Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Weise's law/archive1

Weise's law

Featured article candidates/Weise's law/archive1

Nominator(s): ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ever wonder why Greek and Sanskrit cognates involving gutturals don't always match up like you expect and usually before an /r/ sound? Yeah, me either. But in 1881, a German linguist commented on this oddity and proposed a sound law to explain it. "Largely forgotten by the scholarly world", the law developed newfound interest when Dutch linguist Alwin Kloekhorst gave the law a full defense in 2011, giving Dr. Weise a high honor: naming it after him. As of now, there are no Proto-Indo-European FAs and only one other GA, which is something I'm hoping to fix. This article may be of interest to you if you speak a language affected by the law, including a Balto-Slavic language, Albanian, Armenian, or any of the Indo-Iranian languages, such as Farsi or Hindi. I would like to extend my thanks, first and foremost, to UndercoverClassicist who beat this article into shape during its GA nomination, swung by to help out during PR, and overall just gave great feedback. Also thanks to RoySmith and Matarisvan, both of whom gave me great feedback at PR as well. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good to see this here -- will pop in at some point. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:11, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Count me in for a review! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 10:19, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild

Recusing to review.

"Presented at a conference in 2008". Who or what was presented?

Rephrased.

"several different sources on the topic, both referencing Weise and not". This would work better as 'several different sources on the topic, some referencing Weise and some not' or similar.

Done.

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:58, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Gog! Looking forward to your comments. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:10, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"while the palatovelar stops generally were made into alveolar sibilants in most cases". You don't need to say both "generally" and "in most cases".

Good catch. Fixed.

"Sanskrit words contain many potential violations of the rule occurring". I am not sure this is grammatical. Try deleting "occurring".

Fixed.

"However, these are often the result of later sound changes particular to a language or language family such as in Sanskrit"> I am a little confused; "such as in Sanskrit", as opposed to what?

In short, there appear to be violations of the law which are explainable by sound changes that took place after the law. In Sanskrit, as an example, /l/ becomes /r/ in many circumstances. Because of this, śr clusters appear to be violations of the law – since ś is largely, if not only, derived from PIE *ḱ – because *ḱ cannot precede *r according to the law. But because these words may be the result of a PIE *ḱl cluster, there is no violation. The examples serve to demonstrate such cases.

In which case I suggest that a bit much is being asked of this sentence. Perhaps something like 'However, these are often the result of later sound changes particular to a language or language family. Examples can be found in Sanskrit, where ...'

Fixed.

Non-actionable comment: I like your two uses of "In other words". Is this deliberate minor humour?

I'd love to say yes, but this is the template phrase of someone used to reading and writing technical jargon trying to make it more accessible. In other words, sadly no. :-)

"The law must have occurred by". I know what you mean, but I am unsure that it works as prose. Perhaps unpack "The law" to say just what it was that "must have occurred by"? Similarly with references to "the law" in the last sentence of the paragraph.

I've changed a few of these up; I think I'm understanding you right. If not, could you offer a suggestion?

Yep, that's fixed it.

And in "there is positive evidence that the law never occurred in Armenian" and similar uses. I am not sure that "the law occurred" etc communicates well to a reader.

Ibid. above

Likewise.

"linguists suggest that this sound change occurred before the centum–satem split." All linguists, most, or some?

Now that I'm looking at it again, I think it's really just Kloekhorst saying that. I've changed it to reflect that.

"Although, because the results of Weise's law seem more extensive outside the Indo-Iranian languages, Kloekhorst notes that it is likely that a secondary wave of depalatalization law took place at a later date in each of those language families." ' Kloekhorst notes that it is likely that a secondary wave of depalatalization law took place at a later date in each of those language families, because the results of Weise's law seem more extensive outside the Indo-Iranian languages' seems easier to parse.

Done.

"See Centum and satem languages § Satem languages for more." Maybe '... for further information' [or 'detail', or discussion']?

I like "further discussion". Fixed.

"Larry Trask also categorizes both". Categorizes both as what?

Clarified.

Gog the Mild (talk) 20:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gog. Thanks for your feedback. I've responded accordingly. Let me know what you think. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:18, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just one come back of note above. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Everything should be addressed now. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am leaning support, but as it is early days for a technical topic I am going to hold off formalising this until I see what other reviewers think. In particular their view of WP:TECHNICAL "Wikipedia articles should be written for the widest possible general audience." I think that it passes this, but only just, and would like to see others' opinions. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:18, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Borsoka

Before starting a detailed review, I think the article needs some expansion:

~~the main text could explain that the sound change is assumed to have occurred in Proto-Indoeuropean;~~

If I'm reading you correctly, discussion on this is found in the "Relative chronology" section, where I've written about the two competing views: Kortlandt (Proto-Indo-Iranian only) and Kloekhorst (late Proto-Indo-European, excluding the Anatolian languages).

~~Proto-Indoeuropean could very shortly be introduced;~~

Done.

~~I assume that the three sounds mentioned in the article are not attested, but assumed - this should be clarified.~~ Borsoka (talk) 03:51, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think this has been fixed with what I wrote for the above suggestion, since I talk about how PIE is hypothetical and no record of it exists. I go over that in the representational conventions in "Terminology", so I think all the bases are covered.

I have responded accordingly. Please let me know if I misunderstood anything or need to do anything else. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:18, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]