Wikipedia:Peer review/Esperanto/archive1

Esperanto

This was nominated by Raul654 as a featured article candidate on 13 February. It failed nomination. I've addressed many of the objectors' comments (deleting irrevant stuff, NPOV edits, rearranging sections in a more logical order). One of the objectors suggested submitting it for peer review.

I have a couple of specific questions for reviewers:

1. Is it neutral now? I extensively rewrote the sections that Plek objected to as non-NPOV, but I think I'm too close to them to read them objectively.
2. How would you suggest expanding the opening section? Both objectors commented that it was too brief and did not summarize the article. I've rewritten it somewhat, but I'm not sure what else to add that would really be relevant in a brief summary. It used to be much longer and was condensed after some discussion back in August and September 2004. (See the thread in Archive 4 of the talk page.)

Thanks. --Jim Henry 18:28, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Incompleteness

Answers to your questions:

1. Yes, it is neutral.
2. The opening section looks good. I don't see the need for expansion there.

Some points that strike me:

• What there is already, is great. But there are some glaring omissions. I can't believe that the article has nothing on sounds (vowels, consonants), morphology (the way words are put together) and grammar. Any decent article on any language should contain this basic information.
• The history section should say more on the genesis of Esperanto. An article on a constructed language should contain info on its construction, it's as simple as that. The closest we get is the highly interesting single paragraph on 'Classification'. There must be more to say.
• It is customary in language articles to use the IPA transcription. Recently, templates have been developed to ensure correct display in all browsers (Template:IPA). So it would be cool to see IPA in the example sentences, instead of a loose approximation that is meaningful only to English speakers.
• It is stated in both Esperanto and Esperanto history that 'a first grammar was published in 1887, but both articles don't mention that grammar in the References section.

— mark ✎ 12:39, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Back in the mists of pre-history, this article used to have sections on grammar and phonology, but they expanded and then were spun off into separate articles, if I recall correctly. (Haven't looked at the history recently, though, I may be misremembering.) I should put a summary of each back in, with links like Main article: Esperanto grammar.

There is an article on Esperanto pronunciation which I think probably ought to be moved to Esperanto phonology, and summarized in a short section of Esperanto.

I'll figure out how to use the IPA template, then fix the sample sentence transcriptions. I'll also try to find bibliographic information for a currently available reprint of the Unua Libro. Thanks for the comments. --Jim Henry 14:57, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think I've addressed all or almost all of your concerns now, though you may not be satisfied with the amount of detail on the early development and history of the language - there's a link to Esperanto history for those who want more detail, though that article itself needs a lot more work. I added sections on phonology and grammar, added more references (to Wells Lingvistikaj aspektoj de Esperanto, the Unua Libro and the Fundamento), and expanded the brief section on history. I also added IPA transcriptions of the sample sentences, but left the rough Englishesque transcriptions there as well - do you think I should remove those?

I changed my mind about moving Esperanto pronunciation; its title is appropriate, as it's a nontechnical presentation for readers with little or no background in linguistics. There's a link to it from the section on Phonology, but this section now has more detail on consonant clusters and allophony than that separate article. --Jim Henry 22:13, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Great improvements! Still missing some sentences on construction history indeed, but I can get over that. Some remaining and/or new points (hope I don't discourage you...)

• About the transcription of the sample sentences: I don't like the English approximation if you ask me — but I'm not the only one with an opinion.

I don't really like it either, but I hestitate to get rid of it; I want to article to be tolerably accessible to readers with not much lingustics background. I'll ask for other opinions on the talk page.

• Structure: the one sentence section on 'Geographic distribution' looks awful. I suggest merging it with 'Number of speakers' into a 'Geography and demography' section. Maybe 'Computer writing' could be incorporated in 'Writing systems' in the same way.

Sounds good. When I eventually get Esperanto sen mitoj back from the friend I loaned it to, I might expand in more detail on geographic distribution and demographic trends.

• There are other things about structure. Take a look at the TOC: 15 level 1 headings is just too much. Incorporate more sections into meta-sections (like in 'Linguistic properties'), and make the arrangement of the sections more logical. For example: what is 'Official status' doing just below the Examples? I'd expect it earlier; same holds for 'Esperanto in English-language media' (BTW, that last section title begs the question: why only in English-language media?). Maybe 'See also' could be merged with 'External links' into a 'Further reading' section.

That'll be it for now. — mark ✎ 00:58, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK, will think about how to combine some sections under higher-level headings. Thanks. --Jim Henry 17:34, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Vocabulary

• Many other Wikipedia articles on languages have sections dealing with their vocabularies. (Compare Nahuatl language, for example.) Much of the discussion deals with the importing and exporting of words from and to other languages. This doesn't apply so much to Esperanto, but there is still something that can be said on the subject of vocabulary. By coincidence, I am busy excising roughly 50 dictionaries from Wikipedia and putting them on Wiktionary (a "list of words" article on Wikipedia is a simple category of words in Wiktionary), adding links to the Wiktionary categories to the Wikipedia language articles; and someone else is busy populating Wiktionary from Universala Vortaro. I've therefore supplied you with a starter Vocabulary section, with the same form of Wiktionary link as in other encyclopaedia articles. As a bonus, there's a Wiktionary category specifically for UV words. So you've got a link to that, too. Uncle G 21:54, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)

Thanks. I've added some material on patterns of borrowing, idiomatic compounds, and idiomatic use of root words. --Jim Henry 22:53, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC).

Size of the article

After adding material as recommended by the FAC objectors and peer reviewers, the article is now over 35KB. Any suggestions about which sections could most profitably be abridged or spun off into separate articles? IMO, the Esperanto in English-language media section is the most easily dispensible. We can probably move some of the material in the Writing system section to Esperanto orthography. What else? --Jim Henry 22:53, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

First, I want to say that I very much like the changes you've made recently. The structure is more logical now; the content is presented in a more logical way. And the writing is excellent, I like your style.

Thanks!

Now, how to cut it down in length? Both of your suggestions are good. The ASCII transcription, which encoding to use, and so on, is not what people will expect in a general article about Esperanto; send them to Esperanto orthography for that. And indeed, this awkward 'Esperanto in English-language media' thing could be disposed of. The 'Language evolution' section is really huge. Maybe some of it could be moved to 'Esperanto history' or a more appropriate article. Make sure to summarize it, there is a lot of relevant information there.

It's still 34KB after spinning off the English-language media section and removing the excessive stuff about ASCII and Unicode representations. I'll work on moving some of the Language Evolution material to Esperanto history later on.

On a sidenote, 'Official status' is a really short level 1 section.

Would it make sense to indent it under History? --Jim Henry 20:24, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's a pleasure to see this article evolve! — mark ✎ 15:54, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Abridging the Language evolution section (while copying the original version to Esperanto history), and making some other minor cuts throughout, brought it just under 32KB.

I've been spending a probably excessive amount of time editing Wikipedia lately; now when this article is stable seems to be a good time to take a break for a few weeks. Further comments should probably go to Talk:Esperanto. Thanks for all your advice. --Jim Henry | Talk 23:09, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)