Talk:Tamil language/Archive 3

message: Preliminary results from archaeological excavations in 2005 suggest that the oldest inscriptions in Tamil may date at least to around 500 BCE
The reference given for the above line is .  The Hindu report does not say anything except in ambiguous language.  It does not draw any conclusions.  Most importantly, this is just a report in a newspaper about history that has not yet been even researched into.  Neither has any researcher researched into it nor has any journal published anything about it.  Citing sources like media reports in things like this, I believe is against Wikipedia conventions.  I believe it wouldnt be a problem if you used a Hindu report or review of say, a research item that appeared in a reputed journal.  But to use a media report to establish the veracity of something is questionable.
Also even reading the Hindu report, it is amply clear that nothing can be said about the inscription yet.  The inscription just has 6 or 7 syllables which mean nothing yet and can possibly be in any language.  It need not even be Tamil for that matter.  Yes you might say that the script is Tamil Brahmi, but then who knows, tomorrow research might show that it indeed is some other language which probably used Tamil Brahmi even before Tamil started using it.  My point is not to advance any theories of my own, but just to point out that even amateurs like me can demolish this theory if the Hindu report is all that you have.
In the light of the above, I will be removing that line.  We will have to wait till something concrete(and not speculation) comes out in a reputed journal or something.  Sarvagnya 00:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Adichanallur inscription 

message: I just changed the lead which said that Tamil is the 'oldest D language' to '...the D lang with the oldest extant literature'.  Any comments?  Sarvagnya 15:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that is accurate.  I also think it is fair, unless we have citations about dravidian languages prior to their extant literature.  --BostonMA talk 15:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oldest language? 

message: On obtaining FA status for this article. Please feel free to help the following A-class article become FA too, if interested: Ilaiyaraaja. Cheers, AppleJuggler 12:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congratulations 

message: So... Is it 13-17 as the infobox claims, or 18 as the lead claims? I might look into this later myself. Grandmasterka 04:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language rank 

message: Natkeeran, nothing that you have cited above supports your claim that the article has been vandalised.  Please stop making arbitrary and wholly untrue claims.  It will not help the discussions here.  As for your examples, let me examine them one at a time.
Example 1:  You claim that there is a contradiction between the two statements.  Can you please spell out what the contradiction is?
Example 2: Well, what we have here is a content issue.  Not vandalism.  That said, I agree that whoever wrote those words should be asked to come up with a citation to support their claim.  And now, that brings us to another even more important point.  We all know that Tamil has been declared a classical language by the Govt of India.  So now, are we to suppose that the Government of India is the authority to decide on classical languages?  The Govt., of India at best can decide for India, not for the academic world at large.  Do you have proof to say that the Indian government's definition of a classical language is the same as that of the scholarly world and the world at large?  If you dont, then you would have to say in the lead that, "tamil is one of the classical languages of India".  Without qualifying it as such, you are making it sound as if the whole world recognises that Tamil is a classical language, which is not true(atleast going by the refs in the article). 
wait if you aren'r agree that tamil was a classical language means you have to be a scholar first world knows that tamil is a classical language.but your hatres towards some tamil peoples might make you write like this if you thought the government of india declared the tamil language as classical means thats absolutely wrong man it s a scholar named hart who wrote the letter to the govt od india to declare it as a classical language. i mean that the heck you are trying to oppose. first read some books.
Example 3 :  Please go through the section ==Regarding edits by Sarvagnya== on this very talk page to understand why the prose was changed.  And btw, just fyi, this particular prose change was discussed at length by me, User:Sundar and Arvind before User:Sundar himself made the change.  Now are you going to tell me that Sundar vandalised the article?
Example 4 : This again is a content issue.  Not vandalism.  As for the contents, it is a well known fact(I'm sure  references are not hard to find) that several scholars do make the Sanskrit sangha to Tamil sangam connection.  So whoever made that edit was not just bluffing.  They just didnt know how to say it and where to say it.  The way they added that piece of info to the article leaves a lot to be desired.  Nevertheless, it is NOT vandalism.  If anything, its a horrible case of copyediting gone wrong.
So please stop floating conspiracy theories and make an effort to improve the article.  Characterising edits which are not vandalism as being vandalism is a personal attack(even if you choose not to name people because like I've pointed out above, you've unwittingly accused Sundar of vandalism).  Sarvagnya 09:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding example 1, the contradiction seems fairly clear.  "2nd century CE" is 300 to 400 years later than "200 BCE". PubliusFL 14:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, my bad.  I give him that.  And yet, I'm not sure if it can be characterised as vandalism.  May even have been a genuine typo by somebody(CE/BCE). Sarvagnya 16:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good, you admit that, but there is much truth in what Natkeeran states. The content of this article is systematically diluted and slanted. the example 4 above may not be technically vandalism, but it clearly misrepresents the facts. Your claim that "horrible case of copyediting gone wrong" shows your bias or lack of knowledge on this matter. Is it a case of copyediting?!--Aadal 16:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Ravishankar, please understand that some concerns are raised and they are being addressed and it is an opportunity to make it better. I too feel the changes made were not good and definitely degraded the quality and content of the article, but many of the other pointers are useful in improving the quality of the content. So, please undestand what we need to do to address the concerns and how to correct the inclusion of defective information or perspective. Sundar and Arvind have stepped in and corrected most of the problems. We all should continue to improve and polish the article and continue to keep the FA status. --Aadal 13:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to Natkeeran's claims

message: It is said in the article,"Spoken dialects did not have much prestige: Tamils believed that the grammatical rules of literary centamil had been formulated by the gods and they were therefore seen as being the only correct speech (see, for example, Kankeyar, 1840)" There seems to be no basis for claiming that "formulated by the gods" in the above statement. Who is this Kankeyar and what are his exact words. Why is this given special credance here? If the statement is "Tamils generally beleive that their language was shaped and guided by wise (cānRōr)" then it would be closer to general belief. I don't think Tamils believed that their language was formulated by gods.--Aadal 16:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What is the basis?

message: For the record, the  version originally featured is this. In view of the concerns brought up on FAR, and of the various warning templates littering the article, it should proceed to FARC (or the problems should be fixed, presto - it won't do to keep a FA in such a state for an extended period of time). dab (𒁳) 14:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm copying and pasting below the messages from User Sundar's page. I think it is good that it comes under review. The article  can be improved and strengthened in a number ways. While some of tags are very unreasonable, it is still good to address them. It can only improve if we add or suitably modify. Please see the concerns raised and how to address them with pointers provided by User SandyGeorgia. --Aadal 15:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: FA?

message: Tamil language is in featured article review.--Dwaipayan (talk) 07:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Tamil language]] [[WP:FAR|FAR]]

message: In section:Spoken and literary variants:
"In contrast to most European languages, therefore, Tamil did not have a standard spoken form for much of its history.[clarify]"
Is it not common for spoken languages to differ from place to place, somewhat? This is true of any language, european or otherwise. Is there any evidence that european languages have 'standard spoken form'? I don't know who introduced this sentence. I would like to modify it as follows, "Like almost all languages, Tamil has many different regional dilects."  Since it is obvious, perhaps this sentence should be omitted.--Aadal 16:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reworded the entire section somewhat drastically to get rid of weasel words, and address clarify tags and a few other ambiguities.  Take a look. -- Arvind 16:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow! it really reads much better and  is indeed cogent! While we are at it, we should definitely reword or rewrite the whole vocabulary section. I think the expectation of a general reader is not well served. Probably we should say the approximate size of the vocabulary, variety of words for given things - for example there are 30+ words for earth, some 27+ for sea, ocean, some 15+ words for sun etc.,  richness of verbs, percentage of words from other languags (this may be difficult data)  etc. We can model something on the lines for the English language here but perhaps not immediately since some data may be hard to get at quickly. It is indeed nice to see you and Sundar getting back to this artilce at this time.--Aadal 17:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reworked the section on vocabulary a little bit more.  I'll do some more to the history section tomorrow if I can find some time to spend online. -- Arvind 22:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Arvind, it looks fine now. I've just modified the "Classification" section. I've changed the title to Tamil Language Family and added a sentence with reference. Would you please check whether these are okay? Also, I believe we should add a sentence about the fact that the Metalanguage of Tamil is Tamil somewhere in the grammar section or even in the leading para. What do you think?--Aadal 13:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The statement that Tamil is its own metalanguage seems to me both pretty meaningless (most languages can be used to talk about themselves) and false (we're not using Tamil to discuss Tamil, we're using English). I'm deleting it. If Tamil is, in fact, in some way special in this respect, perhaps it should be explained in more detail...? --Sabik 16:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tags