so. I would rather delete good info than allow the posting of falsehoods, and I'm not going to sift through it myself.

It's true that I didn't read through everything. If an editor cannot understand a newspaper article, there's a good chance they cannot understand the other sources they used either. Discussing edits with people who don't understand their own sources is generally a huge waste of time. I have come across a few who are able to discuss such things intelligently and adjust their editing to meet our standards, but that doesn't happen very often. Maybe this editor is one of them, but I'm not willing to put in the hours needed to find out. — kwami (talk) 02:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Articles moved contrary to RMs

Hi, subject that has come up before re India place names, can't recall exact article(s). I'm not sure how many of these there are Talk:Kutenai people, but I've commented there and suggest you should locate all articles you have moved contrary to RM results before others do. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:03, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

to do

S.Twa also indigenous, like Kwisi etc. (Inskepe). Kwisi may have once had cattle?

aboriginal names in Canada

your argument that aboriginal names are not part of English Wikipedia and "can't be pronounced" falls flat on its face just by a glance at List of place names in Canada of aboriginal origin. Without looking at the articles, tell me how "Cheam" and "Botanie Mountain" are pronounced, or the name of the place I'm from, Shalalth. And re the many ch-names, many are pronounced with "sh", not "ch", and "everyone" knows that. i.e. Chemainus vs. Chezacut, respectively. Then there's Cheakamus, Tsawwassen and Gingolx. Your pretension about all this, like your presumptive dismissal of Kwakwaka'wakw dislike of the term "Kwakiutl", is getting more than tiresome and chauvinistic, it's obstructive and, frankly, more than a bit racist, intentional or not, and will lead to Wikipedia being held in disregard by the peoples whose articles you think you have a right to rename according to how non-natives in other countries THINK is their correct name.Skookum1 (talk) 11:16, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Ucluelet and many others in BC, Sheshatshiu, where a friend comes from in Labrador, and Shubenacadie in NS all come to mind......damn it's a long list of names that are acceptable in Canadian English and that have articles and that aren't "obvious pronunciations". If I got into smaller places, it's an even longer list. And there's non-native words/names too, Craigellachie as mentioned elsewhere, and how would you suppose to pronounce Agassiz? or Quesnel?Skookum1 (talk) 11:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm racist because you are incapable of providing English pronunciations for these names? All I ask is that you demonstrate that they've been assimilated into English. I've never argued that a pronunciation should be "obvious", only that an English pronunciation should exist. Yet you keep reverting to this straw man: Are you unable to make a rational arguement? Others have made the same point. I suppose they're racist too? What I'm hearing is that you know best, that you are unable to support your POV, but we should accept it anyway because "racism". I suppose if you don't pronounce Vietnamese place names with their correct tone that makes you a racist too? — kwami (talk) 22:24, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Extended content

You're sounding like a racist because you say what these people want to call themselves doesn't matter to you, or anyone, and that Wikipedia can decide what they should be called because you say so. The point that these endonyms were advanced and adopted into Canadian English because of the legacy of language-repression (violent and inhuman language repression) is something that seems to escape you, and that you seem to think doesn't matter and it's what "other people call them" that counts. And your claim that "it doesn't have an English pronunciation" is hogwash, that's been provided to you by myself and montanabw; the other names I've provided also aren't English by origin and, like Ktunaxa, need to be heard in order to know how to pronounce properly......you're the one making the straw man argument, and refuse to listen to the facts about native-name usage and the cultural politics that underlie all these names (not just Ktunaxa). Your refusal to acknowledge that there are articles with non-English names, and not just for towns and peoples, is really getting tiresome, as is your nitpicking about pronunciations you demand but then say don't matter. What you did was clearly a controversial change, and was without consultation either with any Ktunaxa or anyone in the indigenous people's wikiproject, or in the region in question. These are accepted terms in Canadian English and CANADIAN ENGLISH MATTERS. International academic English which uses out-of-date and discredited terms (e.g. your stated support for the use of "Kwakiutl" is noted), doesn't. Your insensitivity to native cultural preferences is why you're sounding like a racist, and yes, you sound just like many right-wing and anti-native elements in BC who are opposed not just to the names of native peoples, but also to their existence and history and collective legal and constitutional rights. This is the company you keep with the kind of talk you have been making, and it's not a pretty sight.Skookum1 (talk) 01:00, 13 May 2013 (UTC) As for this " I'm racist because you are incapable of providing English pronunciations for these names? All I ask is that you demonstrate that they've been assimilated into English." All those names HAVE been assimilated into English (and French). I was pointing them out to you, and challenging them to pronounce them "obviously". Sheshatshiu especially ain't obvious, and is very much a real word/name in Newfoundland and Labrador. So is "Mi'kmaq" which is common throughout Atlantic Canada.Skookum1 (talk) 01:03, 13 May 2013 (UTC) Skookum, you wont get far by accusing other editors of racism. Trust me I've tried it. This is a question of naming policy which is quite clear that naming depends on our ability to show by sources that one name is more common than another, not more correct, not more ethical, just more common. That is the line along which arguments about naming proceeds. Ive also had arguments with Kwami about whether to locate indigenous groups at the endonym or the exonym. I've been succesful when Ive been able to show that recent sources tend to adopt the endonym which they often do. Go for the ball, follow the rules and use arguments. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:07, 13 May 2013 (UTC) This thread sounds familiar. I, and others, have contended over the years that Kwami unilaterally decides also on the pronunciation of British place names. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:12, 13 May 2013 (UTC) Really? What does he give for "Featherstone-Haugh" and "St. John Smith"?Skookum1 (talk) 01:26, 13 May 2013 (UTC) All my very valid arguments have been dismissed by him and he keeps on making non sequitur demands without acknowledging the posted google results which do not favour his "more people use this" claims. And the fact of the matter is that his line that "these are not English words and should not be used in English" DOES sound like anti-native racism as is still common in BC and Canada, nearly verbatim other than mentioning Wikipedia. In the case of the Nlaka'pamux, his change to "Thompson people" (which is now in disuse and rarely seen in Canada), is also very pointedly imperialist in flavour (David Thompson, who the Thompson River was named for, and so these people, was the NWC explorer whose activities underlay British claims to the region). WP:Indigenous peoples of North America exists to make sure indigenous language preferences have their place in Wikipedia and that native content is represented fairly and accurately. Insisting on archaic and discredited or disused names "because they exist in English" and allegedly "more people" know them (without being able to cite that) is not showing any sensitivity to the existing framework of indigenous articles already out there. That these were all done by speedy and without consultation or discussion, and without giving a shit about the little bit in the "move" dialogue about taking care to consider impacts on categories and other articles, was improper and high-handed and highly insensitive to the native reality; as it also is to current norms in Canadian English. He didn't even revise the ledes on these articles to match his new titles, he just shotgunned a bunch and sits back and maintains a false line of argument about what he thinks is English, without caring that Canadian English does embrace these terms, or caring at all about how they want to be named and referred to. In the Thompson people case, once all the little bots and peeps that go around picking up after messes like this start changing all mention of "Nlaka'pamux" to "Thompson people", and some other eager rule-biter tries a CfD or even a speedy (as happened with Category:Squamish, now at CfD as a result of that very bad choice), then Category:Nlaka'pamux is going to wind up as Category:Thompson people and that's just not modern English, nor is it "cultural acceptable". If he doesn't want to sound like a racist, he should stop sounding/talking like one. He's effectively, if unwittingly, siding with anti-native propaganda/attitudes and as an academic, he's part of the parochial attitude prevalent in ethnolinguistics and anthropology that native peoples hold in no small disregard (e.g. their opinions of Boas or Levi-Strauss; Teit at least lived among them and married one and got a pretty good batting average on cultural sensitivity and accuracy. Main point: for an "outside person" to tell these people that their name is not welcome in English Wikipedia is not going to play very well as far as encouraging the credibility of Wikipedia in indigenous circles, that's obvious.Skookum1 (talk) 01:26, 13 May 2013 (UTC) Skookum, we also dont locate reench people at "Peuple Francaise" even though they prefer that name. It is not the job of wikipedia to encourage credibility in indigenous circles but to provide the current state of usage and knowledge in the, largely Western centric, Academy. Sometimes you may find yourself ahead of the game when dealing with a slow-moving academic field, and that is something wikipedia cannot really do anything about - encyclopedias should be slightly behind the curve. Now I will ask you one more time to quit calling people racist because you dont agree with them. It is a personal attack, and in this case clearly unjustified, and it will likely get you blocked if you continue.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC) Oh really, so *I* get blocked for pointing out that the line being touted to prevent reversions to their correct endonyms sounds like the usual anti-native rhetoric advanced by those holding very racist attitudes towards natives in Canada and/or elsewhere? And Kwami doesn't get blocked for doing a series of speedy moves that he knows were controversial, and which he's now resisting reverting by coming up with one evasion and misdirection after another. Here's the facts: "academia" in Canada HAS EMBRACED these terms and a glance at cites given, googles found, and papers from the Museum of Civilization and the Royal BC Museum and places like the UBC Museum of Anthropology and many others all use these terms. I'm not calling Kwami a racist, I'm telling him he's sounding like one, big difference. The cites and sources are there, as is CANENGL and the ENGVAR section, and the precedent of countless other endonyms and aboriginal-name articles of all kinds, so the premise that "it's not an English word" is entirely picayune as well as FALSE. That Kwami's attitude and behaviour makes him seem like a racist is something he should become aware of and more educated about. Is calling his attitude "parochial" (which it is) also a "personal attack"...well, the whole of Wikipedia will be denounced by native cultural and political leaders if his attitude were to prevail...or an editor who's worked on hundreds of indigenous history and political articles and categories and more gets blocked for trying to make sure indigenous realities/sensitivities are respected in Wikipedia? We need more participation from indigenous contributors....not article titles that will cause them to turn up their noses and not take part because of some guy in another country who doesn't care about what they want or feel nor that their names ARE now accepted and in-use in Canada and are part of Canadian English. Not just by law and in some cases treaty (e.g. Gingolx instead of Kincolith re the Nisga'a Treaty), but in common use. Claiming as he does that the opposite is the case, without providing any cites for that (and he won't be able to) is touting supposition and original research claims against citable FACTS. WP:DUCK applies about "sounding like a racist" for saying "it's not an English word and doesn't belong in English Wikipedia"; in the Canadian polity that would quickly, especially by First Nations people, be branded as "racist", and it won't be just Kwami who gets that condemnation. His obstructionism thus far, on top of his high-handed and controversial "shotgun changes", are what deserves an ANI, not dressing me down for calling him on it, or pointing out that, unwittingly or not, he DOES sound like an anti-native type who holds them in disregard and has decided it's OK to tell them what they should be called in English. That just ain't gonna wash.Skookum1 (talk) 02:10, 13 May 2013 (UTC) Present the sources, argue your case on the issue, and if you have problems with Kwamis behavior or undiscussed moves you can start and rfcu. But you dont decide what will or will not wash. The community of editors do and generally they are swayed by arguments not by boisterous rhetorics.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC) I would suggest the following. Start RfCs on the language names where sources can be presented for the different names, and a decision about the location of the articles can be made based on wider community input.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC) The community input that matters here is the indigenous community on the one hand, and Canadians familiar with Canadian English on the others. Input from others is secondary, especially if they are dismissive of "what nstives want" and refuse to acknowledge the separate existence and standards of Canadian English; in the Ktunaxa case it's more complicated somewhat because of the cross-border nature of the content; but again, there, it's the consensus of the indigenous people themselves that matters; in the other cases to open the field to people who don't know the field or who don't read Canadian sources is quite irrelevant and another red-herring to defray the proper attempt to restore these articles to where they had been for a long time and should NEVER have been moved unilaterally BY ANYONE without proper consultation, and without regard for indigenous sensitivities and realities. Doing so violates a core principle of the Indigenous peoples WikiProject's aims. An RfC will invite input from people in other countries without any real knowledge of these people, and most likely with little concern for what they prefer, and would parlay into condemnations of Wikipedia for being "culturally imperialist" and highly parochial. MOSFOLLOW is pretty straightforward, and the sources don't agree with Kwami.Skookum1 (talk) 01:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC) You are entirely wrong. And you also seem not to understand how wikipedia works. Wikipedia gives no preference to indigenous communities or the national usage in these cases. Those communities can create wikipedias in their own languages where their preferred usage will prevail. Your disregard for the editor community as a source of consensus is particularly problematic.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:02, 13 May 2013 (UTC) MY disregard?? I'm not the one who unilaterally moved these without discussion and without consulting the full scope of indigenous articles out there, or the related WikiProjects (IPNA, BC/Canada etc). This is NOT about creating indigenous-language Wikipedias, it is about the appropriate and modern usage of terms for native peoples, the same way that we don't normally use "Indian" instead of "First Nations" or "Native American" applies, and it's not like WP:Indigenous peoples of North America doesn't exist, or that there weren't long discussions (which Kwami ignored, notably in the Ktunaxa case) about what was appropriate to use; the community of IPNA editors was who arrived at the convention that government/org articles be named one way (per their official names) while to distinguish them, when possible, by 'respecting the increasing and in-Canada-normal use of the endonyms in English and not claiming that they are NOT English or that what they or Canadian English want doesn't matter. Such changes as kwami have made have big repercussions whether in category names or in content in other articles, where "bypass redirect" while wind up seeing his archaic usages replace modern and accepted ones such as Nlaka'pamux vs. Thompson. What I'm on about is respecting modern sensibilities as well as indigenous sensitivities.....if Wikipedia's "editor community" can't deal with emergent realities and wants to ignore someone for allegedly "bomastic rhetoric" (which is not bombastic, but pointed and explicit, and it's not rhetoric as it's about facts). It's Kwami who's the one using rhetoric, NOT ME. And as for the sources, go ahead, look at the cites I provided on any of the RMs in question, and note KootenayVolcano's comment on her talkpage about she hears Ktunaxa all the time (she lives in Nelson, British Columbia which is in the area) and note montanabw's parallel criticisms to my own about the attitudes that using "imperialist" and "colonialist" terms to supplant modern/emergent norms. Kwami's job is NOT to police the English language, but to reflect its changing use. And use of these endonyms in Canada is now at least twenty years old, in some cases thirty or more. Nuu-cha-nulth isn't English either, but there's no alternative ("Nootka" is not acceptable); same with Mi'kmaq and a host of others that "aren't English and have no English pronunciations". It's not me you should be chastising here, and as for cites I've already provided them. Kwami hasn't, yet keeps on demanding citations to evade answering any of the challenges I've posed to him. Aboriginal words and names are a fact of life in Canada now, they're also a fact of life in Wikipedia if you bother to look around........Skookum1 (talk) 03:31, 13 May 2013 (UTC) I've heard this "Wikipedia knows best" attitude before, and also "if you don't tone down your criticisms you will be punished" invective lots before; in a very notable case, to me, the ridiculous imposition of the endash replacing hyphens on legal names in BC was finally overturned by citations from the enabling legislation for Regional districts in British Columbia, though the MOSite fanatics were snotting their collective noses at the real world, saying effectively "Wikipedia knows best, and WE are Wikipedia". I'm Wikipedia too, and I'm bringing forward facts that are apparently uncomfortable and people don't like hearing them (because it makes them look bad, but that's their fault, not mine) isn't "bombastic rhetoric". Arrogant unilateralism of the kind that brought on all these very-necessary CfDs, backed up now be evasion and denial and a refusal to look at the cites provided, or to admit they are relevant, is what's questionable here, not my style or the extent to which I can quote examples of aboriginal and other names in Wikipedia and around Canada that "are not English and nobody knows how to pronounce them". If I sound heated, it's because I'm getting frustrated with the nonsensical denials and evasions and that way all evidence in support of using these endonyms, which are normal in Canadian English, is just dismissed out of hand by someone whose only line has been "more people worldwide", when that is demonstrably not the case, and when "worldwide" doesn't apply to Canadian English usage. Britons call indigenous peoples "Red Indians" too, that doesn't mean that that should be taken into account when writing Wikipedia, now, does it? Your further diversion about "they should start their own Wikipedias if they want to use their languages" is just so much more evasion; it's also parochial and flies in the face of the very real reality of Canadian usage and practice; Wikipedia's editor community should learn to respect other communities, namely those of indigenous peoples and those who understand their concerns/sensitivities and do not dismiss them as irrelevant "because this is English Wikipedia". because I'm long-winded and detailed doesn't make me "bombastic"....what was bombastic was Kwami's single-minded application of his own feelings to these article names without any discussion or consultation. None of this is "rhetoric" in the sense of "empty words", it's all cogent argument, albeit increasingly frustrated and necessariliy repetitive and more detailed because Kwami refuses to admit to the validity of the cites OR to provide his own for his many personal claims.....and the inane challenge for me to provide an IPA for the English pronunciation of Ktunaxa; that's even IN one of the articles, for pity's sake. It's not my behaviour that should be the issue for the "community of editors", it's Kwami's. And it's the credibility of Wikipedia at large on indigenous topics that's also at stake; if a single editor with archaic, "foreign" views and labels, is allowed to change such stuff with impunity, and the results stand, the need for people from these nations to help expand their coverage and articles will be shut out, as they will view this place as the playground of white people telling t hem what they are and how to speak about themselves. You DO know what "parochial" means, right??Skookum1 (talk) 03:51, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

For those who are interested, the proposed moves are at:

Talk:Lillooet people#Requested move

Talk:Kutenai people#Requested move 2

Talk:Thompson people#Requested move

Talk:Shuswap people#Requested move

Talk:Chilcotin people#Requested move

For all I know, all of the proposed names are assimilated into English and have established English pronunciations. But Skookum has not provided any evidence of that. Using a foreign name in print is not uncommon, nor is code switching for people who know the language, but I suspect that does not make it accessible to many of our readers. IMO "authenticity" takes a back seat to accessibility, commonality, etc., but maybe that's not the consensus on WP. — kwami (talk) 07:50, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Kwami, Skookum1 has presented you with multiple sources and all you can do is go WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. You, my friend, are acting like a troll, and this is inappropriate. Montanabw^(talk) 17:15, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

If he did, they were lost in all the "outrage" (TLDRT). He said that he knew of some people who should know, and that I should do the research to support his claims. No. If he makes the claims, he should be the one to find supporting evidence. He may very well be right, but other editors have said the same as me. The links of his I did follow did not say what he claimed they did, so he doesn't have much credibility. — kwami (talk) 20:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)