Talk:Islamic languages

What is an Islamic language?

I have a couple of questions about this dab:

1. Is this term in any way supported by reliable sources as an alternative name for any of the languages listed here? If I click e.g. on Kashmiri language, the word "Islamic" does not even appear in the article text.
2. Is this a reasonable search term?
3. What are the criteria for inclusion? Pashto and Sindhi language are here, but not e.g. Hausa language, Somali language or Sundanese language.

I am somehow inclined to bring this straight to AfD, but maybe I am missing something. –Austronesier (talk) 07:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

The term exists in Scholar, but isn't necessarily what one would expect (#1 result is about English), and is not just an alt name for a laundry list of languages from majority-Muslim countries. "Language" is also used in the sense of "expression, style, presentation", as in (my example:) "what kind of language is the poet using in this poem?" An example of this usage is in scholar result #4 "An Islamic language of toleration" regarding Rumi. Result #5 uses the expression to place a Yemeni language on a timeline: "...there was evidence for a pre-Islamic language that was spoken in Yemen even into medieval times." This example is notable, because by using the prefix pre-, they are calling out "Ḥimyaritic" as specifically not being an Islamic language. Result #7 uses that "expression" sense of language, when talking about "A New Cosmopolitan Islamic Language"; nobody is inventing Esperanto-Arabic style here, this is about ways that expression in Islamic texts is being affected by modern trends. Number 8 is about English again. Results #3, 4, and 5 at books all deal in one way or another with the question, "what is an Islamic language", and discuss whether English and Nepali belong on the list. If so, do they belong on a disambig page about "Islamic language"?

The other thing I note, is that Bahasa, the language of the world's largest Muslim country, is not mentioned, and neither is Bengali (#3) or Turkish (#6). I suppose that could be remedied by adding them, but then we're back to square one again; is this really a way that anybody gets to any of these results by search? Or is this really more an attempt to create a list article, List of languages with the most Muslim speakers? But that all comes back to the question you posed in the section header. I guess I'm struggling to find a justification for this as a disambig page, as the arguments in favor seem weak. Mathglot (talk) 10:56, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

"Islamic language" in the sense of religious wording, analogous to "Christian language" is meaningful, but we wouldn't list English or even Latin in a Christian language dab page. "Pre-Islamic" refers to the time period prior to the Islamic conquest, and doesn't refer to specific languages. So I think this dab should simply be deleted unless there's some reasonable target for a rd. — kwami (talk) 00:00, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Answers to the questions about this dab:

1. Languages that have a connection with the Islamic religion are called Islamic languages. Languages like Arabic, Urdu, etc. have strong connections with the Islamic religion.
2. Yes, it is a reasonable search term.
3. The criterias for inclusion are following:
   1. The language has a majority Islamic community.
   2. The language has connections with the Islamic religion.

Therefore, Pashto and Sindhi are Islamic languages. Hausa, Somali, and Sundanese are not Islamic languages, since it has few connections with the Islamic religion. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 05:25, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

ad 1. Languages that have a connection with the Islamic religion are called Islamic languages. By whom? Sources?

ad 2. That certainly lies in the eye of the beholder and can be discussed once we have sources for the disputed aspects.

ad 3.1. Accepted as easily verifable.

ad 3.2. What does that mean? Are there sources that would include e.g. Pashto and Sindhi, but exclude Hausa, Somali, and Sundanese?

In it's current vagueness and arbitrariness, I find this dab with its matter-of-factish one-liner "Islamic language may refer to" misleading, as if "Islamic language" was common parlance with a clearly defined range of meanings, but just happens to be ambiguous. I agree with kwami, "Islamic language" only makes sense as a redirect to a page with substantial and topical information, if there is such a target. –Austronesier (talk) 08:06, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Unclear answer

Answer #2, "Yes, it is," required me to look back to the question. Fixed. --Thnidu (talk) 14:06, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

DAB, SIA, BCA

As it currently stands, this is not a disambiguation page. A disambiguation page is a guide to articles on multiple topics with the same name (or potentially the same name). A disambiguation page for "Islamic language" would only include links to articles about things that are sometimes called Islamic language. That is not true of Arabic, Urdu, or the other languages listed here. It might be true of a hypothetical book titled Islamic Language, a hypothetical summer school called Islamic language, and a hypothetical linguistic approach sometimes called Islamic language theory.

A set index is slightly different, in that one treats a specific type of thing (for example, a set of languages) that share the same or similar names. Set indexes also include things like reference sections and internal links to related topics, which disambiguation pages do not. A set index for "Arabic" might include Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, etc., but not a hypothetical book titled Arabic.

A broad-concept article is different again. It treats a general, perhaps somewhat abstract concept and links to articles about that concept. Unlike DAB or SIA, it is not a list but has more the structure of a typical article.

It seems to me that a BCA might be written about the concept of Islamic languages, but there is no need for a DAB about the phrase Islamic language, since the phrase is not in common use as far as I can tell. I'm less sure about the possibility of a SIA, but as with a DAB, I don't think that one is necessary. Cnilep (talk) 03:22, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Cnilep: I came here because this is our only dab which uses {{Annotated link}}, intending to replace it per WT:Disambiguation/Archive 50#Use of annotated links. However, I'm also wondering what purpose the page serves. Anyone seeking a primer in Islamic grammar or vocabulary will be disappointed. (Addressed by move from "Islamic language") There might be value in a list of languages which are mainly^{[weasel words]} spoken by Muslims, or which have Islamic texts (though plenty exist in English), but that's verging on OR. I'm not sure that there's even a broad concept here: Fatma from Ankara may speak Turkish and be Muslim, but those two facts aren't directly related. Nor is the list really a well-defined set: many Muslims speak English, and Turkish has many secular uses. I'm an inclusionist but I think AfD may be the best way forward. Certes (talk) 15:16, 15 August 2020 (UTC)