Talk:Zuni language

message: Shiwi is the native name for the Zuni language. Ashiwi is the native term the Zuni use to refer to the populace, and it means "the People".  Shiwi is literally "Zuni".  (See Newman's Zuni Dictionary listed in the bibliography).  Shiwi is a nominal particle that in Zuni can refer to persons, /a:w- is a (1) verbal pronominal prefix for plural absolutive or (2) a derivational prefix pluralizing particles referring to persons ("/" meaning the glottal stop and ":" referring to a glide).  Before a consonant, the prefix loses its glide and becomes "/a".  Ashiwi is the term used to pluralize Shiwi.  In regard to cultural norms, the pluralization of Shiwi, that is, affixing /a, does not refer to a group of individuals, but the many as a single unit.  See the bibliography in the article, particularly the essay by Kenneth Miner, International Journal of American Linguistics.
Reply: how do we request that the page be moved to the correct name?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.46.152 (talk) 06:34, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Ashiwi'' and ''Shiwi''

message: For future reference to editors under this section.  I added a link to an audio file for the Zuni language using the text "Zuni language, audio files of the Zuni Language by Zuni speaker Wells Mahkee".  The owner of the link and files edited it to "Zuni language, presented by Zuni Spirits".  I reversed the changes stating to the owner that they could not state their business name in the visible text.  They then removed the link and expressed to me that they did not want their link on this page if they could not use their business name rather than the name of the Zuni speaker.  Feedback welcome on this issue, but until then I guess the audio files cannot be listed. Amerindianarts 8 July 2005 20:24 (UTC)
*BTW, I did contact the owner of the link prior to including it in the section.Amerindianarts 8 July 2005 20:26 (UTC)
*ACTUALLY, no one asked permission to link to my files or website.  I found it on my own and made changes since I didn't appreciate the unauthorized use.  Had the author of this page approached me in a reasonable manner I might have taken a different stance. Zunispirits (talk) 19:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, since it probably fails WP:EL anyway since it is a personal website, and he doesn't want it links, and we certainly aren't going to let him use it to promote his site, we can just forget about it. Doug Weller (talk) 14:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: External Link comment

message: :::I removed the copyright thingee.  This page is not infringing;  rather, another website is infringing by using the contents of this page without acknowledging the GFDL.  Long story. Isomorphic 03:16, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: copyright

message: Why is nothing mentioned about the standard Zuni orthography, developed by Curtis Cook?? It uses standard latin letters, as well as Ł ł. Vowels are lengthened with a :, and ' indicates a glottal stop. It is the standard orthography used on the reservation today, and on the internet. A few phrases are available here: http://www.suduva.com/zuni_conversation.htm--Alfredie (talk) 00:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 
Tedlock	Newman	Americanist	IPA
ʼ      	/     	ʔ          	
ʼʼ     	//    	ʔʔ         	
a      	a     	a          	
aa     	a:    	a·         	
ch     	ch    	č          	
cch    	chch  	čč         	
e      	e     	e          	
ee     	e:    	e·         	
i      	i     	i          	
ii     	i:    	i·         	
h      	j     	h          	
hh     	jj    	hh         	
k      	k     	k          	
kk     	kk    	kk         	
kw     	q     	kʷ         	
kkw    	qq    	kʷkʷ       	
l      	l     	l          	
ll     	ll    	ll         	
lh     	lh    	ł          	
llh    	lhlh  	łł         	
m      	m     	m          	
Tedlock	Newman	Americanist	IPA
mm     	mm    	mm         	
n      	n     	n          	
nn     	nn    	nn         	
o      	o     	o          	
oo     	o:    	o·         	
p      	p     	p          	
pp     	pp    	pp         	
s      	s     	s          	
ss     	ss    	ss         	
sh     	sh    	š          	
ssh    	shsh  	šš         	
t      	t     	t          	
tt     	tt    	tt         	
ts     	z     	c          	
tts    	zz    	cc         	
u      	u     	u          	
uu     	u:    	u·         	
w      	w     	w          	
ww     	ww    	ww         	
y      	y     	y          	
yy     	yy    	yy         	
In Newman's orthography (used in his dictionary, Newman 1958), the symbols, ch, j, lh, q, sh, z, /, : replaced Americanist č, h, ł, kw, š, c, ʔ, and · (used in Newman's grammar, Newman 1965).  
Tedlock's orthography uses ʼ instead of Newman's / except at the beginning of words where it is not written.  Additionally, in Tedlock's system, long vowels are written doubled instead with a length mark : as in Newman's system (e.g. aa instead of a:) and h and kw are used instead of j and q.  Finally, Tedlock writes the following long consonants — cch, llh, ssh, tts — with a doubled initial letter instead of Newman's doubling of the digraphs — chch, lhlh, shsh — and kkw and tts are used instead of Newman's qq and zz.
I wonder if anyone has done a control study - i.e. taken a random sample of languages from around the world and looked for correlations. There is no way to know if the supposed correlations between Zuni and Japanese are statistically significant without such a baseline. Anyone looking for an idea for a thesis(:
Laurence white (talk) 21:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Standard Orthography

message: tamil Himyah silver (talk) 11:33, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  tamil 

message: Okay, look. I understand nobody wants to take a wild-sounding theory and say it's actually necessarily correct/give it "more credence than it [in their opinion] deserves"...however, when popular websites (Cracked, in this case -hey, don't judge, there's a reason I went looking for more information!) are covering a theory? That an entire (apparently relatively well-known) book was written on, that references the language's origins? And you remove all reference to the theory? 
To the extent in fact that there isn't even a 'single sentence mentioning "so and so came up with this theory based on cognates and the basic grammar and has other evidence that she believed  demonstrated that there had been contact with this culture and another one" EVEN IF it is presented as "however, this view is highly controversial and has been criticized by X, Y and Z scholars"...?
...sorry, but it smacks of a weird and rather frustrating form of censorship. 
No, wait, hear me out here okay? I know that's a strong word, but; when you're looking at a theory that has been referenced in popular culture just enough that it's literally driving people to this page (and let me tell you, there is a LONG discussion dating back to 2005 up higher on this talk page, so it's clearly been driving users to this page for over ten years) it doesn't matter that you don't like it or think it's crazy and lacks good support. It should be mentioned and addressed.
Heck, ESPECIALLY if it's being cited by layman but is considered unrealistic by linguists and others who have reason to discredit it! If anything, that just makes it more important to address it :\  Here I was hoping to find something on it, see if there had been scholarly rebuttals or someone who discussed her work one way or the other that I could use WP as a summary of/jumping off point to find, and instead? There's literally nothing at all about it and I'm left wondering why, and also left with this page being pretty much useless for the main reason I looked it up today.
Since others discussed this (by which I mean, argued) up above a few years ago, I can't imagine I'm the only person looking this up entirely because of Nancy Yaw Davis' theory being mentioned somewhere popular (and supported as "hey, surprisingly plausible!" in that place, no less).
I get that there is apparently a strong argument to be made that she was wrong, BUT to not even 'bring it up in the actual article while noting that people have poked holes in her theory? Is frustrating. Because apparently, people do keep reading that book and since it's been referenced on a popular website as a "hey this is crazy but PROBABLY TOTALLY TRUE AND REWRITING HISTORYYYYY" thing you KNOW people are going to be looking this up for the same reason I am, and probably in a lot of cases with a lot less cynicism. Not mentioning it at all is providing a lack of coverage on a key component of the article's subject, even if it's just to debunk it in one sentence. It's also probably going to lead to someone naively trying to add it in again without questioning it, and then we'll probably end up with either an inaccurate or incomplete statement about its plausibility/acceptance, or an outright edit war and I'm sure no one wants that. 
I don't have access to/know of any discussion on her work outside of the Cracked listicle + one source of who knows what reliability (I do not have nor can I afford access to academic journals, assuming any of actual repute has bothered to cover it), so I'm not the person do it, AND  I don't remember/know how to ping someone like the person above who was arguing it with someone else (and that's assuming they're still bothering to edit Wikipedia 10+ years later), so I'm not sure how to bring in someone with the relevant experience, especially as WP of course has that really strict rule about 'original research' (meaning, any debunkings referenced need to be third-party debunkings, is my understanding?). But if someone who has the relevant knowledge of this book and any sources discussing it (including debunkings), sees this, PLEASE do everyone a favor and contribute? :\  
TLDR: It's a hole in the article's coverage that I really feel should be addressed if only briefly, given Davis' book and recent popular references to it, are the reason a number of people visited this page in the first place. The only "references" cited elsewhere about her book that I have found so far seem to be supportive, from the early 1990s, but I have no idea how reliable THOSE are either (I have never heard of "Science Frontiers", but apparently it's a journal of some sort. This does not make it reputable of course, there are plenty of credulous folks out there and Native American languages are misunderstood by credulous white folk notoriously often, but I have no way of judging that off the bat, you know?). I don't think I have the knowledge of relevant sources to address it one way or the other, but it needs a nice, balanced mention (including criticism, which I don't know how to look for in a way that could be cited per Wiki rules bit which I'm sure exists somewhere, given the above discussions). The only reference I have found so far is Science Frontiers Online (No. 87: May-Jun 1993 in specific), which mentions the biological items and some vague reference to social "organization", "oral history" etc, that Davis cited in support of her theory for contact between the Zuni and 12th Century-ish Japanese, but that's about it, no discussion of the alleged similarities between Japanese and Zuni that Davis claims, and I have, again, no idea how "reliable" a source per Wiki's guidelines that would be. People more familiar with linguistics are probably better tapped to find a balanced way to cover this (apparently wacky, but popularly-referenced) theory, but the recent popularity/interest in it means it should arguably be addressed. 97.104.76.15 (talk) 21:33, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason it isn't referenced is because it's not referenced at all in the scholarly literature. If Kim Kardashian wrote a popular book stating that the moon was made of cheese, how many astronomers do you think would waste their time writing scientific articles debunking such a book? Probably none. That's about the value of Nancy Yaw Davis' book as a serious scholarly work in the field of linguistics. Until actual scholarly research and reliable sources exist that reference her theories, there is nothing to cite and therefore nothing to write. The scientific consensus among **all** experts is that Zuni is either 1) a language isolate or 2) distantly related to some other Native American language. Period. --70.184.83.221 (talk) 03:24, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Then say in the article why it is probably wrong, don't just completely ignore a well known posit.73.162.186.191 (talk) 20:17, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

text: If we went by that logic all the time, then we wouldn't have any articles on Pseudoarchaeology or even more outlandish claims like the Bosnian pyramid claims. The problem with your analogy is if those books were to really happen, then they would likely be forgotten about in months maybe, but people still talk about the Zuni-Japanese language theory over a decade later. Heck, like the OP in this thread even mentioned, I checked this page just to see what the coverage on the theory was and was solely disappointed when I see it wasn't even mentioned.71.71.54.95 (talk) 08:57, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  My understanding is that Davis is saying that a shipwrecked Japanese boat led to some Japanese meeting Zuni folks. So then, she speculates there may be some loanwords from Japanese into Zuni based on their similarity to Japanese words. She never said that the two languages are related. A genealogical relation between them is coming from misreporting by the internet or the news. But, as I understand it, even her loanword proposal is not accepted. And, there's no evidence that a Japanese folks ever encountered Zuni folks historically. A problem with adding this to the article is that we need to find a specialist review of her book or some other publication that discusses the book. Simply mentioning her idea without surrounding commentary may appear to give it an implied hint of plausibility, which is not what should be given to it. It's best to wait for an expert to address it publicly. (However, most folks like to spend their time doing serious work...) – ishwar  (speak) 13:57, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

text: Fully agree with this. Credible theory about loan words and the current page mentions this tribe took loan words from tribes as far away as British Columbia. Feels like the references were removed in 2014 for no reason. Would be best to change it to a "Here is the theory but it is not accepted by the majority of experts." No reason not to have it other than censorship by the linguistic community. Ptinkle99 (talk) 04:23, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: About that controversial "Japanese connection"

message: Hardly anything here. Learned almost nothing reading it. Wikipedia is real trash. Where can someone go to actually learn something about Zuni? 2600:1011:B00C:724:74BE:4FC6:4201:E432 (talk) 14:17, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is shit