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Talk:Afghanistan/Archive 6

Government site
Is there an issue here as well? What are the rationals for inclusion or removal?—Cronholm144 18:21, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

 * You're supporting the removal of the main government site of Afghanistan? What's the purpose of removing this? I'm sure there is a purpose, probably that you want to hide it so to make people assume the country has no functioning government. Every article of nations has the official government sites so why should Afghanistan's be removed?--Hurooz (talk) 15:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

 * No I am not. I am trying to understand whether or not there is a controversy. My question still stands; I have heard one argument to include the site and none supporting its removal. Why was it included in the revert war?—Cronholm144 23:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Afghanistan - what is life like for internationals operating in Country?
A good start is to look at all of the services that are available in country - that many people have no idea exist. Too many, Afghanistan is thought of as the fifth poorest and most conservative Islamic country in the world. However, to those internationals that have been or live there know, it is a Country that grabs your imagination and despite all of its difficulties has something that makes almost all visitors say they will return to one day. Daily life too many internationals, is far removed from what those see on the news and would expect - look at the restaurant listings on www.afghanguide.biz to get a feel for the unreported side of life that the public often misses. My suggestion is to add a section to the Afghanistan over view on what day to day life is like for an international living in Country - it may be surprisingly normal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.205.198.178 (talk) 09:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

You may wish to add to the Economic Section → There are no Patent Laws in Afghanistan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.165.234.141 (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Excess section

 * The constitution of Afghanistan has no jurisdiction over the English language. There are sources for both Afghan, Afghani, and Afghanistani being used of persons from Afghanistan in English. Deletion of sourced content that is a product of consensus (see Demonym section above) is vandalism, Hurooz. The other things you did, I've no problem with. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

 * Ok I looked at the other changes you made, sorry I didn't notice before. The edit I just made maintained your changes to the article, changing only the demonym section to include what you want as well as the other sourced options. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

 * I am not aware of any WP policy saying we have to use a country's constitution as the basis for our encyclopedia. Show me where that is. The references are from dictionary.reference.com. Where are you getting free dictionary.com from? On dictionary.reference.com, the entry for Afghani comes from the American Heritage Dictionary, and the entry for Afghanistani comes from WordNet, which is done by Princeton University. How are these unreliable sources? All I wish to do is preserve sourced information. You may not be, but you strike me as a pov-pusher trying to make sure that English-speaking persons call persons from Afghanistan nothing but 'Afghans' because thats what you want. If you want to do that, if the other terms are ignorant, please spend your time soapboxing somewhere else. Carl.bunderson (talk) 21:24, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Click on WordNet, then on Semantic lexicon, then on Semantics and read the def slowly. You'r not understanding what WordNet is. It is a new system to help explain the meanings of certain complicated words that are not found in most dictionaries and afghanistani is one such word out of 150,000 words stored in WordNet.--Churra (talk) 23:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

 * I can't find anything on WordNet's site to suggest that the terms in it would not actually be words; and I was able to find simple words, such as cat. But the small size of the database, given the size of English, does seem odd. And WordNet doesn't call itself a 'semantic lexicon'; rather, a lexical database. If you could address those issues, I'd appreciate it. But I would be willing to concede to you on this word. Do you have any objections to the source for 'Afghani'? Carl.bunderson (talk) 00:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

 * It doesn't matter that Afghans only call themselves Afghans. It may make it the "proper" demonym, but it is not the only one. If there are reputable sources for Afghani and Afghanistani, they should be included. You grant that Afghani is used, sometimes, by foreigners. The vast majority of English speakers, who use the English WP, are foreigners by Afghan standards. If some of us use Afghani, it needs to be acknowledged. Carl.bunderson (talk) 21:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess we have to change the name of the article Germany to "Bundesrepublik Deutschland", since that's the constitutional name of that country. Logically, the demonym should be changed to "Deutsch". I am sure that Hurooz fully agrees with me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.144.56 (talk) 02:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

 * Hurooz and Bejnar are Afghan nationalists. It doesn't matter how you explain it to them, they are against any denonym other than Afghan because according to them it threatens the "Afghan state". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.93.211.252 (talk) 21:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is there no Pashto in the native-language section in the infobox?
Seriously, it's a crying shame. I'd do it myself (the way I rectified Morocco's atrocious infobox a couple of months ago), but obviously that's impossible now. There is NO REASON that the name of the country in the OFFICIAL LANGUAGE should be simply ignored in the infobox. For that matter, the first-line report of the native name in Pashto includes no transliteration--that's a serious problem, since not everyone can read Arabic script. Heck, I'm fluent in Arabic and I can only barely make out what it says, thanks to differences in the alphabet. Furthermore, what exactly IS the name of Afghanistan? There is consensus on "republic" for the translation, but is it "Jamhūrī" or "Dawlat"? The Farsi article has it as "Jamhūrī"/whatever in both Pashto and Dari, but the German article has "Dawlat" for Pashto and "Jamhūrī" for Dari, and the French article has "Dawlat" for both! I would personally regard the Farsi article as authoritative, considering that people in Afghanistan actually speak it (Dari being a dialect of Farsi, if that), but I don't know for sure. Thoughts? Lockesdonkey (talk) 05:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

 * Dowlat and Jamhuri are both Arabic words and have the same meaning. It does not matter. Both Jamhuri and Dowlat have been adopted in Pashto and Persian. I think the Pashto version should also be added to the info-box. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.144.56 (talk) 01:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

 * As a speaker of Arabic, I know that in Arabic at least, "Dawlah" means "state" (or sometimes "government" depending on context), while "Jumhuriyyah" specifically means "republic." Judging by the Wiktionary entry for "Dawlat", Farsi makes the same distinction. What is the name according to the Afghan government? Lockesdonkey (talk) 02:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

 * Hello? Why has nobody addressed this? C'mon already! Lockesdonkey (talk) 05:43, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

many more sources for afghanistan being south asian
Thegreyanomaly (talk • contribs) 03:00, December 11, 2007

 * Afghanistan is without a doubt part of both Central and South Asia - the only evidence you have to provide is the fact that it is a member of SAARC. What we are all disputing is your inference that it is part of the Indosphere. Green Giant (talk) 15:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Image of girls
KabuliTajik, USAID Afghanistan labels the girls in that photo as being Afghan. On what authority are you using to call those girls Afghanistani? Kingturtle (talk) 19:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree. It shouldn't be changed without a source. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The image source describes them as "Afghan girls." So does the article. What's the problem, here? – Luna Santin  (talk) 10:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Editprotected
 * Edit declined. No consensus. Also, the image to be edited is not specified. Please note that the instructions state: "This template should be accompanied by a specific description of the request." Sandstein (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Military and law enforcement
Hallo! In this article it would be correct to describe the important GIAAC, the Anti Corrupion Authority, which is an independant body with Izzatullah Wasifi as its general director. As there is an article on his name, that article could also be completed with a link back to this part. Suggestion to add it as "4.2" Link to GIAAC: Zoors (talk) 23:54, 27 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoors (talk • contribs) 23:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

comment/suggestion
The link to Great Saud Revolution is set to link to Khalq. Only from there one can go to the GSR page. This should be corrected.85.1.154.127 (talk) 10:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

comment/suggestion
suggestions: I would like to say that you need to write on the right top of first page name as such in pashto( د افغانستان اسلامى جمهوريت),as it was written before in wikipedia.The name of Afghan government is written only in Persian mainly because of persian speaker influences at government due to Northern allaince which distorted the truth.Second,It is totally baseless and lies that Dari or persian is spoken by 70 pecent of Afghanistan's population,which clearly contradict with the true figures given in old Atlasses.If an irish or scottish write wrong information about UK and give misleading infos regarding UK, that Irish or Scottish is spoken by 70 percent of UK's Population or claim that 75 percent of UK's Population are irish or scottish, what will be your reactions? Third, A country could be recognised and defined by the original inhabitants of that country.Now a day every body knows that the so-called afghan government is occupied by Persian speakers of Northern Allaince which is getting direct and indirect support from Iran which is working very hard to distroy and ditort the afghan histry in order to establish irani thoughts,idealogy,language,culture etc,that is why the wikipedia is provided with false information. - posted in article by user 91.149.9.241. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingturtle (talk • contribs) 17:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

 * Very amusing comments. Someone should let him/her know that this is not a forum. AntiFascism (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Whether we like it or not, he/she has SOME point. As I noted above, Pashto IS an official language of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and currently there is only Dari/Persian in the "native language" field of the infobox. Since I speak no Pashto, I cannot say what the official name is with certainty; I am guessing from my knowledge of Arabic, a dubious proposition. I would advocate that Pashto (with a suitable transliteration/transcription) be added to the top of the infobox alongside the current Dari (though not necessarily one on top of the other). So ADD IT NOW! Lockesdonkey (talk) 18:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Bias exhibited in display of image of US Humvee stuck in sand
I think it's pretty obvious what the original content uploader intended. The biased image should be replaced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JR869 (talk • contribs) 05:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Even though I'm Russian, I agree it is anti-American. I have changed it. RussianRoket (talk) 07:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I changed it back again. Let's discuss here first. No offence, I liked the older pictures better.--John (talk) 08:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I made a mistake with the new picture. I'm putting this image from Commons but here it shows something else. How do I fix this? RussianRoket (talk) 08:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

 * THe images used should be agreed here first before they are added to the article. --John (talk) 18:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I agree with RussianRoket, so I am putting his photo in back in. The Humvee picture is POV (yes, we all get the metaphor, ha ha). Either don't include a picture or include a picture that shows what is currently happening there. And, I don't think the US performing AAA duties in Afghanistan so this photo is misleading. --MarsRover (talk) 20:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

POV paragraph in Soviet invasion and civil war section
Someone should fix this paragraph to make it neutral:

''The result of the fighting was that the vast majority of the elites and intellectuals had escaped to take refuge abroad, a dangerous leadership vacuum thereby coming into existence. Fighting continued among the victorious Mujahideen factions, eventually giving rise to a state of warlordism. The most serious fighting during this period occurred in 1994, when over 10,000 people were killed in Kabul alone. The chaos and corruption that dominated post-Soviet Afghanistan in turn spawned the rise of the Taliban. The Taliban developed as a politico-religious force, and eventually seized Kabul in 1996. By the end of 2000 the Taliban were able to capture 95% of the country, aside from the opposition (Northern Alliance) strongholds primarily found in the northeast corner of Badakhshan Province. The Taliban sought to impose a very strict interpretation of Islamic law.''

Dupree3 (talk) 00:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I took a stab at it. Kingturtle (talk) 12:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

FASLE, LIES AND ALOT OF POVS
There is a tajik conspiricy here and it looks like there are a lot of pro-iranians in here. I would first like to say that everything close to 70% are lies here on Wikipesia written by people outside afghanistan. To say that Ghazni is Dominate of tajiks is completely untrue becausee of its proximty to pakistan and pashtuns this is untrue if not impossible. looool I wonder who is writing all these bogus facts and POVS. We have tajiks in here with no pashtuns in here maybe because pashtuns have a life. People who know the truth never question that manys things but people who are jealous and want to create FORGERY and cant always take in the truth, will question everything from its name to its exipration date. 71.139.48.99 (talk) 23:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)Pashtun786

 * According to AIMS there are as many Hazaras as there are Pashtuns in Ghazni Province. Don't confuse the province with the city that has the same name. The city, according to the Center for Afghanistan Studies at Colubmia Univeristy, is 50% Tajik. Farsiwan22 (talk) 08:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Forget about Ghazni even the districts in Kabul have been coloured wrong. They claim that they are following Afghanistan Statistic site for their information while there is no such information on the site. Then they quote AIMS as their source for the districts, yet Deh Sabz which has been stated as Pashtun district is coloured as Tajik district on the Map. That aside Charisyab, Guldara and Istalif have been mentioned as Mixed districts has been coloured as Tajik Districts. Ever since Wikipedia began processing online Tajiks or non-Afghans took over Afghanistan issues and have been busy spreading lies and biased information to make Tajiks seem superior or at least show their numbers higher in areas which they are lower or at least mixed. Even in Ghazni's, Zana Khan district which has been stated as Pashtun district in AIMS has been coloured as Tajik district. The only district which has been stated as Tajik city is Ghazni.

In MRRD which is GOVERNMENT RUN WEBSITE it clearly shows 90% of Herat residents speaking Pashto and Dari and 66% of Kabul being Pashto speakers. In their map it is stated as personal, and baised information according to self determination of INFERIORITY. I ask the Mods and those who are putting their own numbers to come forward and show their source with the links. Just by posting numbers and words and having it cited will not prove nor will it make people believe them.--99.224.173.167 (talk) 03:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)ProudAfghan

 * It would be helpful if you provided links to your claims. Such links could possibly be used in the articles. Kingturtle (talk) 03:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Who are you trying to kid here? I have been following the anti Afghan elements of this encyclopedia since day one and I know how they can change facts and reliable source into junk and fake numbers into Fact.

Still I would gladly provide you the source but first provide what I have asked from the Mods. I will post my question again so they can read it clearly.

I ask the Mods and those who are putting their own numbers to come forward and show their source with the links. Just by posting numbers and words and having it cited will not prove nor will it make people believe them.--99.224.173.167 (talk) 04:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)ProudAfghan

 * There are no mods. It would be helpful if you provided links to your claims. Such links could possibly be used in the articles. Kingturtle (talk) 15:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Ofcourse there are Mods who are looking after the section related to Afghanistan.Either answer my question or accept the falsified articles and facts with its numbers posted on this website.--209.202.115.142 (talk) 15:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)ProudAfghan
 * Any editor (except the rare banned user) can monitor any article they choose. As for answering your question, the only question you've posed in this section is "Who are you trying to kid here?" The answer is no one. Kingturtle (talk) 16:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

No Editor or people like me can monitor any article since it is ran by those who are anti-Afghan and write lies after lies to make one group seem better than the other. So far I haven't come across any information which can be considered reliable. Here I have some of the information which are based on personal feelings instead of FACT AND TRUTH.

1: The ethnicity map on the main page is has many districts coloured incorrect as some are either majority Pashtun or Mixed. 2: The language map is coloured incorrectly as well. 3: Ahmad Zahir who is not only related to my family but a Pashtun is put as Pashai/Tajik. Robing someone of his identity is not only a crime but also shows what sort of people running Afghan section. 4: Having bunch of numbers added and then have citations of different sources which isn't even related to the article or at least doesn't provide the numbers shown.

Now to my questions I had asked here I will go ahead again and have it posted.

'''I ask the Mods and those who are putting their own numbers to come forward and show their source with the links. Just by posting numbers and words and having it cited will not prove nor will it make people believe them'''.--209.202.115.142 (talk) 18:09, 27 January 2008 (UTC)ProudAfghan

 * That's not a question; that's a request.

 * Please provide references to support your four claims, and then we can work on adjusting the maps and the information accordingly. Kingturtle (talk) 19:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

My apologizes thanks for correcting me but now that you have noticed my request provide it. Also how do you prove yourself to be Afghan instead of American or Chinese? If someone changes your identity how would you feel? Would you go ahead of open your shampagn bottle and cheers to it and ignore it? Can a dead person come alive and explain to have his identity corrected? Ahmad Zahir was a Pashtun his mom hardly spoke Dari and yet you put him down as Pashai/Tajik. My grandfather who at the time when we were not related worked with his father in politics. You need proof go ahead contact Rishad Zahir through his website if no reply than I will post his email to this page. Still if its not good enough get on the plane and fly to Toronto and meet his family members who we are related now. His family knows better about thier identity than you and me and having to change someone's identity because he spoke Dari and sang in Dari and being famous is the lowest a person can get.

To prove everyone regarding the coloured districts in the map will need time since AIMS.ORG.AF site is either down or going through upgrades.

For the rest here, Around 19% of the population of Kabul lives in rural districts while 81% lives in urban areas. Around 51% of the population is male and 49% is female. Pashtu is spoken by around sixty percent of the population and Dari is spoken by around forty percent. A small number of people located in 5 villages speaks Pashaie. Kabul province also has http://www.mrrd.gov.af/nabdp/Provincial%20Profiles/Kabul%20PDP%20Provincial%20profile.pdf

Herat

areas. Around 50% of the population is male and 50% is female Dari and Pashtu are spoken by 98% of the population and 97.7% of the villages. Languages spoken by the remaining poopulation are Turkmeni and Uzbeki. %alpabates%ProudAfghan4life--ProudAfghan4life (talk) 19:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the concerned Afghan who brought up the issue of some editors putting false information here just so they can make themselves happy. The problem is that only few of these editors are involved in doing this on Afghanistan related articles. It's 2 people who are extremely anti-Afghans, with a passion to hate all Pashtuns. One is banned editor Tajik and the other is banned editor Beh-nam, both of these banned editors claim to be Tajiks as well as Shias. These editors may not be ethnic Tajiks but are just saying so. Vandals will never tell the truth about anything. User:Tajik, for example is Qizilbash, and those are not considered Tajiks because Afghanistan's constitution explains that Tajiks and Qizilbash are separate ethnic groups. Most Sunni Tajiks get along with Pashtuns and they do recognize Pashtuns as the powerful ethnic group. Anyway, as a result of people placing false information, Wikipedia is not going to stay around for long. By October of this year (2008) Wikipedia will no longer exist.

Pashtuns and Tajiks are Afghan regardless of ethnicity. For me it doesn't matter which ethnicity a person is from since I see myself only as an AFGHAN. But at the same time we can't take a person's identity from them or post false information. In order to have support and access with reliable source we need individuals who aren't taking sides or biased in any aspect. If you are an Admin or Mod than I would greately appreciate if you change Ahmad Zahir and put his true ethnic group/ identity. Anosha who is claiming that all evidence shows him being Tajik/Pashai yet he forgets family members know better than someone who is busy writting thier own false information. He knows that he is a Pashtun, but he won't change it because he is a famous Afghan singer not just in Afghanistan, but in Tajikistan and Iran for his style of singing and peotries. What if one day a family member yours wakes up and hears bunch of people claiming you aren't who you suppose to be or change your identity. How would you or your family feel even though they've tried to contact group who changed your identity  or background for personal agenda and purpose? That aside when informations are posted on Wikipedia we need to make sure we post accurate information not something personal. With the maps we see many districts which have mixed population marked as majority for one group and district which they should be majority is marked either mixed or for the opposite group. Truth always comes out and if it takes for wikipedia to go down so be it before it produces more false information and continue on with its inaccurate articles.--ProudAfghan4life (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I am also Shia. I find the tone of your comments offensive. Farsiwan22 (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You are not a different person but the same banned User:Beh-nam, the same anti-Afghan and anti-Pashtun. You even claimed to be Russian the other day ("Even though I'm Russian, I agree it is anti-American. I have changed it." User:RussianRoket (now blocked as confirmed sockpuppet of banned editor Beh-nam) 07:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)), which means you are a proven liar. You should at least admit that you have problems with telling the truth, maybe we can help you some how.--Inferior-Parsibaan (talk) 13:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Neither am I against Shias nor will I be but the fact is that Shias are anti Afghanistan and they write majority of the information as either Persian history or according to self agenda. Not accusing all Shias but the ones who are moderating this forum and you are in the list as you have denied many facts as well.--99.224.173.167 (talk) 04:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

True and correct current ethnic group numbers needed
The Encyclopedia Iranica does not show the numbers in percentages. Also the information in Iranica is very very old, we need current information. There is no point on showing numbers from the 1960s to the 1980s, we are in the year 2008. The banned editors User:Beh-nam and User:Tajik are removing the 2006 Encyclopedia Britannica information which clearly shows percentage of every ethnic group in Afghanistan and is the most current source. CIA is also good but that same information has been there for many years, since at least 2001 as I remembered. From 2002 to 2007, over 4.5 million registered Afghan refugees returned back to their country and that makes a big difference. So the CIA information is not updated, if it was then there would be the year written next to the figures. In fact the CIA does not even have Afghanistan included in SAARC membership yet, when it joined the group of nations one year ago. So Britannica is more reliable than CIA. But Iranica must go because it is not showing us any current information. Also, the inferior and bogus looking ethnic maps must also go and be replaced by the better looking CIA maps. Since there are reliable maps from CIA then we must not create stupid ones and play with ethnic group numbers.--Inferior-Parsibaan (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The following is the latest 2006 ethnic make-up in Afghanistan: Britannica - Afghanistan (PDF file) These are the same numbers I've added to Afghanistan and Demography of Afghanistan articles and the banned editors (Beh-nam and Tajik) completely removes this information because they don't like to see it. Can some administrators try to insert this to help make the article more reliable and true. It is also better that we use the clean looking and official CIA ethnic map (on the right) instead of the bogus and terrible looking one which was created by the banned editor Beh-nam that is currently used, showing Pashtun areas in some parts colored as Tajiks.--Inferior-Parsibaan (talk) 22:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 49% Pashtun
 * 18% Tajik
 * 9% Hazara
 * 8% Uzbek
 * 4% Aimak
 * 3% Turkmen
 * 9% other

What the Encyclopedia Britannica actually says, it agrees with Iranica
First of all stop throwing around accusations. I removed those numbers because those are not written in the actual Britannica. They are just written in a PDF document NOT in the actually Encyclopedia and those numbers are estimates from the early 1900s. Ironically this user's other sockpuppet complains that the CIA and Iranica numbers are outdated but wants to use numbers from the early 1900s. What is actually written in the Britannica Encyclopedia  is: ... No national census has been conducted in Afghanistan since a partial count in 1979, and years of war and population dislocation have made an accurate ethnic count impossible. Current population estimates are therefore rough approximations, which show that Pashtuns comprise somewhat less than two-fifths of the population. The two largest Pashtun tribal groups are the Durrani and Ghilzay. Tajiks are likely to account for some one-fourth of Afghans and Hazara nearly one-fifth. Uzbeks and Chahar Aimaks each account for slightly more than 5 percent of the population and Turkmen an even smaller portion. ... CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA -- Farsiwan22 (talk) 22:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Removing Britannica's info is vandalism
The source this banned editor Tajik is quoting IS NOT from early 1900s but current. He knows this very well unless we even have to explain this. It mentions 1979 as the past so how can it be from early 1900s? hahahaha, what an idiot. This banned editor Tajik is not making any sense, first he goes against Britannica and then he supports it by quoting to us what's written in it. The Briannica fact sheet places correct numbers for every ethnic group and those numbers were taken from United Nations, reading the PDF file has all the information on it. PDF file here! The banned editor Tajik is trying to show less Pashtuns and more Tajiks, no matter what it takes even if he has to remove all reliable sources. As long as I'm here I will keep reverting his edits until he learns his lesson.--Khar-Parsiban (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Click on the link and read for yourself what Britannica says. Farsiwan22 (talk) 22:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I already did that maybe you should read it.--Khar-Parsiban (talk) 22:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Why is a user with the name Inferior-Parsiban and Khar-Parsiban (khar meaning donkey and Parsiban being another term for Tajiks/Farsiwans) even allowed to edit? Farsiwan22 (talk) 22:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm your reflection. You don't like me?--Khar-Parsiban (talk) 23:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

 * The citation for the Encyclopedia Britannica ethnic figures for Afghanistan was dated 2006. http://www.britannica.com/wdpdf/Afghanistan.pdf "World Data: Afghanistan" Encyclopædia Britannica 2006. Look at the bottom of the pdf page.  In addition, there were no ethnic figures for Afghanistan in the 1911 edition. --Bejnar (talk) 23:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Not 1911, but early 20th century is where these estimates are from. To read what the 2008 Britannicaa actually says CLICK HERE:

... No national census has been conducted in Afghanistan since a partial count in 1979, and years of war and population dislocation have made an accurate ethnic count impossible. Current population estimates are therefore rough approximations, which show that Pashtuns comprise somewhat less than two-fifths of the population. The two largest Pashtun tribal groups are the Durrani and Ghilzay. Tajiks are likely to account for some one-fourth of Afghans and Hazara nearly one-fifth. Uzbeks and Chahar Aimaks each account for slightly more than 5 percent of the population and Turkmen an even smaller portion. ...

Even if those were 2006, 2008 version of Britannica says the above.

Farsiwan22 (talk) 23:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If you check that article and language comes from before 2005. --Bejnar (talk) 23:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean. The point is that Britannica did not include the 2006 figures in the 2008 version of the encyclopedia so they must have thought it was wrong. And it makes sense since how can Tajiks only be 18% and still have their language as the dominant one? Wiki's policy is to take information from the most recent version, which is 2008 not 2006. Also, user: Inferior-Parsibaan was the racist user: NisarKand and has been blocked. Farsiwan22 (talk) 01:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Farsiwan your name explains itself what sort of person you are and why you post many bogus lies regarding Afghanistan.

Here are some facts from MRRD AFGHANISTAN RAN GOVERNMENT WEBSITE. Ofcourse it will be useless to you and others since you have inferiority complex. Kabul ''Pashtu is spoken by around sixty percent of the population and Dari is spoken by around forty percent. A small number of people located in 5 villages speaks Pashaie.'' http://www.mrrd.gov.af/nabdp/Provincial%20Profiles/Kabul%20PDP%20Provincial%20profile.pdf

Herat Around 50% of the population is male and 50% is female Dari and Pashtu are spoken by 98% of the population and 97.7% of the villages. Languages spoken by the remaining poopulation are Turkmeni and Uzbeki.

Government ran websites have more crediability than outside source, but once agian with you who is ANTI-AFGHANISTAN would do anything to post fake numbers and maps. Also stop randomly banning people who are against racist people like you farsiwan. To all Afghans you seem to be the racist one who is busy putting fake numbers and maps to make people believe in the false information. Besides having changed Ahmad Zahir's identity to someone he isn't you people have been busy changing numbers for districts as well. Wikipedia will eventually take action against you people if not we Afghans will for sure and put a stop to your false information and LIES.--ProudAfghan4life (talk) 04:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * That is not possible that 60% speak Pashto and only 40% Dari. 60% + 40% = 100%, what about the other languages (Uzbeki, Turkmeni, etc)? These numbers make no sense. In the case of Afghanistan where one ethnic group (Pashtuns: Karzai, former Pashtun-Taliban, former Pashtun communists and Afghan Mellatis) is in power and falsifying facts about the country, the government is not reliable and outside sources such as the The World Factbook are more reliable. Farsiwan22 (talk) 04:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Afghanistan is a full member of SAARC but the World Factbook does not show as Afghanistan being a member of SAARC. How can the World Fartbook be more reliable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.175.65.222 (talk) 05:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * The World Factbook does not say that Afghanistan is not a SAARC member. Farsiwan22 (talk) 07:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Farsiwan now you claim that Mellaties and Pashtuns are in power and yet you have no clue who holds the real power. Karzai has no army and most of the ministries are ran by the Northern Alliance who make up the minority ethnic groups of Afghanistan. If you are claiming that its Mellatis than I can claim you are a Setami in disguise?

You should go ahead read about "About Us" (Setami Tajiks Fahim,Qanoni,Abdullah,Ismeal Khan,Communist united with Northern Alliance, Dostum,Atta and rest of these criminal Sitamis ANTI-PASHTUN are in power) You just proved us all that you are ANTI PASHTUN AND YOUR INFORMATION ARE BASED ON PERSONAL AGENDA AND WOULD DO ANYTHING TO SPREAD LIES. THIS WILL BE SAVED AND SENT AGAINST YOU. first paragraph, National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDP) is part of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and is one of the seven closely interlinked National Priority Programs and Projects of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) in Afghanistan. Also this information does not TALK ABOUT ETHNICITY, BUT TALKS ABOUT LANGUAGE. HOW CAN YOU BE AN EDITOR IF YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND ONE SIMPLE LANGUAGE AND INFORMATION? You people will do anything to come up with excuses to hide the Fact.--99.224.173.167 (talk) 06:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * This is not a forum but for the sake of educating you about Afghanistan's current Pashtun dominated government, I will go through some of the ministries that are run by Pashtuns:

 * President: Hamid Karzai (Pashtun and former Taliban)
 * Minister of Foreign Affairs: Rangin Spanta (Persianized Pashtun and former communist)
 * Minister of Defense: Rahimd Wardak (Pashtun and former supporter of Taliban and Afghan Mellati)
 * Minister of Culture: Abdul Karim Khoram (Pashtun and former henchmen of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar)
 * Senior Minister in the Cabinet: H.E. Hedayat Amin Arsala (Pashtun)
 * Ministry of Finance: Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi (Pashtun and leader of the Afghan Mellat party)
 * Ministry of Education: H.E. DR. Mohamad Hanif Atmar (Pashtun and former Taliban)
 * Ministry of Public Health: Mohammad Amin Fatimie (Pashtun)
 * Ministry of Borders & Tribal Affairs: Karim Barahowie (Pashtun)
 * Ministry of Urban Development: Yousef Pashtun (Pashtun, obviously)
 * Ministry of Refugees: H.E. Mohammad Akbar (Pashtun and former Taliban)

As you can see all the important ministries have been appointed to Pashtuns by Karzai regardless of whether they were former Taliban or communists. Farsiwan22 (talk) 06:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

This is where you make a fool out of yourself and prove nothing. First of all Dadfar Spanta is a Tajik, but just like you and your fellow Anti Afghans have done in the past rob people from their identities.

The question is who controls the army? Who has the militias in Kabul and surrounding areas? The last time I checked there were no Pashtun armies in Kabul or surrounding areas. Rahim Wardak maybe the army chief or Karzai the Leader, but he holds no such power. If he did the criminals would not exist in Afghanistan and neither would they be in the parliament. Parliament speaker---Qanoni Tajik Largest Militia groupsTajiks, Uzbeks Fahim,Ismeal, Dostum Atta Communists are sitting down with the Northern Alliance as well. Try to speak with logic, education and don't bring up childish issues up to back your fake numbers with bunch of nonesense.

Once again LEARN TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND ETHNICITY. Also I know this is no forum this is why I am asking you to stop writing bunch of anti Afghan information and posting on the website for personal reasons. Remember what goes around comes around. Wikipedia is being contacted daily and soon further action will be taken against you and rest of the anti Afghans. Don't even think for a second Afghans are quite and will let people like you rob them of their history and change facts into lies and lies into facts.--99.224.173.167 (talk) 07:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Actually the largest militia in the country is the Taliban (who are Pashtuns) and they control almost half the country (the south and east) and are financed by illegal opium and terrorist groups. If it wasn't for the Tajik soldiers the Taliban would have taken all of Afghanistan by now with Karzai, Rahim Wardak, and all these other Pashtun ministers welcoming them with open arms as they did in the 1990s. Farsiwan22 (talk) 07:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You who claims this is no open forum yet insult people such a hypocrite and baby. But to answer back to your childish comments.Northern Alliance is the reason Taliban came to power and reason the country is destroyed more today. Their power hunger and terrorist and criminal acts are the reason we are in ths situation today. If it weren't for Pashtuns today Northern Alliance would have destroyed the country completely. One of the signs by inviting Americans and Nato to Afghanistan with open arms and bringing western culture with them.

Now ONCE AGAIN DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND ETHNICITY?--99.224.173.167 (talk) 07:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC) Another reminder:

--Farsiwan22 (talk) 07:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC) -- Who is running —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.97.2.35 (talk) 10:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Encyclopaedia Britannica obviously contradicts itself. This is not the first time this happens. But it does not matter anyway. The PDF-numbers of the article should be included, but they are just ONE among MANY numbers. The CIA factbook is a standard reference used in many Wikipedia articles. And the Encyclopaedia Iranica, though using old numbers, is a highly valued scholastic source that should not be ignored. Since there was no consensus in the past 30 years, all numbers are guesses. And as such, all of them should be included. That means: Pashtuns are somewhat between 39-49% and Tajiks between 18-36%. We have good sources for all of these numbers. However, NisarKand's version is manipulation of sources and numbers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.157.30 (talk) 16:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Britannica chose to keep out the 2006 World Fact Sheet numbers out of the 2008 version. They must have done this for a good reason and Wikipedia should follow the latest version of Britannica. Farsiwan22 (talk) 19:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * We don't have to follow any particular source. If we can find a 2007 or 2008 source that is reliable, then we should use it. Kingturtle (talk) 19:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

 * No, but in this case they are both from Britannica, using the 2006 and the newer 2008 would be contradicting. Farsiwan22 (talk) 19:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The so-called 2008 article is from 2002-3, since the article in the main encyclopedia has not been updated since then. --Bejnar (talk) 00:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * @ Bejnar: the Britannica numbers from the PDF sheet are from 2000 and are, like all other numbers, only guesses. Throughout Wikipedia, the CIA factbook is used as a standard work. We should stick to that. All other numbers should be mentioned additionally. Among these, the Encyclopaedia Iranica is the most reliable. Though the numbers are old, they are still based on pre-1979 census numbers found in various sources. Britannica and all the rest (even the CIA factbook) only present guesses. 82.82.143.168 (talk) 03:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

 * For the record User:Farsiwan22 has been indef blocked as confirmed sockpuppet of the banned editor User:Beh-nam, who is known as an extreme anti-Afghan (or anti-Pashtun) and lives in Toronto, Canada. Another reason why he extremely hates Pashtuns is the fact that they are all Sunni while Beh-nam is Shia.

Afghanistan - ETHNIC MAP
Most of the districts are coloured and should be fixed. Here are the districts which need to be corrected.
 * Information has been taken from the AIMS.ORG.AF website while most of the numbers or districts have been coloured in correctly.
 * That aside many of those districts which are not included in AIMS.ORG.AF should not be coloured as Tajik Districts.
 * It could be a Pashtun or Hazara district and yet coloured wrongfully.
 * Also the MIXED DISTRICTS SHOULD BE COLOURED SEPARATELY.

Farah Province

 * Lash O Jawain---Mixed District

Ghazni Provinces

 * Zana Khan100%Pashtun

Kabul Province

 * Char Asyab---Pashtun, Tajik and few Hazara.
 * Deh Sabz---70% Pashtun, 30% Tajik
 * Guldara---around 50 % Pashtoon and 50 % Tajik
 * Istalif---mix of Tajik, Pashtoon and Hazara

Parwan Province

Charikar---mex of Tajiks and Pashtuns —Preceding Siagerd(Ghorband)---Mix of Tajik Pashtun and Hazara Shinwari---Tajik and Pashtoon

Faryab

 * Dawlatabad---COMPOSITION: Pashtun 40% Hazara Tajik 10% Uzbek 30% Turkman 20% other:

Takhar

--99.224.173.167 (talk) 07:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Rustak---Tajik 50% Uzbek 50%
 * Taliqan---40% Tajik, 40% Uzbek,

Content before table of contents
I think the three paragraphs as they currently stand is too much information, and bordering on not conforming to NPOV due to the information that has been chosen to be present. Anyone else agree that the introduction needs to be shortened? --Rebroad (talk) 17:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I don't think it would hurt to shorten it. I've copied and pasted, and removed what I think should be removed, thusly:

Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی افغانستان, Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامى جمهوريت ), is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia. It is variously designated as geographically located within Central Asia,[3][4] South Asia,[5][6] and the Middle East.[7][8][9] It has religious, ethno-linguistic, and geographic links with most of its neighboring states. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east,[10] Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.

Afghanistan is a culturally diverse nation, lying [sic] on the crossroads between the East and the West. Historically, it has both seen various invaders and conquerors, and been the centre of emprires. In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in "The Great Game" played between the British Indian Empire and Russian Empire. On 19 August, 1919, following the third Anglo-Afghan war, the country gained full independence from the United Kingdom over its foreign affairs. Since the late 1970s Afghanistan has suffered continuous civil war, which included foreign interventions in the form of the 1979 Soviet invasion and the 2001 US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government.

Carl.bunderson (talk) 08:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

 * The modern nation "Afghanistan", which this entire article is based on, was founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747. That must be mentioned in the intro. I think the way the intro was for last 1 year is perfect. It mentions all the major things instead of the unimportant ones. I don't like User:Carl.bunderson's version of the intro. Afghanistan has a very long history compare to many other nations so its expected to see a longer intro than others. What needs to be removed is the sentence "During the Cold War Afghanistan bordered the Soviet Union" in the first paragraph, that is unimportant...the sentence "Ariana was the original name of Afghanistan back in the 1700s" at the begining of the second paragraph must also be removed because that is absolutely false.--203.175.65.23 (talk) 19:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Anthem
The Afghan anthem on You-tube [].

Afghanistan's national anthem is the one which is being played inside Afghanistan. This was never an anthem but a revoltionary song and a great one, but the one that was used in the past was Awalmings Zeba Watan. Keep your anti-Afghanistan vies at home this is not a forum nor any Tajikistan forum.Shikab--Shikab (talk) 12:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Corruption?
How is it possible that everywhere else on the Internet there seems to be agreement that corruption is the single biggest problem in Afghanistan, while the Wikipedia article on Afghanistan does not have one single occurence of the word "corruption"?

A Google search for "afghanistan corruption" gives over 500,000 hits. Here are a couple of the top ones:
 * http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/five-years-after-victory-violence-and-corruption-dog-afghanistan-425018.html
 * http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/anti_corruption_roadmap.pdf
 * http://iwpr.net/?p=arr&s=f&o=153983&apc_state=heniarr2004
 * http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/16/8390257/index.htm

And no, I do not wish to do anything about adding this information to the article myself - I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough. I'm just suggesting that the editors who are responsible for this article should do something to correct this lack of objectivity.

(And to those who simple-mindedly retort that the Taliban is Afghanistan's biggest problem, why do you think the Taliban has support and the government does not have much support? Corruption.) --RenniePet (talk) 11:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Corruption exists in every country of the world, especially in poor countries. You must understand that the nation's government had to start from scratch in late 2001, so it would've been very unsual to not see corruption. There is no nation on earth in which there is no corruption.--203.175.65.23 (talk) 19:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Jeez, "There is no nation on earth in which there is no corruption.", so then it's OK?

 * Please take a look at this: http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2007

 * That report, for what it's worth, puts Afghanistan at ranking 172, together with Chad and Sudan. There are only 6 countries (out of 179) considered more corrupt than Afghanistan.

 * The Wikipedia article for Chad contains the word "corruption" four times, including these sentences: "Corruption is rife at all levels; Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2005 named Chad the most corrupt country in the world, and it has fared only slightly better in the following years. In 2007, it scored 1.8 out of 10 on the Corruption Perceptions Index (with 10 being the least corrupt). Only Tonga, Uzbekistan, Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar, and Somalia scored lower. Critics of President Déby have accused him of cronyism and tribalism."

 * I guess what I was expecting was something similar in the Afghanistan article. Or at least some indication that corruption is a huge problem for the country. One thing for sure, pretending the problem doesn't exist, or isn't important, or is everywhere, is not going to improve things for Afghanistan. --RenniePet (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

 * So add the content ref'ed from transparency.org, Rennie. Carl.bunderson (talk) 21:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

 * You westerners may call it corruption but in Afghanistan or in many other Asian countries here it is called clean business. In the west I was constantly pulled over by police and forced to pay for speeding 10 miles above the limit, forgetting to wear seat belt or coming to a full stop at an intersection where "Stop" sign was placed. The westerners say that is serving and protecting the public. In Afghanistan is you violate the above vehicle rules a police officer takes money from you on the spot because there is no computerized ticket system there and you westerners say that is police corruption. This is how in many countries government collects their money. Another one, I made my 1 year Afghan passport in 2002 for $104, today the same 1 year passport costs about $20 only and a 5 year passport costs $104. This means corruption is declining and the government is beginning to use more computers so that everything can be verified. The country still needs some time to fix the problem. I agree there may be written the word corruption at the appropiate place but some people get carried away with this. They don't know what is happening in the country. I say corruption is the least problem for the country. It needs more electricity, water and gas pipelines lines to all homes, factories, foreign investment, etc.--203.175.65.97 (talk) 03:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Yes, thank you for your very insightful original research, anon. Carl.bunderson (talk) 05:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

This will (hopefully) be my last posting here. Just want to make a couple of final points.

203.175.65.23 said, "Corruption exists in every country of the world, especially in poor countries.", and I'm assuming he's implying that poverty is a justification for corruption. Without being an expert on the subject, I'm guessing it's the other way around: corruption causes poverty. How about Zimbabwe, a once-prosperous country (by Africian standards) that has been devastated by incompetence and corruption?

I'll just explain why I'm here. My son is in the Danish army, and is currently serving in Kosovo with KFOR. Danish soldiers, along with soldiers from several other NATO countries, are currently fighting and dying in Afghanistan. Karzai and Bush want more soldiers to go to Afghanistan. But I'm seeing and reading all these reports about how the situation is deteriorating in Afghanistan, and one could get the (mistaken?) impression that fighting for Afghanistan is just fighting to keep a corrupt administration in power, to support an economy that is largely based on the production of heroin, and to make it possible for religious perverts to keep women subjugated and to execute anyone who disagrees with their doctrine.

So being a Wikipedian, I look at the article about Afghanistan to get some insights as to what is really happening. But the current article is not of much help. Why is the Taliban resurgent? Is it true (as claimed on Danish radio) tht Karzai's government is one of the most corrupt on Earth? How is it possible for a guy to get a death sentence for downloading stuff from the Internet, at the same time as the country is asking for more Western soldiers to come and fight for them? (As opposed to doing their own fighting, or asking for neighboring countries to help.)

Here are a couple more recent links:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7222194.stm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23026078/

I hope it all works out for Afghanistan. --RenniePet (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I really don't get why you don't feel qualified to edit the article. All of us have no qualifications. You're command of English is fine, which is the only thing which I consider to make one unqualified to edit. You can write prose and reference it just as welll as can I, so I see no reason why you can't do it yourself, Rennie. Please, be bold and edit. Carl.bunderson (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Dari NOT Persian
We afghans have to use the word Dari and not say in terms of historical facts that it is Dari Persian because this is culturely incorrect because this is like pushing iranian culture instead of afghan culture I want to remove all Persian Words from Afghanistan wikipedia and should no longer be used with Dari. Afghans are by no means persian by ethnicity, language or culture. Its the iranians that have copied afghan culture. Iranians should be neutral and stay out of afghanistan history and all related issues.Pashtun786 (talk) 01:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Please refrain from nationalistic POV and note that the proper wikilink to the language is Dari (Persian) and not Dari. Carl.bunderson (talk) 06:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Culture: Pashun poets... not from Afghanistan or not poets really
Here, user: Shikab (now confirmed a sockpuppet of the racist, ethno-supremacist and banned user: Khampalak) made a very (Pasthun nationalist) POV edit and wrote some false facts. For instance, Khushal Khan Khattak is not from Afghanistan. He was born in Peshawar, Pakistan (please read his biography). Likewise with Rahman Baba, Ghani Khan, and Ameer Hamza Shinwari (none are from Afghanistan). And the last two; Ahmad Shah Durrani was not a poet but a 18th century warlord and Amir Karor never existed in real life (he was a fictional character which is why there is no article for him).

So I'm wondering why this edit wasn't noticed or reverted? Especially by the user: Bejnar and user: Kingturtle and user: Carl.bunderson keep a close eye on this article. Why haven't they bothered to read the biographies of these individuals and find that they are not from Afghanistan, were not poets, or did not even exist? I don't know, maybe they support Pashtun/Afghan nationalist (Pashtunization) POVs and fabrications?

The important thing is I've now pointed it out and someone can now fix that wrong edit. Thanks. DurraniPashtun (talk) 06:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I have deleted the lists which are more appropriate in the Persian poetry and Pashto literature and poetry articles. Long exposition is more appropriate in those specific articles and in the Culture of Afghanistan article.  One summary paragraph seems quite sufficient here. --Bejnar (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Thank you for taking care of that, Bejnar. Carl.bunderson (talk) 19:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I reverted this delete. Please first move the deleted material to appropriate articles and then wikilink those articles into the main article and then delete.

Doing it any other way is inconsiderate.

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The information was already contained in the Persian poetry and Pashto literature and poetry articles, and in the case of Dari in the Dari article. --Bejnar (talk) 20:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

 * The info was not needed here, it seems, and it can be retrieved and put into other articles from the page history. Our first concern should be improving the article on which we are working. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Other editors took the trouble to put the info in. If you delete then you should show them the respect to put it where you think it belongs (not the bit bucket.)

I'm going to revert again and you can throw it into RfA if you want.

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 20:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Please don't revert again, demonstrate why it should be in the article here on the talk page first. When editors include info on here, they need to know that their edits are subject to ruthless editing and reversion. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Again Bejnar and Carl.bunderson show there support of Pashtun/Afghan nationalism. When exposed that they allowed wrong information there and allowed Pashtun poets that aren't even from Afghanistan there, they then decided to remove the Persian poets as well (who are actually from modern Afghanistan). For several years no one objected to these poets since Persian poetry is a very important element of the culture in about 3/4 of Afghanistan, now these two Afghan nationalist supporters claim there is no good reason for them to be there just because there are no Pashto poets from Afghanistan. DurraniPashtun (talk) 21:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I should note that I have been threatened with disbarment for sticking my nose into this. I tend to agree with DurraniPashtun.  There are 2 or 3 sides to this
 * The User:Carl.bunderson/User talk:Bejnar side
 * The User:Shikab side, a user who is really on the Wikipedia black sheep list on this topic
 * The DurraniPashtun side
 * I will file an RfA, because I think there is a lot of bullying going on here. An RfA is the "bold" thing to do in this case. Erxnmedia (talk) 22:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Erxnmedia, I think RfA is the right course of action here. Kingturtle (talk) 03:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Durrani, I didn't do the edits you requested because I don't know enough about Afghan poetry to do what you wanted. I thought Bejnar had done what you asked. I really think that if the people who know about the subject come to an agreement about what should be maintained, and what should be taken out, we don't need an RfA. That's an extreme step. I merely took offence at Erxnmedia's reversion of Bejnar, because it looked to me like Bejnar had done what Durrani asked. Let's all just take time to talk about the entire section, and please explain reasons behind why you think things should be maintained/deleted, for those of us who are mostly ignorant of Afghanistan and who can only recognize the most blatantly false of false content (ie me). Carl.bunderson (talk) 03:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Bejnar did not do what I asked. He did the total opposite. I asked for the Pashtun poets from Pakistan and persons who are not even poets or were fictional characters be removed. Bejnar instead removed ALL the Persian who poets who were all from modern Afghanistan and wrote an extremely POV paragraph instead! And you support him? For the moment the revision should be what User: Erxnmedia had. Bejnar will have to tell us why he did what he did. DurraniPashtun (talk) 03:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Bejnar also wrote his other POV that Dari (the name for Persian in Afghanistan) and Persian are two different languages. This is what he wrote: "Afghanistan has produced poets, writing Persian poetry, Pasto poetry and even Dari poetry."

 * That makes no sense and with that sentence he maintains his POV that Dari (Persian) and Persian are different poetry. He's an extreme Afghan nationalist and very anti-Persian. DurraniPashtun (talk) 03:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * You're the one who started this whole thing, why don't you just edit to how you want it to be, Durrani? Carl.bunderson (talk) 03:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Started what thing? user: Shikab added a bunch of poets who are not even from Afghanistan and I asked them to be removed since they are not from Afghanistan, so what did I start? I am not editing it because only old users can edit at the moment and because user: Erxnmedia already fixed it. DurraniPashtun (talk) 03:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I thought you started this because it seemed that Bejnar's contentious edit was in response to the request you had at the start of this thread. And sorry about that, I had forgotten that new users can't edit this article. And how did Erxn fix it? All he's done is maintain the status quo, which you were commenting on/complaining about in the first place. The status quo may be better than Bejnar's version, but it can't be what you want, since it is the version with which you were dis-satisfied to begin with. Carl.bunderson (talk) 03:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry about that. I thought Erxn fixed it. Basically all we needed to do was undo the following edit ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Afghanistan&diff=193492984&oldid=193490742 this edit needs to be undone and everything is fixed). DurraniPashtun (talk) 03:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Done. :) Carl.bunderson (talk) 03:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :)  By the way if anyone doubts the edit, just check the biographies of each of those Pashto poets, none of them were from Afghanistan and one of them was not a poet and the last one was a fictional character. DurraniPashtun (talk) 04:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * We seem to have consensus on above issues, so an RfA is not necessary. Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 04:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * All the list of the persian poets may have been from what is now called Afghanistan, but they were not Afghans. In fact, Afghanistan did not exist at that time. Afghanistan was created as a nation in 1747. Afghanistan refers to "land of the Afghans" (land of Pashtuns), which includes major portion of what is now Pakistan because during the time of those Pashtun poets, the place of their birth was recognized as Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan recognize those Pashtun poets as Afghans. I am reverting the article to Begnar's version because that makes sense, there is no reason for all those Persian poets to be inside Afghanistan article when Afghanistan did not even exist at the time of their life. Pakistan was created as a nation in 1947, after the death of all those Pashtun poets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GingizKhan (talk • contribs) 08:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Population distribution picture
Hi,

Per request from DurraniPashtun, I have added another population distribution picture. He has issues with the current picture, so I put both pictures in and identified the data sources and time of creation of both pictures. Having both pictures is easier because both are sincere efforts and there was a bit of a delete war as to which picture was preferable.

DurraniPashtun, please supply commentary in the Afghanistan section giving references to support why the picture I have added is more authoritative than the 1997 U. of Texas picture.

Also note that the sources for the picture you asked me to include are diverse and unclear, for example, the image sources it to "AIMS". Under AIMS there is a red link to Arab International Media Services but the only such thing I could find is here. Perhaps you could add an article for Arab International Media Services and comment on the sources of data and methods of collection and who collected and when it was collected for the picture that you prefer. The caption gives numbers from CIA 2007 and Encyclopedia Iranica 2007, but the picture itself when you go to the image description does not reference CIA, so it is not clear that the areas outlined in the picture are proportional numerically to the aggregate numbers culled from CIA and Encyclopedia Iranica.
 * AIMS, with regard to Afghanistan, is usually "Afghanistan Information Management Services", a UN based a joint venture between UNOCHA and UNDP, which acts as an information clearinghouse and coordinator for assistance organizations (NGOs) working in Afghanistan. See Afghanistan Information Management Services website.--Bejnar (talk) 16:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * OK I've added this AIMS as Afghanistan Information Management Services. Erxnmedia (talk) 17:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Also I am not a master of image graphic placement in Wikipedia so I may have messed up the aesthetics of the following section on Languages which was otherwise wedging itself between the two pictures which I placed side-by-side below the text for comparison purposes. Anybody who'd like to clean up the framing please do so. I would like the two ethnographic pictures to be same size and somewhat readable for comparison, so a little bigger than thumbnails.

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 04:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * DurraniPashtun is another sockpuppet of the controversial banned editor User:Beh-nam and you are helping him with his controversial edits. The falsified colorful ethnic map was made by him, who is a racist person towards Pashtuns. He is a Tajik but giving himself names as Pashtun. As a result of all these findings I am reverting all your edits because you are clearly here to support a sockpuppet and that is against the rules of Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GingizKhan (talk • contribs) 08:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow!! Everybody thinks everybody else is a sockpuppet on this page! The unsigned comment above is by User:GingizKhan who somebody else has branded with the scarlet letter of sockpuppetry!

How about if we identify each picture by source of data, time of collection, etc. as I specified above??? Sockpuppets of any persuasion can do that.

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 13:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

fictional picture of Ahmad Shah Durrani coronation
That image was fictional and not historical so it was removed from the history section. According to Encyclopedia of Islam's article on Ahmad Shah Durrani, he was declared Shah on the trip from Mashhad to Kandahar. There never was a corronation at Kandahar.

proposed change to Languages section
The languages section currently begins,

"The CIA World Factbook on languages spoken in Afghanistan is shown in the right image box. Persian (Dari dialects) 50% and Pashto 35%; both are"

As is, the sentence makes it sounds like "The CIA World Factbook on languages spoken in Afghanistan" is the subject of the sentence and that it is shown on the right! The entry should be clear that the map is not from the CIAWF but the data below it is.

I would like the editors to correct the grammar and clarify this statement. I suggest:

"The most common languages spoken in Afghanistan are Persian (Dari dialects) and Pashto. Both are Indo-European languages from the Iranian languages sub-family. Statistics from the CIA World Factbook are listed in the chart in the sidebar, below the map of languages by region." 76.105.244.126 (talk) 06:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)anon. and curious

 * Done. Thanks for the suggestion. Carl.bunderson (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Aryans in Afghanistan
People assume that Aryans went to Afghanistan which is a lie. According to the ancient Indian books the Afghans were called Pakhta and the tribes living in the Afghanistan are were called Mleccha, which means a non-Aryan people. Note that the use of the word Aryan in India is the oldest. Afghans aren't Aryans but most do speak Indo-European languages which is not necessary similar to Aryan language. Please remove this from the History of Afghanistan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.10.173.29 (talk) 21:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Bejnar pushing for his Afghan-nationalist POVs again
Bejnar claims that Dari is not Persian but "Eastern Farsi". Can someone let Bejnar know that "Farsi" is the local name of Persian? It is Persian in English and this is an English Wikipedia so for language it should be Persian or Persian (Dari) like how it was before.

Bejnar should also read the actual "Dari article", see Dari (Persian).

 * In addition, this has already been thoroughly discussed on the Dari (Persian) article and Bejnar's POVs were disproved there and there was consensus there. He lost his push for his POVs there and now he is here pushing the same POV. See the talk page of that article.
 * There was no consensus. No real linguists showed up. I am not pushing a POV, I am trying to keep this article unaffected by the arguments both ways. The language is officially Dari, so that is what the infobox should say. Arguing either for its total identification with the language spoken in Teheran or against that identification should be kept out of the infobox.  --Bejnar (talk) 04:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

 * You are totally lost and don't have a clue what you're talking about. user: alidoostzadeh is an expert on Persian language while you are totally lost and rely on a Ethnologue to have the little information you have. There was consensus by definition on that talk page. Anyone can read it and see you are lying as usual and manipulated things to push for your POVs as usual. Dari is another name for Persian. Like how German is another name for Deutch. There was a very long discussion on this on that article and you didn't even take part in it because you did not have anything to counter with other than your source Ethnologue which is not scholarly and claims Persian in Afghanistan is "Eastern Farsi". Ok, let's say it is Eastern Farsi. Farsi in English is Persian. So then by your own argument you should have Eastern Persian in the infobox. Though that wouldn't make sense since we don't say Eastern-Western English. It's all one English. By the way, insisting on using Dari over Persian is a POV according to the Encyclopedia Iranica.The Encyclopaedia Iranica writes: Darī (q.v.) is a term long recommended by Afghan authorities to designate Afghan Persian in contrast to Iranian Persian; a written language common to all educated Afghanis, Darī must not be confused with Kābolī, the dialect of Kabul and surrounding areas that is more or less understood by eighty percent of the non-Persian speaking population and is fast becoming the nation's koine. [...] The revival of the ancient term Darī was intended to signify that Afghans consider their country the cradle of the language . Hence, the name Fārsī, the language of Fārs, is strictly avoided . ("Modern literature of Afghanistan" by R. Farhādī, Encyclopaedia Iranica, xii, Online Edition, link)

 * Clearly it is your POV or at least you are supporting the Afghan nationalist POV. If you don't want to take sides as you claim, then the correct thing to do would be to have it the way it was before as Persian (Dari), or Persian (officially designated as Dari). Because Dari is not a language it is not recognized as a language own.

Carl.bunderson edit

 * My recent edit should have read tag deletion, not ref; it finished before I realized my edit summary was wrong. Carl.bunderson (talk) 04:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This article needs to be improved
This article needs a lot of improvement, needs to be updated and expanded. Please make it better.

State of Afghanistan emerged in 1880
According to Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady (a Pashtun himself and the head of Afghan Mellat) the state of Afghanistan emerged in 1880 under Abdur Rahman Khan, not during the Ahmad Shah Durrani era as this article claims. See Ahady's article:

The Decline of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan, Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady, Asian Survey, Vol. 35, No. 7. (Jul., 1995), pp. 621-634.

Amir Barahoie is the greatest football player ever
The guy is just 18 years old. And he’s one of the best football player ever, he’s trying his best to make it pro. He has made it in 19 years old. 2A02:810D:95C0:194:146C:BCD:1ADA:2C0C (talk) 20:51, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Afghanistan/Archive 6


text:
Altaic languages

Altaic is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority. Speakers of the constituent languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35° N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from the Balkan Peninsula to Japan. The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.

The Altaic family was first proposed in the 18th century. It was widely accepted until the 1960s and is still listed in many encyclopedias and handbooks, and references to Altaic as a language family continue to percolate to modern sources through these older sources. Since the 1950s, most comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to have been converging rather than diverging over the centuries. The relationship between the Altaic languages is now generally accepted to be the result of a sprachbund rather than common ancestry, with the languages showing influence from prolonged contact.

The continued use of the term "Altaic" to refer to the various iterations of an Altaic theory, for the "Altaic sprachbund", and infrequently as a general term for the region has resulted in confusion around the status of the Altaic hypothesis. As a result, many Altaicists have adopted instead the name "Transeurasian" in relation to modifications of the family proposal, in order to avoid such confusion. This confusion is compounded further by literature that still - contrary to the current scholarly consensus - refers to Altaic as an accepted hypothesis.

Altaic has maintained a limited degree of scholarly support, in contrast to some other early macrofamily proposals. Continued research on Altaic is still being undertaken by a core group of academic linguists, but their research has not found wider support. In particular it has support from the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and remains influential as a substratum of Turanism, where a hypothetical common linguistic ancestor has been used in part as a basis for a multiethnic nationalist movement.

Earliest attestations
The earliest attested expressions in Proto-Turkic are recorded in various Chinese sources. Anna Dybo identifies in Shizi (330 BCE) and the Book of Han (111 CE) several dozen Proto-Turkic exotisms in Chinese Han transcriptions. Lanhai Wei and Hui Li reconstruct the name of the Xiōngnú ruling house as PT *Alayundluğ /alajuntˈluγ/ 'piebald horse clan.'

The earliest known texts in a Turkic language are the Orkhon inscriptions, 720–735 AD. They were deciphered in 1893 by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in a scholarly race with his rival, the German–Russian linguist Wilhelm Radloff. However, Radloff was the first to publish the inscriptions.

The first Tungusic language to be attested is Jurchen, the language of the ancestors of the Manchus. A writing system for it was devised in 1119 AD and an inscription using this system is known from 1185 (see List of Jurchen inscriptions).

The earliest Mongolic language of which we have written evidence is known as Middle Mongol. It is first attested by an inscription dated to 1224 or 1225 AD, the Stele of Yisüngge, and by the Secret History of the Mongols, written in 1228 (see Mongolic languages). The earliest Para-Mongolic text is the Memorial for Yelü Yanning, written in the Khitan large script and dated to 986 AD. However, the Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi, discovered in 1975 and analysed as being in an early form of Mongolic, has been dated to 604–620 AD. The Bugut inscription dates back to 584 AD.

Japanese is first attested in the form of names contained in a few short inscriptions in Classical Chinese from the 5th century AD, such as found on the Inariyama Sword. The first substantial text in Japanese, however, is the Kojiki, which dates from 712 AD. It is followed by the Nihon shoki, completed in 720, and then by the Man'yōshū, which dates from c. 771–785, but includes material that is from about 400 years earlier.

The most important text for the study of early Korean is the Hyangga, a collection of 25 poems, of which some go back to the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC–668 AD), but are preserved in an orthography that only goes back to the 9th century AD. Korean is copiously attested from the mid-15th century on in the phonetically precise Hangul system of writing.

Origins
The earliest known reference to a unified language group of Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages is from the 1692 work of Nicolaes Witsen which may be based on a 1661 work of Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur, Genealogy of the Turkmens.

A proposed grouping of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages was published in 1730 by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, a Swedish officer who traveled in the eastern Russian Empire while a prisoner of war after the Great Northern War. However, he may not have intended to imply a closer relationship among those languages. Later proposals to include the Korean and Japanese languages into a "Macro-Altaic" family have always been controversial. The original proposal was sometimes called "Micro-Altaic" by retronymy. Most proponents of Altaic continue to support the inclusion of Korean, but fewer do for Japanese. Some proposals also included Ainuic but this is not widely accepted even among Altaicists themselves. A common ancestral Proto-Altaic language for the "Macro" family has been tentatively reconstructed by Sergei Starostin and others.

Micro-Altaic includes about 66 living languages, to which Macro-Altaic would add Korean, Jeju, Japanese, and the Ryukyuan languages, for a total of about 74 (depending on what is considered a language and what is considered a dialect). These numbers do not include earlier states of languages, such as Middle Mongol, Old Korean, or Old Japanese.

Uralo-Altaic hypothesis
In 1844, the Finnish philologist Matthias Castrén proposed a broader grouping which later came to be called the Ural–Altaic family, which included Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus (=Tungusic) as an "Altaic" branch, and also the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages as the "Uralic" branch (though Castrén himself used the terms "Tataric" and "Chudic"). The name "Altaic" referred to the Altai Mountains in East-Central Asia, which are approximately the center of the geographic range of the three main families. The name "Uralic" referred to the Ural Mountains.

While the Ural-Altaic family hypothesis can still be found in some encyclopedias, atlases, and similar general references, since the 1960s it has been heavily criticized. Even linguists who accept the basic Altaic family, such as Sergei Starostin, completely discard the inclusion of the "Uralic" branch.

The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone. Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example, Juha Janhunen states that "speaking of 'Altaic' instead of 'Ural-Altaic' is a misconception, for there are no areal or typological features that are specific to 'Altaic' without Uralic."

Korean and Japanese languages
In 1857, the Austrian scholar Anton Boller suggested adding Japanese to the Ural–Altaic family.

In the 1920s, G.J. Ramstedt and E.D. Polivanov advocated the inclusion of Korean. Decades later, in his 1952 book, Ramstedt rejected the Ural–Altaic hypothesis but again included Korean in Altaic, an inclusion followed by most leading Altaicists (supporters of the theory) to date. His book contained the first comprehensive attempt to identify regular correspondences among the sound systems within the Altaic language families.

In 1960, Nicholas Poppe published what was in effect a heavily revised version of Ramstedt's volume on phonology that has since set the standard in Altaic studies. Poppe considered the issue of the relationship of Korean to Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic not settled. In his view, there were three possibilities: (1) Korean did not belong with the other three genealogically, but had been influenced by an Altaic substratum; (2) Korean was related to the other three at the same level they were related to each other; (3) Korean had split off from the other three before they underwent a series of characteristic changes.

Roy Andrew Miller's 1971 book Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages convinced most Altaicists that Japanese also belonged to Altaic. Since then, the "Macro-Altaic" has been generally assumed to include Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese.

In 1990, Unger advocated a family consisting of Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic languages, but not Turkic or Mongolic.

However, many linguists dispute the alleged affinities of Korean and Japanese to the other three groups. Some authors instead tried to connect Japanese to the Austronesian languages.

In 2017, Martine Robbeets proposed that Japanese (and possibly Korean) originated as a hybrid language. She proposed that the ancestral home of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages was somewhere in northwestern Manchuria. A group of those proto-Altaic ("Transeurasian") speakers would have migrated south into the modern Liaoning province, where they would have been mostly assimilated by an agricultural community with an Austronesian-like language. The fusion of the two languages would have resulted in proto-Japanese and proto-Korean.

In a typological study that does not directly evaluate the validity of the Altaic hypothesis, Yurayong and Szeto (2020) discuss for Koreanic and Japonic the stages of convergence to the Altaic typological model and subsequent divergence from that model, which resulted in the present typological similarity between Koreanic and Japonic. They state that both are "still so different from the Core Altaic languages that we can even speak of an independent Japanese-Korean type of grammar. Given also that there is neither a strong proof of common Proto-Altaic lexical items nor solid regular sound correspondences but, rather, only lexical and structural borrowings between languages of the Altaic typology, our results indirectly speak in favour of a “Paleo-Asiatic” origin of the Japonic and Koreanic languages."

The Ainu language
In 1962, John C. Street proposed an alternative classification, with Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic in one grouping and Korean-Japanese-Ainu in another, joined in what he designated as the "North Asiatic" family. The inclusion of Ainu was adopted also by James Patrie in 1982.

The Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic and Korean-Japanese-Ainu groupings were also posited in 2000–2002 by Joseph Greenberg. However, he treated them as independent members of a larger family, which he termed Eurasiatic.

The inclusion of Ainu is not widely accepted by Altaicists. In fact, no convincing genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated, and it is generally regarded as a language isolate.

Early criticism and rejection
Starting in the late 1950s, some linguists became increasingly critical of even the minimal Altaic family hypothesis, disputing the alleged evidence of genetic connection between Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages.

Among the earlier critics were Gerard Clauson (1956), Gerhard Doerfer (1963), and Alexander Shcherbak. They claimed that the words and features shared by Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages were for the most part borrowings and that the rest could be attributed to chance resemblances. In 1988, Doerfer again rejected all the genetic claims over these major groups.

Modern controversy
A major continuing supporter of the Altaic hypothesis has been Sergei Starostin, who published a comparative lexical analysis of the Altaic languages in 1991. He concluded that the analysis supported the Altaic grouping, although it was "older than most other language families in Eurasia, such as Indo-European or Finno-Ugric, and this is the reason why the modern Altaic languages preserve few common elements".

In 1991 and again in 1996, Roy Miller defended the Altaic hypothesis and claimed that the criticisms of Clauson and Doerfer apply exclusively to the lexical correspondences, whereas the most pressing evidence for the theory is the similarities in verbal morphology.

In 2003, Claus Schönig published a critical overview of the history of the Altaic hypothesis up to that time, siding with the earlier criticisms of Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak.

In 2003, Starostin, Anna Dybo and Oleg Mudrak published the Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, which expanded the 1991 lexical lists and added other phonological and grammatical arguments.

Starostin's book was criticized by Stefan Georg in 2004 and 2005, and by Alexander Vovin in 2005.

Other defenses of the theory, in response to the criticisms of Georg and Vovin, were published by Starostin in 2005, Blažek in 2006, Robbeets in 2007, and Dybo and G. Starostin in 2008.

In 2010, Lars Johanson echoed Miller's 1996 rebuttal to the critics, and called for a muting of the polemic.

List of supporters and critics of the Altaic hypothesis
The list below comprises linguists who have worked specifically on the Altaic problem since the publication of the first volume of Ramstedt's Einführung in 1952. The dates given are those of works concerning Altaic. For supporters of the theory, the version of Altaic they favor is given at the end of the entry, if other than the prevailing one of Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean–Japanese.

Major supporters

 * Pentti Aalto (1955). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.
 * Anna V. Dybo (S. Starostin et al. 2003, A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).
 * Frederik Kortlandt (2010).
 * Karl H. Menges (1975). Common ancestor of Korean, Japanese and traditional Altaic dated back to the 7th or 8th millennium BC (1975: 125).
 * Roy Andrew Miller (1971, 1980, 1986, 1996). Supported the inclusion of Korean and Japanese.
 * Oleg A. Mudrak (S. Starostin et al. 2003).
 * Nicholas Poppe (1965). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and perhaps Korean.
 * Alexis Manaster Ramer.
 * Martine Robbeets (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2015, 2021) (in the form of "Transeurasian").
 * G. J. Ramstedt (1952–1957). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.
 * George Starostin (A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).
 * Sergei Starostin (1991, S. Starostin et al. 2003).
 * John C. Street (1962). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped as "North Asiatic".
 * Talât Tekin (1994). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.

Major critics

 * Gerard Clauson (1956, 1959, 1962).
 * Gerhard Doerfer (1963, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1993).
 * Susumu Ōno (1970, 2000)
 * Juha Janhunen (1992, 1995) (tentative support of Mongolic-Tungusic).
 * Claus Schönig (2003).
 * Stefan Georg (2004, 2005).
 * Alexander Vovin (2005, 2010, 2017). Formerly an advocate of Altaic (1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001), later a critic.
 * Alexander Shcherbak.
 * Alexander B. M. Stiven (2008, 2010).

Advocates of alternative hypotheses

 * James Patrie (1982) and Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped in a common taxon (cf. John C. Street 1962).
 * J. Marshall Unger (1990). Tungusic–Korean–Japanese ("Macro-Tungusic"), with Turkic and Mongolic as separate language families.
 * Lars Johanson (2010). Agnostic, proponent of a "Transeurasian" verbal morphology not necessarily genealogically linked.

"Transeurasian" renaming
In Robbeets and Johanson (2010), there was a proposal to replace the name "Altaic" with the name "Transeurasian". While "Altaic" has sometimes included Japonic, Koreanic, and other languages or families, but only on the consideration of particular authors, "Transeurasian" was specifically intended to always include Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Japonic, and Koreanic. Robbeets and Johanson gave as their reasoning for the new term: 1) to avoid confusion between the different uses of Altaic as to which group of languages is included, 2) to reduce the counterproductive polarization between "Pro-Altaists" and "Anti-Altaists"; 3) to broaden the applicability of the term because the suffix -ic implies affinity while -an leaves room for an areal hypothesis; and 4) to eliminate the reference to the Altai mountains as a potential homeland.

In Robbeets and Savelyev, ed. (2020) there was a concerted effort to distinguish "Altaic" as a subgroup of "Transeurasian" consisting only of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic, while retaining "Transeurasian" as "Altaic" plus Japonic and Koreanic.

Phonological and grammatical features
The original arguments for grouping the "micro-Altaic" languages within a Uralo-Altaic family were based on such shared features as vowel harmony and agglutination.

According to Roy Miller, the most pressing evidence for the theory is the similarities in verbal morphology.

The Etymological Dictionary by Starostin and others (2003) proposes a set of sound change laws that would explain the evolution from Proto-Altaic to the descendant languages. For example, although most of today's Altaic languages have vowel harmony, Proto-Altaic as reconstructed by them lacked it; instead, various vowel assimilations between the first and second syllables of words occurred in Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic. They also included a number of grammatical correspondences between the languages.

Shared lexicon
Starostin claimed in 1991 that the members of the proposed Altaic group shared about 15–20% of apparent cognates within a 110-word Swadesh-Yakhontov list; in particular, Turkic–Mongolic 20%, Turkic–Tungusic 18%, Turkic–Korean 17%, Mongolic–Tungusic 22%, Mongolic–Korean 16%, and Tungusic–Korean 21%. The 2003 Etymological Dictionary includes a list of 2,800 proposed cognate sets, as well as a few important changes to the reconstruction of Proto-Altaic. The authors tried hard to distinguish loans between Turkic and Mongolic and between Mongolic and Tungusic from cognates; and suggest words that occur in Turkic and Tungusic but not in Mongolic. All other combinations between the five branches also occur in the book. It lists 144 items of shared basic vocabulary, including words for such items as 'eye', 'ear', 'neck', 'bone', 'blood', 'water', 'stone', 'sun', and 'two'.

Robbeets and Bouckaert (2018) use Bayesian phylolinguistic methods to argue for the coherence of the "narrow" Altaic languages (Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic) together with Japonic and Koreanic, which they refer to as the Transeurasian languages. Their results include the following phylogenetic tree:

Martine Robbeets et al. (2021) argues that early Transeurasian speakers were originally agriculturalists in Northeastern Asia, only becoming pastoralists later on.

The analysis conducted by Kassian et al. (2021) on a 110-item word list, specifically developed for each of the languages—Proto-Turkic, Proto-Mongolic, Proto-Tungusic, Middle Korean and Proto-Japonic— indicated support for the Altaic macrofamily. While acknowledging that considering prehistoric contacts as an alternative explanation for the results is plausible, they deem such a scenario less likely for Turkic and Japonic languages. This assessment is based on the substantial geographical distances involved, which can only be explained if a mutual relationship is assumed.

Weakness of lexical and typological data
According to G. Clauson (1956), G. Doerfer (1963), and A. Shcherbak (1963), many of the typological features of the supposed Altaic languages, particularly agglutinative strongly suffixing morphology and subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, often occur together in languages.

Those critics also argued that the words and features shared by Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages were for the most part borrowings and that the rest could be attributed to chance resemblances. They noted that there was little vocabulary shared by Turkic and Tungusic languages, though more shared with Mongolic languages. They reasoned that, if all three families had a common ancestor, we should expect losses to happen at random, and not only at the geographical margins of the family; and that the observed pattern is consistent with borrowing.

According to C. Schönig (2003), after accounting for areal effects, the shared lexicon that could have a common genetic origin was reduced to a small number of monosyllabic lexical roots, including the personal pronouns and a few other deictic and auxiliary items, whose sharing could be explained in other ways; not the kind of sharing expected in cases of genetic relationship.

The Sprachbund hypothesis
Instead of a common genetic origin, Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak proposed (in 1956–1966) that Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages form a Sprachbund: a set of languages with similarities due to convergence through intensive borrowing and long contact, rather than common origin.

Asya Pereltsvaig further observed in 2011 that, in general, genetically related languages and families tend to diverge over time: the earlier forms are more similar than modern forms. However, she claims that an analysis of the earliest written records of Mongolic and Turkic languages shows the opposite, suggesting that they do not share a common traceable ancestor, but rather have become more similar through language contact and areal effects.

Hypothesis about the original homeland
The prehistory of the peoples speaking the "Altaic" languages is largely unknown. Whereas for certain other language families, such as the speakers of Indo-European, Uralic, and Austronesian, it is possible to frame substantial hypotheses, in the case of the proposed Altaic family much remains to be done.

Some scholars have hypothesised a possible Uralic and Altaic homeland in the Central Asian steppes.

Chaubey and van Driem propose that the dispersal of ancient Altaic language communities is reflected by the early Holocene dissemination of haplogroup C2 (M217): "If the paternal lineage C2 (M217) is correlated with Altaic linguistic affinity, as appears to be the case for Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic, then Japanese is no Father Tongue, and neither is Korean. This Y-chromosomal haplogroup accounts for 11% of Korean paternal lineages, and the frequency of the lineage is even more reduced in Japan. Yet this molecular marker may still be a tracer for the introduction of Altaic language to the archipelago, where the paternal lineage has persisted, albeit in a frequency of just 6%."

Juha Janhunen hypothesized that the ancestral languages of Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese were spoken in a relatively small area comprising present-day North Korea, Southern Manchuria, and Southeastern Mongolia. However Janhunen is sceptical about an affiliation of Japanese to Altaic, while András Róna-Tas remarked that a relationship between Altaic and Japanese, if it ever existed, must be more remote than the relationship of any two of the Indo-European languages. Ramsey stated that "the genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese, if it in fact exists, is probably more complex and distant than we can imagine on the basis of our present state of knowledge".

Supporters of the Altaic hypothesis formerly set the date of the Proto-Altaic language at around 4000 BC, but today at around 5000 BC or 6000 BC. This would make Altaic a language family older than Indo-European (around 3000 to 4000 BC according to mainstream hypotheses) but considerably younger than Afroasiatic (c. 10,000 BC or 11,000 to 16,000 BC  according to different sources).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Altaic languages