Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wenja language

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2023 August 11.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. With only a small portion of the merge supporters indicating that it was "merge or bust", coupled with the fact that there is a slight numerical lead for Keep with roughly comparable policy reasoning, Keep is the logical AfD result - but quite possibly with a merge discussion in the future. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:54, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wenja language

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While this article is very nice, I just don't see how it's a separately notable topic from the video game itself, and feels like something that should be on fandom. The article is primarily sourced to self-published blogs by the creators of the conlang, which should not form the basis of an article per WP:PRIMARY. I do not think there are reliable sources that could be uses as substitutes for them. There was some news coverage, but it's all from the release window of the game in early 2016, failing WP:SUSTAINED. I think some material from the article is worthy of merging into the development section of the main game article, which is well below the size-limit. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:52, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Language, and Video games. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:52, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging participants of previous discussion about the Wenja language at WPVG: @OceanHok:, @Soetermans:, @ProtoDrake:, @Sergecross73: @Zxcvbnm:, @Axem Titanium:, @David Fuchs:, @DecafPotato:. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:41, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can't add much more than what was discussed here but I still think it is a good idea to keep the article. For convenience, I will copy here my final reply to that thread:

"Regarding sources, the article as is includes 5 independent sources that focus on the language itself (Gaming Respawn, Player One, University of Kentucky, Gamespot, Supertext). Zxcvbnm (talk · contribs) was kind enough to find another (Game Informer). Jean-Frédéric (talk · contribs) just left this other source from Sciences et Avenir on the talk page.

This book, published by McFarland & Company, discusses Wenja to a great extent within the context of storytelling: e.g. "Because the languages are functional, and not set up nonsensically or with nonsense words, the player’s sense of interactivity increases as the game unfolds", "Background conversations may not always be translated, contributing to the player’s sense of being immersed [...]. The result is not so dissimilar from learning a language by listening to its practical application, such as the systems taught using Rosetta Stone or Duolingo". This paper published in Revista de historiografía (Charles III University) discusses the creation and characteristics of Wenja to some lenght (p. 334 ff). This book also mentions Wenja within the wider discussion of conlangs, but I haven't had access to the full contents. This paper talks about Wenja within a discussion about the creation of several different dialects for artistic languages. Ultimately, I think this other book (discussed above) may also be relevant source because, while authored by the creators, it has been published by Oxford University Press, an institution with high editorial standards, and is in no way a self-publication. We have articles for conlangs based mainly of a book publication by their creator (e.g. Asa'pili).

I think an issue that may be causing a small misunderstanding here is that this article is mainly intended to be about a constructed language (that is also a part of a game). Some people in this community may not be familiar with how an article on a conlang looks like, so there are several comments about how the article is "bloated" with information on grammar or pronunciation. However, WikiProject Constructed languages does recommend that samples are included wherever possible, and indeed, in its structure this article is not dissimilar to many other articles about conlangs on Wikipedia (e.g. Brithenig, Quenya, Lingua Franca Nova, Naʼvi language, Interslavic, etc.) A significant part of this exposition is based on primary sources, but is the only part of the article that does so. This is how an article about a language is expected to be structured, regardless of whether it is a natlang or not."

Qoan (talk) 13:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: Pinging contributors to the article: @Mika1h:, @Jean-Frédéric:, @Wprlh:, @Rhain:, @User-duck:.

To give a critique of the sources here, neither Gaming Respawn nor Player One are listed at WP:VGRS, Supertext is the blog of a commerical copywriting company, and the University of Kentucky is the university at which the creator of the conlang is employed. Universities love to promote the work their researchers do, so it cannot be considered independent. The other sources are usable, but are all from the same year the game released. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:03, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You have conveniently forgotten to mention the University of Murcia, the University of Silesia Press, the translation journal Perspectives, and the fact that the book by the creators was published by Oxford University Press and not by the University of Kentucky (and therefore is not promotion by the creator's university, but independently published by a different institution). All these were published 2017-2022, so at least a year after release. Qoan (talk) 10:54, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion on this remains unchanged. This should be Merged into the main article. It looks more like a well-sourced Wikia article than anything on Wikipedia, especially as nothing further has been done with the Primal setting. Put it like this; if I tried taking this to GAN, it'd be shot down double-quick for over half its sources being first-party. --ProtoDrake (talk) 13:47, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge selectively to the respective game, or make sure the wholesale article is available on a Far Cry fan wikia that almost certainly exists out there somewhere. It's more appropriate there, where there's looser requirements for subjects having their own article. Sergecross73 msg me 13:56, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge I've had a look at the sources discussed and added, and I end up thinking that either it doesn't meet SIGCOV or the result is still too dominated by primary sources to be acceptable as a standalone article. The beefiest sources available are primary. That leaves things like two paragraphs in a much larger book or press from the prerelease hype that don't demonstrate significant sustained coverage. The defense above is basically an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, and I think it mostly makes it obvious that most other conlang articles are similarly pretty bad (wikiproject consensus doesn't overrule wider guidelines or policy, and that suggests the wiki project's guidelines themselves are at odds with our policies on due weight and coverage.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:10, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The nominator's rationale is incorrect, as GNG has been proven. Additionally, as there is an entire WikiProject for constructed languages, needless to say it is not unusual for an article on a fictional language to exist. Any argument for merge appears to be based on WP:WEDONTNEEDIT or similar. Simply thinking an article's content is not necessary is not in itself a reason to delete or merge. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 14:41, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Seeing the secondary sources, this seems to be a notable topic, with NOT only "some news coverage ... from the release window of the game", but also scholarly works. I don't know how a constructed language would be best presented, but the comparison with Quenya etc. at first glance seems to support that the way is in accordance with established standards. Even if this were not the case, though, that would be a reason for trimming/editing, not deletion, with the development section being the real-world content one would expect for a Wikipedia article on a topic of fiction. Daranios (talk) 15:05, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Quenya and Na'vi are both used in multiple works which are some of the most significant works of fiction of all time, not a relatively minor single video game. The scholarly coverage is essentially passing, aside from a primary account from the creators of the conlang themselves. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:12, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be a massive stretch to call Avatar "the most significant work of fiction ever made". It sold a lot of tickets, yeah, but Avatar is mostly a pastiche of other sci-fi ideas. The Far Cry series is also massively selling and certainly isn't relatively minor. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 15:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Avatar is literally the highest grossing film ever made (with its sequel being the third highest), obviously in cultural influence it's dwarfed by the Lord of the Rings, but it far dwarfs the influence of this Far Cry video game. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:23, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like that's us putting in our relative judgments - and kind of a reverse WP:NOTINHERITED - rather than looking to Wikipedia's basic qualifier: Do secondary sources talk about it? @Hemiauchenia: I don't get what you meant exactly with The scholarly coverage is essentially passing? Would you mind explaining more? Daranios (talk) 18:27, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge. I think the primary offense for this article is not one of notability, but of DUE weight. While there are a small handful of sources that qualify as significant, independent coverage, the article runs positively wild with primary sources that far outstrips the appropriate level of detail for the topic. Yes, there appear to be a few academic papers about the conlang, but that does not give editors free license to wax ~~philosophic~~ academic about fricatives and glottals. Importantly, from the second section (Dialects) all the way through the end of the article, there appear to be a grand total of zero non-primary sources. They're all direct interviews or self-published sources by the author of the conlang. If this isn't torturing the definition of undue weight, I don't know what is. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:59, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can you point out where specifically in WP:UNDUE it blocks a source from being used for more than a certain % of the article's non-reception-related content? This seems like a personal stance more than a policy per se. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:11, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Articles should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Very close to zero non-primary sources talk about dialects and consonants and syntax, so if you exclude the REFBOMBing of Mr. Byrd's self-published sources, the amount of the article that should be devoted to that should be very close to zero. The number of consonants in the Wenja language is trivia just as the number of guns in Call of Duty is trivia. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:45, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is more or less the crux of many of the merge comments above, not the ill-conceived assumption that its based on WEDONTNEEDIT. Sergecross73 msg me 16:52, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would lean to a Merge on the basis that the subject matter of the article, the nature of the language and its technical lexical aspects, are heavily reliant upon primary sources. The descriptive although mostly non-mainstream secondary coverage concerns the rationale and development of the language for the game itself, which seems to be something that could be adequately expressed in the development section of the game. I get the impression that compared to other constructed languages, such as Sindarin or Klingon, the secondary attention to the game is in the context of its use in the development of the primary work, and not an interest in its use or significance beyond it. This has led to a dearth of descriptive sources. No expert on this, so welcome alternative views, and will try to revisit the above positions from others. ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. I think Qoan's argument about academic coverage is a compelling one against the claim that this is non-notable or that attention is not sustained. But I also think Axem's argument has strength. But what this article should cover and whether it's too reliant on primary sources strikes me as an editorial question. Perhaps the use of primary sources, and information about the language itself, should be cut back. But I think that depends on the extent to which it has been studied as a language rather than as a part of a game. If it is being seriously talked about by academics as a language, perhaps all this language talk is appropriate. (Show me the source, and I'll support keeping more strongly.) Josh Milburn (talk) 11:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as an AfD outcome: GNG is met, sources are sufficient. Now, if there's going to be a merge discussion, I'm perfectly fine with that happening outside the compelled AfD process. Agree that a merger is a far better outcome than deletion, but I believe N has been met for standalone article. Jclemens (talk) 18:56, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I'd argue that the sheer amount of analysis of the language demonstrated through the scholarly sources Qoan provided should easily prove this has significant enough merit to not justify a deletion nor merge. Adding this information to the parent article wouldn't be of benefit for two reasons: one, adding the language's analysis would bloat the parent article, potentially losing its scope, and two, merely writing a brief paragraph about the language in the parent article wouldn't be enough to convey the significance of the language that said scholarly sources actually discussed. So I believe this is a valid split for both notability and size purposes. PantheonRadiance (talk) 19:39, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. As I understand it, even the nominator agrees that the subject of the article is notable, the information is verifiable and the text is well-written. The only probleem seems to be WP:UNDUE—or rather WP:BALANCE, since the former refers to minority viewpoints. And that is precisely why merging would be a bad idea: unless we'd kick out lots of valuable information, the article about the game would be heavily out of balance. Besides, Wenja is notable not only as an extension of the game, it is also a rare example of a professionally created AND fully developed constructed language, which definitely makes it notable as a part of WP:CL as well. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 11:38, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree it's notable. It's part of a single video game and will likely never be used again. It's the video game that is notable, not this minor aspect of its worldbuidling, and this is largely reflected in the sourcing. Why is the information about its phonology is "valuable", given that it is based entirely on the self-published notes of the author? Why is being "notable as a part of WP:CL" important? WP:CL is a completely dead wikiproject, and has been so for years, it has no value whatsoever. It's also not a new constructed language, but a derivative of PIE, which has been used in other projects, like the film Prometheus, so that's essentially irrelevant. Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:48, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Being based on PIE does not at all disqualify Wenja from being a conlang, but simply makes it a typical example of an a posteriori language – just like hundreds of other conlangs like Esperanto, Interlingua, etc. I am not familiar with Prometheus, but based on what I read about it, the PIE used there is merely a matter of one pre-existing fragment and one undecyphered sentence, which makes the comparison moot.
The fact that Wenja owes its notability to a single computer game puts it in the same league as Klingon, Na'vi, Dothraki etc., all of them owing their notability to a single TV show. And doesn't the same thing go for all the thousands of biographies of fictional characters even more? Whether Wenja "will likely never be used again" is something only the future will show and surely not ours to decide.
As for the wikiproject, it doesn't really matter if it's dead or not, what I meant is that it is also a rare example of a professionally created AND fully developed constructed language, which definitely makes it notable as far as constructed languages are concerned. Personally, I am very interested in the latter, even though I don't give a fiddler's fart about games.
At last, a grammar description is always valuable in an article about a language, and the fact that most of it comes from a primary source does not preclude that. In fact, grammar descriptions of constructed languages are almost always based on a verified primary source. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 13:21, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge. The article is far too reliant on primary sources, and what's there besides that, much of it is talking about it under the lens of Far Cry Primal. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 05:13, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge: I think a sub-article for the fictional language is kind of WP:UNDUE, as this is a very small part of a video game. I don't think discussing the fictional language is WP:GAMECRUFT, but such an in-depth discussion of its individual elements (e.g. dialects and phonology), are GAMECRUFT content. It doesn't help that Far Cry Primal itself is also a very inconsequential game and does not really has lasting impact. OceanHok (talk) 16:59, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - As it stands most of the referencing in the article itself is to primary sources, but the academic sources cited above show that there is much more coverage out there. Also describing an overview of its linguistic features such as grammar and phonology as "cruft" is frankly just demonstrates that one doesn't know how language articles, constructed or otherwise, are typically laid out. Totalibe (talk) 19:17, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's cruft, but I do think that too much of the sources providing sigcov aren't doing so in a way that makes it independently notable from Primal. Ie, rather than being about the Wenja language, it's about Far Cry Primal. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 04:56, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The section of this article that is about Far Cry is solely about the language. There are also some book sources.

Ultimately this is an article that needs improvement that people are confusing for non-notability. If the sources in the article now were all that existed, I'd have to agree it was non-notable, but there were more brought up in this AfD discussion and the problems are WP:SURMOUNTABLE with some effort at cleanup and improvement. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:42, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, let's be real dawg, multiple experienced editors simply do not agree that it's a matter of improvement needed. It may be a strict standard, but it's true that something like Na'vi and Klingon are notable outside of the context of Star Trek. If Star Trek never got another series or movie or game or whatever, the Klingon dialect would still be culturally significant. You'd still get articles about it and people studying it and writing about it in significant detail. Going over this article, discussion of the Wenja language/culture is incredibly limited after 2017, and even 2017 only has a few articles that I saw. Looking at works published after 2017, you have "Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy", which appears to cover the creation of the Wenja language but not the cultural impact or significance. Doesn't seem to comment on it from what I can see from snippets when I search Wenja. Next, we have " Dubbing multilingual movies into Persian: a case of invented languages as the third language", which I cannot judge how valuable it is, since the snippet is somewhat limited. Finally, "Langues construites et mondes imaginaires: du vice secret aux productions hollywoodiennes", as has been pointed out, is a primary source. Besides these, my search of reliable sources only brought up two other instances where it was mentioned, and both were in passing. What my ultimate point is is that it seems like the Wenja language's relevance lived and died by Far Cry Primal, whereas 'Na'vi' and 'Klingon' aren't coupled to the popularity of Star Trek or Avatar. Virtually all of the sources talking about Wenja were written during the launch/hype/discussion cycle surrounding Primal, and ended once that cycle was over. That should not be overlooked. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 12:09, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just going to point out that all the cited sources on the Naʼvi language are themselves only from 2009-2011. Totalibe (talk) 18:30, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are sources dating later than that, such as this journal article from 2015, which has recieved a number of citations. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:46, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is also this [1] which appears to discuss the nature of the Na'vi language, published in 2016. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 00:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.