text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Verdurian language

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep -- Francs2000 | Talk 12:53, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Verdurian language
AfDs for this article:
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

 * Delete. This article is about a conlang. I believe that it is not notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. – ishwar  (speak)  15:59, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

 * Wholehearted keep. Verdurian is one of the most develloped online conlang. It should also be pointed out that both Mark Rosenfelder and zompist.com  have survived VFD. Circeus 16:10, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * hi. i am not suggesting that the articles, Mark Rosenfelder or zompist.com, be deleted here. peace – ishwar  (speak)  19:45, 2005 July 23 (UTC)
 * A point raised here though is what distinguishes the article on the Verdurian language from those other two, other than it concerns a conlang? Personally, given that the language is the most widely-reported feature of the Zompist.com website,  this entry should take precedence over both Mark Rosenfelder and Zompist.com.  Slac  speak up!  23:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey Circeus, calling in your pals from the zompist.com bboard is less than cool. I'm sure they're great folks, but if they are hanging out there, they don't have an interest in Wikipedia and they do have an interest in promoting conlangs. I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is not your soapbox. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Excuse me? "Hanging Out" in one forum or another precludes an interest in Wikipedia? While I may only have been editing for a short time, I have certainly had a far longer acquaintance with and admiration for Wikipedia than the ZBB- whenever I want brief information on something I search Wikipedia first, not Google. And I would hardly refer to Circeus's stance as a "soapbox". Dewrad 00:10, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * So what's the word for using Wikipedia as the vehicle for the promotion of some concept, if not "soapbox" ?? Of course participating in one forum or another does not preclude participation in Wikipedia -- Circeus apparently participates in both -- the point is that you only need advertise elsewhere to get someone's attention when you know you won't find them here. For example, Warmaster, Curlyjimsam, and Dewrad. Wile E. Heresiarch 00:46, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * As we're all registered users, I think it's not fair to say that you "wouldn't find us here". And what's wrong with letting us know about a VfD going on? Were, say, Star Trek up for deletion, I'm sure word would get around Star Trek forums fairly quickly. Dewrad 00:53, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * So you've noticed that any special interest group can game the VFD system. This is a bug, not a feature. Wile E. Heresiarch 02:37, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Since you seem to be so interested in the personal background of the people who vote here, I just noticed a few things: that the person who submitted this VfD has been pretty active gathering no-voters himself; and that your own favourite passtime seems to be reverting and deleting other people's work much rather than contributing anything substantial yourself. I haven't found the faintest suggestion that you are knowledgeable about constructed languages at all! --IJzeren Jan
 * hi. perhaps the above is a little misleading. i notified two users. one user is a linguist whose name i had seen on the deletion pages often concerning conlangs - so i invited him to vote. he has not voted delete on all candidates. the other invitee was invited because i saw this user's name on the page history where this user had previously put a VfD but then recanted with the note "too much trouble". so invited the user to participate if he was interested now. i only invited her/him to vote for this one article. i am not trying to rally support for a certain outcome. i really leave that to all of you. thank you. – ishwar  (speak)  15:51, 2005 July 24 (UTC)
 * Correction - i have made many edits to Wikipedia thank you very much, mostly about my city and different Anime pages, but it still stands. i personally think this article should stay, and saying that 'i was dragged from the board' is a blatant lie. Warmaster

 * Most certainly keep This language is far more extensive than either of Tolkien's, and i cannot think of a better 'intro' to conlanging myself than this language due to the fact the author is still adding stuff to it! Warmaster 17:20, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * User has made less than 50 edits. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - see no harm. Why does somebody hate conslags (learned this term 5 mins ago) so much? Renata3 16:33, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * hi. i dont hate conlangs (or conslags - what is this?). i have no opinion except that i wish that more conlangers would be interested in learning more about endangered minority languages and make word lists of those (it would probably be beneficial). but, creating an artificial language is probably a nice, fun pastime for many people. i encourage people to enjoy life. peace – ishwar  (speak)  19:55, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

 * One would think someone who had "no opinion" about conlangs would be indifferent as to whether or not they were there, not actively propose to delete them.

 * Ishwar: what does that have to do with anything? It's not as if conlanging is destroying minority languages! And for the record, I know many conlangers who are learning several different languages, not all of which are the major European ones. Most conlangers aren't mindless hobbyists, but educated people enjoying language and experimenting with it-- just like many poets and writers do. In any case, I think any activity that increases interest in language and languages is well worth it, and since conlanging is of growing interest to many, I believe that they should be included in the Wikipedia. Also, I happen to agree with the person above me-- if you are indifferent, why are you actively fighting for the deletion of so many conlangs? Irisheye 17:57, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

 * hi. it doesnt have anything to do anything. i was responding to user Renate3's speculation about my feelings involving conlangs. i see no need for speculation when i can just write it here. i didnt say that conlanging was destroying minority languages. their loss is part of a very large & complex interaction between political dominant cultures and smaller local cultures. i did not mean to suggest that conlangers are learning or not learning any language of particular geographic region, or mindless and/or uneducated, or dissimilar from poets or writers. (i also dont think that uneducated people are mindless either.) and i dont think that hobbies are mindless. information about conlanging and specific conlangs is included in Wikipedia. the reason why i acted as i did is stated at the top of this page, namely the inclusion of inappropriate material in this encyclopedia. although i am indifferent to the creation of conlangs or their creators, i am not indifferent to the editorial decisions of Wikipedia authors. additionally, i disagree with your fight metaphor: i am not looking for a fight but rather an election which is what i understand this to be. i hope this addresses your concerns. peace – ishwar  (speak)  18:29, 2005 August 1 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, Ishwar, but for someone who issues a whole series of VfDs in a row, I find your argumentation pretty weak! You were just "responding to someone's speculation about your feelings involving conlangs"? Now come on! If I ask you about your feelings regarding Star Wars, are you going to do the same in that field too? The only legitimate reason for issuing a VfD (not just voting in it, but starting it, mind) is that you strongly feel an article múst be deleted, and you must have some pretty good reasons for that. As I can see in this case, you were just shooting at random. You mention something about editorial decisions of Wikipedia authors? Sorry, but I don't buy that! There are thousands of articles of far worse quality than the conlang articles in question. You must have had a reason for picking this field. Besides, you picked your conlangs pretty badly: there are conlang articles here that should have been deleted long ago (for example the article about Nalona, an insignificant conlang with no web presence at all: just one sentence and two broken links). Strange you didn't pick those. --IJzeren Jan 19:11, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

 * perhaps i was unclear. the response i was referring to above is my response to Renata3 @ 19:55. i was not referring to my deletion voting action & comment @ 15:59. i guess my referent was not that clear.
 * i felt strongly enough & i gave my reason as mentioned directly above & at the top of the page. i was not shooting at random as i have stated on other vfd pages. my choice of conlangs was in a couple of lists of user Assdl (again this i have written on other pages). if the choice of conlangs is pretty bad, it is only because Assdl's lists did not contain the conlangs you would have liked for me to act on. the reason for picking this field is because Assdl added a list of numbers from his conlang into the Numbers in various languages article. a short exchange between me & User:Mikkalai led to my vfd actions. it is not so strange, i think: i just looked at what someone put before me.
 * i did mention editorial decisions of authors, yes. this was & is my concern & that is what i wrote. i dont know why you question/disbelieve, but if you do, i guess i simply have no response to that. i am not trying to sell anything, so, no, you need not buy.
 * yes, there are thousands of articles that entered Wikipedia without any kind of editorial policy used to determine their inclusion. again, my concern here is not of the quality of an article, but rather of its appropriate inclusion. i think that my contribution to this project will be more valuable in the coverage of languages & linguistics (since not so many people seem to be interested in this) rather than in the form of regulating content. i get the impression that there are people who enjoy regulating content, voting for deletion, etc. in short, my time is better spent doing research and not decision making. this is the reason why i have not considered the coverage of Star Wars and other fields.
 * i didnt know my reasons for action would be so interesting to so many. peace – ishwar  (speak)  23:28, 2005 August 1 (UTC)

 * In fact, you were indeed a little unclear, but that's clarified now. Nobody is attacking you personally, and nobody is accusing you of dishonesty. That's not the point. The reason some people are a little touchy about these things is that there are a lot of people who carry some personal grudge against conlanging and conlangers, God knows why (remember why Tolkien spoke about "the Secret Vice"), and a VfD like this one is enough to trigger them. If some of us overreacted a bit, it's because we are tired of those unfounded attacks. If you issue a VfD just because someone shows you a few links and you have a hunch that they might be unnotable, that's a little thin for a motivation, if you ask me. But I must give you this: you díd succeed in provoking a discussion, and without your VfDs the current discussion on Conlangs about the criteria for objectively establishing the notability of a conlang probably wouldn't have taken place. --IJzeren Jan 08:13, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep - If you delete this article, please proceed and remove all the constructed languages that appear in this list. If you delete this one, but keep the others, it'll be unfair. I think this kind of articles is worth enough, and they hurt no one. Thanks. Assdl 16:46, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * "There are other articles that should be deleted" isn't an argument for keeping this one. User has less than 50 edits. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * And why is his argument (note: not the one you "quoted" - re-read his post) not? If the argument for deletion is "it is a conlang", and the vote passed as "delete", then all conlangs should be put up at VFD. If it was something like "I hate the Verdurian language and I don't want it here", then it would be a different thing. /Tehvata 17:57, 27 July 2005 (UTC) (Special:Contributions/Tehvata@sv.wp)
 * Keep Hardly non-notable, among the conlanging community. Dewrad 16:48, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep Certainly one of the most detailed conlangs around, and if the other pages related to Mr. Rosenfelder have survived, I can't see any precedence for getting rid of this one. Curlyjimsam 17:14, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * User has made less than 100 edits. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep a low number of hits on Google, but for an obscure topic, it's actually more than I would expect. Language has its own Perl Lingua module, and seems to be discussed in the conlang community a fair amount. Article is POV, and should be cleaned up, though. -Harmil 17:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep Verdurian is a very notable conlangs, and quite well-known in the conlang community. The rex 18:34, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * User has made 53 edits (counting sandbox edits) at present. Wile E. Heresiarch 20:17, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - notable as conlangs go, partly because it is (IMO) very well-developed, not only in vocabulary. -- pne 19:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * notability is a function of well-developedness? hmm, i would not have thought so. – ishwar  (speak)  19:47, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

 * With respect, yes it is. A comprehensively developed conlang with learning materials etc. online is more notable than one that is not (though a legitimate discussion can take place on where exactly the boundary can be set, the point to recognise is that this particular conlang is more notable than some others).  Slac  speak up!  23:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * In conlangs, yes it is. You can whip up a grammar and a few hundred words of vocabulary at the rate of about one language per day if you're talented, especially if you just transform Esperanto, Interlingua (like my own Idido and Faux Romantique, respectively), or some natlang; Verdurian is notable because, instead of these quickly whipped-up conlangs, it has a full and naturalistic grammer and vocabulary, which evolved from a previous mother language, which itself evolved from a 'proto-language', including sound changes over time and borrowings from distantly related languages. In conlang terms, this is the difference between a band like Savage Garden and a band like ToxicMercury (although neither can touch the Britteny Spears of Esperanto). Almafeta 02:45, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Delete. Yet another personal project looking for advertising. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:22, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep Elite in the conlang community; and what publicity would it be looking for here? krinnen 19:39, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * User's first edit.
 * Merge with Mark Rosenfelder. --Angr/undefined 20:01, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep notability is not a standard for this kind of thing. --malathion talk 21:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, not very notable, but just about passes. - Mustafaa 21:57, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. As I indicated on the article's talk page,  I think there are arguments for both sides and I'm not too fussed either way.  Unfortunately, however, Ishwar hasn't put out anything in the way of notability criteria as applies to conlangs (something that would be useful, imho).  I respectfully disagree with Wile's assesment that this is a "personal project looking for advertising".  As far as I'm aware, Rosenfelder himself hasn't had anything to do with the article.  While honestly I'm annoyed at Circeus' response to immediately run to the bulletin board,  the points raised by some of the members posted here do have validity.  Slac  speak up!  23:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, I though it was worthy of mention there. I think I did mention the previous vfd for MArk there too. Circeus 00:11, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: Users may be interested in the VFD regarding the Talossan language some time back.
 * Other case in point: Votes for deletion/Toki Pona. Frankly, wouldn't it be possible to settle the issue once and for all, so that we won't need to go through the same discussion over and over again? --IJzeren Jan 11:22, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notable per CONLANG (been mistaken for a real language, 50 speakers, top 100 most popular conlangs).  Almafeta 01:24, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Non-notable conlang pollution. (unsigned vote by Nandesuka)
 * Paper-Thin Margin Of Keep Looks like it managed to infect enough speakers to qualify as an actual language and not just the vanity/original research/unverifiable blithering of a crack-smoking parrot I expected it to be and kind of wish it were.  The Literate Engineer 06:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. --IJzeren Jan 07:01, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notable.  Concerning this vote, the trollish gaming of the VfD system by some Verdurian-supporters is regrettable... but then so is the trollish posting of notable content on VfD.  -- Visviva 12:45, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment, I feel a strong sense of outrage at all this unexplained witch-hunt against artistic conlangs. Assdl 15:01, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. As a conlanger, and much as I would like to make public the art of conlanging to the greatest extent possible, I really don't see the need for grammatical treatises and descriptions of individual conlangs here on the Wikipedia. There is already a good Wikipedia article, Artistic language, which should serve as a central locus for this particular art form and has already got a quite a long list of conlangs there. I think it vèry meet and right for conlangers to link to their own pages or to some other conlang oriented source, if they wish to do so. I wouldn't create a Wikipedia article for any of my conlangs, even though at least one of them ìs "notable" per these criteria, and if I found one, I'ld delete it for the reasons stated. Elemtilas
 * Comment: User has 5 contributions, all of them VfD votes - Slac  speak up!  21:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Response: So what? Elemtilas
 * Weak Keep -- having found and read the deletion policies, I have to reconsider my opinion. I still don't think most conlangs warrant individual articles, but they are works of art and as such should not necessarily be removed simply because some people don't get the artform or can't think of anything better than personal attacks against the artists that create languages. Anyone who wants to create such an article on a conlang should be responsible enough to really consider whether this piece of artwork warrants an individual and unique article of its own. If possible, this article should be merged with Constructed languages or Artistic languages. Elemtilas
 * Keep: Notable language. And perhaps we can get some WikiLove around here, instead of describing things as the "unverifiable blithering of a crack-smoking parrot"?--Prosfilaes 22:06, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. If a few artistic languages deserve to be in Wikipedia, Brithenig and Verdurian should be in. Chlewey 01:55, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Another pointless vendetta, whose aim is to diminish the coverage of Wikipedia rather than actually improve it. Sad. Grace Note 05:27, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment Diminished coverage, in many cases, is improved coverage. The Literate Engineer 14:01, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Comment: And war is peace and freedom slavery. --Prosfilaes 20:57, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep! Oh come on, Verdurian is one of the biggest conlangs. I think it's complexity is similar to Tolkien's Elvish. Just look at the long big fat notes just about the language! (unsigned by User:201.133.187.62)

 * Keep. If the author is worthy of inclusion, the author's well-known works are.  (Of course that doesn't mean it needs its own article; I would also support a merge with Mark Rosenfelder.)  —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 01:52, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep The original reason for deletion is because it was a 'conlang'. This isn't a valid reason for deletion.  Also, it is one of the most popular amateur conlangs, and is very well-known through out the constructed language community.  I would also support a Merge with Mark Rosenfelder if it came down to that. Antley 03:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete self promotion. JamesBurns 04:12, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: Do you have cite for that? There is no evidence that of the dozen people who edited the Verdurian language article, that any of them are Mark Rosenfelder. --Prosfilaes 06:01, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It's obvious: people like this simply go on autopilot with this kind of arguments once they encounter something they are ignorant about and therefore dislike. In another VfD I got angry about a similar unwarranted accusation at the address of Andrew Smith. By now I've understood that it's simply background music here. In all honesty: the atmosphere in the Dutch wiki is a hell of a lot nicer, folks! --IJzeren Jan 07:20, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Maybe you should stick to the Dutch wiki then instead of making aspersions on the voters motives. JamesBurns 06:28, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
 * What are your reasons for calling it "self promotion"? You still haven't answered that question.--Prosfilaes 19:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Indeed. "Self promotion" is an insult both to Mark Rosenfelder and to the person who wrote the article. Instead of making wild assertions regarding their motives and blindly voting "delete", you should at least read the article and take a look at the list of people who worked on it before doing so. --IJzeren Jan 21:58, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm a conlanger. Ishwar, what have conlangs done to you that justify you going on a vendetta against all articles about them? I don't see a good reason for not having someone go to all conlang VFDs and voting keep if you basically did the same thing with the same VFD reason for most conlang articles out there. I'll agree that not all conlangs need an article (mine most certainly doesn't), but Mark Rosenfelder is a big name on the online conlang scene, as is Almea and Verdurian, his most developed conlang. Also, I question whoever said that conlangs are "a goofy way to spend your life" about the "goofiness" of knowing so much about a videogame. Cctoide 15:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * hi Cctoide. i am not a conlanger, but i am a langer (& also a linger). conlangs have not done anything harmful to me, i dont think. i do not have a vendetta against articles about every conlang, but i do question the inclusion of the articles that i have acted on. the main source of my actions here is results from a conlanger's question about the inclusion of certain conlangs. the articles that i have acted upon are those that appear in this conlanger's list. i additionally, voted on another conlang because i happened to see it in that day's viewing of the deletion pages. i have not acted on any other conlangs and i dont anticipate any further action (because i want to work on Wikipedia's documentation of American languages). i see a good reason for not acting as you suggest: i carefully considered each article and acted accordingly, i (gently) encourage us all to do the same. if my evaluation of the article is uninformed and in bad perspective, hopefully this will be remedied by wiser voters. i also wish that "goofy"-ness was not mentioned as this could perhaps be viewed as negative by some readers. peace – ishwar  (speak)  00:09, 2005 July 27 (UTC)

 * Keep -- Verdurian is a big name in the conlang scene. I don't buy the whole not notable thing, as long as it's reasonably notable, and verifiable, it's notable enough for wikipedia. --Phroziac (talk) 19:50, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Weak keep. Besides the official site, there seem to be several fan sites by people other than Mr. Rosenfelder, so it's clearly not a one-man/vanity project.  It's fairly well-known and influential as a thoroughly-developed conlang.  If it really has 50 speakers, it's certainly notable, and I would argue that, as a naturalistic artlang (not designed for easiness like an auxlang), it probably would be notable enough with considerably fewer fluent speakers than that. --Jim Henry | Talk 03:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should consider discussing and voting on a Wikipedia policy on criteria for inclusion of conlangs? Almafeta's conlang notability criteria might be a good starting point.  Where would be the appropriate place to propose/discuss such a new policy? --Jim Henry | Talk 04:27, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey, you find out how to start such a policy discussion, you find an impartial admin who would be willing to administrate the discussion and the resultant voting, and I'd support it. You could use my suggested criteria as a starting point.  Almafeta 05:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * IJzeren Jan suggested starting the discussion on Talk:Constructed language. As far as I know that is a good place to discuss the draft policy, but I'm not sure about how to go about proposing it as a policy and getting it voted on, once the people discussing the draft have some consensus on what policy to propose.  Maybe we should copy your conlang notability criteria to Talk:Constructed language/Conlang notability criteria or Talk:Constructed language/Conlang article inclusion policy draft, and then let people revise the draft and comment on the reasons for their proposed revisions, etc...?  --Jim Henry | Talk 16:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I conlang myself, and I generally feel that only clearly notable conlangs should be included on Wikipedia (the trouble, of course, is how one definres "clearly notable"). In any event, Verdurian is certainly one of the most famous languages in the conlang community. Keep. I was at one time a member of the ZBB, by the way, although I've gradually stopped posting there; but as I've been on Wikipedia for months I don't think this fact should be particularly relevant, but just so I'm not hiding anything, there it is. --Whimemsz 08:23, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * Wa hey, this vote hasn't been closed yet, almost two weeks later. Is an admin going to close it, or is a certain someone waiting for an influx of delete votes so he can delete the article based on the 'obvious concensus'?  Almafeta 09:26, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

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


text:
Things Are Tough All Over

Things Are Tough All Over is a 1982 American action comedy film directed by Thomas K. Avildsen and starring Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin as two aging hippies, and additionally as Arab businessmen Mr. Slyman and Prince Habib.

The film is initially set in Chicago, where two impoverished musicians are working for a duo of Arab businessmen. Their employers want to transport illegally-obtained money to Las Vegas, so they hide it in a limousine. They arrange for the musicians to drive the limousine to Vegas, without informing them of the actual nature of their mission. Since the employers did not provide them with travel expenses, the musicians sell parts of the car. After delivering the car, they wander in the deserts of Nevada on foot. Their employers are searching for them to kill them.

Plot
Cheech and Chong are driving a limo through the desert. Chong, who has decided to stop doing drugs for a while, is talking about rock and roll, and Cheech is falling asleep, but Cheech is narrating over what is happening. He says that "things are tough all over" and that he is going to tell their story.

It's an awful winter in Chicago, and Cheech and Chong are poor, struggling musicians working at a car wash owned by a pair of oil-rich Arabs, Mr. Slyman and Prince Habib. After messing up on the job, the 2 are forced by the Arabs to work and play music at their club. Cheech and Chong also try to get with the Arabs' French girlfriends, who are more in love with the stoners.

The Arabs find themselves with a large sum of illegal money, which they try to get to their other business in Las Vegas. They decide to stash all the money in the seats of a limousine. The Arabs hire the stoners to drive the limousine to Las Vegas, telling them that they're sending them on a "rock tour."

Cheech and Chong at first get gas in Chicago, but when they reveal they're strapped for cash, the man at the gas station takes a piece of the car as payment. With that idea, Cheech and Chong find themselves driving across the country, selling parts and pieces of the car for gas, food, and supplies. Soon, their car becomes a wreck and looks messed up, but Cheech and Chong continue to sell parts to get by. While out in the middle of the deserts, they decide to pick up a hitchhiker, who turns out to be none other than Donna, Cheech's girlfriend. The two decide to take Donna in their messed-up limo to the nearest gas station. However, Donna is traveling with dozens of Mexicans, so the stoners end up driving all the Mexicans and Donna to the nearest gas station. To pay for gas, Cheech and Chong give the old man that runs the place a chair from the limo—which unbeknownst to them the Arab's have hidden money for safe transport on the bottom of the car seat.

Cheech and Chong deliver the messed-up limousine to the Arabs' other oil plant in the desert, to find no one there. With no other transportation or money, Cheech and Chong set out on foot into the desert. They wander into the burning deserts, suffering the Nevada heat, and trying to get cars to stop- they remain unsuccessful. Eating peyote to survive and singing to pass the time, Cheech and Chong do their best to get through the desert, though they believe they'll die from the heat.

Back in Chicago, the Arabs find out that Cheech and Chong have delivered what remains of the car without any money in it. After deciding to kill them, the Arabs fly out to Nevada in their private plane and set out by car into the desert. The Arabs meet the old man at the gas station and learn that Cheech and Chong have been around, and set out into the deserts; their car breaks down, leaving the Arabs to wander through the Nevada deserts and get lost. Meanwhile, while walking through the desert, Cheech and Chong are picked up by the Arab's French girlfriends, who take them to an abandoned motel in the middle of the desert. The French girlfriends have sex with the stoners, and are (unknown to them) on a hidden camera film. Afterwards, the French ladies leave in their car, leaving the stoners stranded in the middle of nowhere yet again. Meanwhile, the Arabs are having the same problem, looking for Cheech and Chong in the middle of the desert, having no idea where to go.

Cheech and Chong wander through the desert again until they're picked up again, this time by comedian Rip Taylor, whose puns and props make Chong cry. The comedian drives the two into Las Vegas and drops them off at a restaurant, and has them dressed up as women to cover up their rags. Cheech and Chong start to dine at the restaurant, before the Arabs show up for dinner as well, having escaped the desert. Before they can eat, all the peyote Chong consumed begins to mess with his mind. Chong becomes emotional and confused, and when the Arabs begin to notice, the stoners try to escape. However, their wigs fall off, and the Arabs realize it's Cheech and Chong. The Arabs chase the stoners out of the restaurant and through the streets of Vegas. Cheech and Chong run into a women's-only porno theater with the murder-happy Arabs on their tail. In the theater, the Arabs see the showing of the hidden camera film of the stoners having sex with the Arabs' girlfriends. While the Arabs watch, inspired, Cheech and Chong escape. The stoners ditch the women's clothes and set out on foot to leave Las Vegas. The next day, as Cheech and Chong walk out of the city, a car pulls up, and Cheech and Chong get in, to find the Arabs and their French girlfriends. At first, Cheech and Chong are terrified and try to escape, but Mr. Slyman reveals that, instead of killing them, the Arabs have decided to cast the duo in porn films and launder the money through the enterprise.

A happy ending, with a narrating Cheech reminding us that "hey, things are tough all over."

Reception
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Cheech and Chong have a good time in 'Things Are Tough All Over,' and you will, too." Variety called the film "a painful and pallid affair which reminds of the tired, late-career efforts of Abbott & Costello." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "the fourth and possibly worst Cheech and Chong comedy film." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "'Things Are Tough All Over' proves a prophetic bad-luck title for Cheech & Chong, who slump into the sporadically amusing doldrums for the first time in their brief but hilarious career as outrageous movie clowns." David Ansen of Newsweek called it "a shaggy-dog road movie, with all the team's usual ingredients but one — it's not funny."

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

title: Things Are Tough All Over


text: User:Trip the Light Fantastic

title: User:Trip the Light Fantastic


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wenedyk

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. The vote was 16 for keep and 14 for delete. Woohookitty 02:46, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Wenedyk

 * Delete. This article is about a conlang. I believe that it is not notable for inclusion in Wikipedia.
 * Unsigned comment by at 16:01, 23 July 2005 (UTC) – ABCD✉ 17:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Could Ish Ishwar please make it clear what the criteria of notability are? --IJzeren Jan 22:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * hi. i dont have any criteria and i dont see criteria proposed anywhere else. as i understand this, one person initiates a vote for an article and others simply vote delete or keep. because there is no criteria, i am asking the interested to think about such things. my question is: What constraints are there for the inclusion of conlangs in an encyclopedia?. a related question is: Are all conlangs eligible in for inclusion?.
 * so, my answer is a question. whatever answer there may be will a community-based answer. peace – ishwar  (speak)  01:25, 2005 July 24 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, but you use two arguments in your VfD. First that the article is about a conlang (as if that proves its irrelevance), and secondly, that you believe it is not notable. And now you don't seem to have any idea about what could make a language notable. Personally I'd only issue a VfD when I am véry seriously convinced that there is no place for a lemma in the wiki, not merely because I have some hunch. But anyway, I do not think all conlangs are eligible for inclusion, and yes, I've voted "delete" at multiple occasions. I believe IALs can be judged by their success (number of actual users, now or in the past), while artlangs by the acclaim or appreciation they receive. --IJzeren Jan 18:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * the first sentence is not an argument, but an indication of the content of the article.
 * i believed then and i believe now that the article is not notable. i have a hunch and i seriously believe that this is so.
 * my idea of what is notable is primarily based on my expectations of the content of similar encyclopedic materal. if there was an article on Wenedyk in some similar encyclopedia-type book/media, i would feel that the editors were not making wise editorial decisions. – ishwar  (speak)  20:09, 2005 July 24 (UTC)

 * Delete. According to the article, the language in question was created by fellow Wikipedian User:IJzeren_Jan as a pastime. As interesting as I find his speculations, this is certainly not an eligible topic for a serious encyclopedia. All private fictional (corrected, Thorsten1 18:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)) constructed languages in Category:Artistic_languages, except those that feature in well-known works of fiction and have developed a cult following (Klingon language) or are otherwise notable (Newspeak), should also be deleted. --Thorsten1 16:20, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - If you delete this article, please proceed and remove all the constructed languages that appear in this list. If you delete this one, but keep the others, it'll be unfair. I think this kind of articles is worth enough, and they hurt no one. Thanks. Assdl 16:24, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I glanced at that list. The very first item on the list was advocated as an international language by Winston Churchill in a speach at Harvard. Are you seriously comparing Wenedyk to Basic English? Now, I'm all for removing non-notable languages on that list, but let's not get silly here. -Harmil 16:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * has 25 edits – ABCD✉ 17:14, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This is because I usually write in the Spanish Wikipedia. Quality is more important than Quantity. I do feel offended about ABCD's comments and a strong sense of outrage at all this unexplained witch-hunt against artistic languages. Assdl 15:09, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * "There are a lot of useless conlang articles" isn't an argument for keeping this one. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - see no harm. Renata3 16:31, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. Renata, I'm sorry - the "no harm" argument is cropping up again and again, but IMHO it's totally wrong. I suggest to redefine the criterion under which articles are kept or deleted, from "harm" to "use". In other words, rather than keeping everything unless it's explicitly proven to be harmful, let's simply delete everything that is of no apparent use. --Thorsten1 18:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Quite frankly, information of "no apparent use" is what constitutes about half of all the space in any encyclopedia. Elemtilas
 * Delete - non notable constructed language -Harmil 16:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - as far as I know User:IJzeren_Jan did not create the article himself. In addition, it's not the least notable of conlangs out there Dewrad 16:57, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't. IJzeren Jan 22:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Dewrad, neither of the points that you cite are under contention. Other low-notability conlangs are certainly worthy of deletion too. -Harmil 17:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * has 48 edits – ABCD✉ 17:14, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Well noted. I would ask how this is relevant in the current context as I assume that you did not spring Athena-like from Zeus' forehead with 200+ edits. My relative quietness does not invalidate my opinion, no make it of any less worth than another's. Dewrad 00:03, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep - I think that if someone would like information on a conlang, there's no reason Wikipedia shouldn't be a place to start. -Firespeaker 18:20, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There is a good starting point at Artistic language. Elemtilas
 * User has made less than 50 edits. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * What an utterly pointless way of dealing with people who do not vote the way you'd like them too. What does the amount of edits matter? Apparently Firespeaker ís a registered wikipedia user and contributor who knows something about the subject. Personally I'd rather trust somebody on his specialism(s) than on his number of edits. --IJzeren Jan 23:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've made more than fifty edits before creating an account; so have others. Accusing people of being inexperienced is pointless; it's against the principles of Wikipedia. dhasenan 14:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Observation Though it may not be the case here, my understanding is that when an edit count is noted in VFD, it's often as an implicit accusation of sockpuppetry. The Literate Engineer 19:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, and this is the case in Spanish wikipedia where I am more active, a minimun of proven contributions is required in order to be elegible to vote (and the vote to be counted). This should rule out sockpuppetry or, as I see here, calling for votes outside regular wikipedia community.  Personally I thing other criteria should be used... when I see these VdD I had 38 edits using my registred user in English wikipedia... however I would have near 50 with unregistered editions including a few before March (when I registered), and I am much more active in w:es:.  It was anyhow too easy to get the 50 edits before I voted... and I do not mean idle edits but edits intended to improve Wikipedia. — Carlos Th (talk) 22:02, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok, let me clear this up. WP:GVFD says that it is "sufficient" to mark the edits of very new users accordingly, rather than to accuse them of sockpuppetry, so that allegation is not being made. It is a common practise in VfD and other places so to mark new user's votes/comments; it just makes the closing admin's life a bit easier. However, I personally would not usually mark someone with 50 edits; I reserve that for a handful of edits with a clear agenda. Just because your vote may have been marked does not mean it will be discounted. That is for the closing admin to judge. Generally speaking however, if a new (or fairly new) user comes along to a VfD and clearly pushes an agenda, their vote will be discounted. I'm not making any judgement of whether that is happening here, just clarifying usual procedure. -Splash 22:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Delete - notability not established. mikka (t) 18:37, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - at least semi-notable as conlangs go. -- pne 18:57, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, no evidence of notability. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, nonnotable conlang. --Angr/undefined 19:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - it seems at least semi-notable, especially given the number of cross-language links to other Wikipedias. --Prosfilaes 20:48, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Notability is not a standard here --malathion talk 21:11, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * What is a basis here? -Splash 23:19, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, nonnotable. - Mustafaa 21:45, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. For the record, I am the creator of this language, and I have no claims regarding its notability. Therefore, I feel pretty much like abstaining in this discussion, and it feels rather odd to vote in favour of keeping it after all. I am doing so not because I want to defend my creation, but because this seems to be a rather massive attack on constructed languages (especially those created for artistic purposes) in general. --IJzeren Jan 22:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It is an attack on a neglected area. Precisely because of their nonnotability they were hanging around for quite some time. And as a wikipedia editor you should know better not to vote in the way you did: not by the article merit, but by judging someone's intentions. mikka (t) 23:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Like I mentioned elsewhere, I am fully prepared to discuss the notability issue with you and with anybody else. Sorry for my reaction. I'm a bit tired of these discussions, since the same thing is currently going on in the German wiki. We've had it on the Dutch wikipedia too (for the record, it easily survived the VfD there). It's not my intention to advert myself or my creation, but I stand up in defence of all conlangs that I and well-informed others consider notable. Including my own. --IJzeren Jan 23:17, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. Jan, as I said above, personally I think your idea is interesting and intellectually intriguing for anyone interested in Indoeuropean languages and history, I really admire the effort you put into this, and the last thing I want is to offend you. However, if you are honest with yourself, you will have to agree that this is essentially a private hobby of yours and very few others, with no relevance to the "real world". I assume that the number of people who learned about Wenedyk from Wikipedia in the first place (like me) is infinitely higher than the number of people who have heard about it somewhere else and then turn to Wikipedia to learn more. In the end, this just isn't what an encyclopedia is about, paper or no paper. The language belongs to a fictional universe Ill Bethisad - entertained, according to the article, by some 30 people. We have got our hands full with writing an encyclopedia on the non-fictional universe - we really should stick to that, rather than absorbing the minutiae of fictional ones. "Ill Bethisad" already has its own, very nice Wikipedia counterpart - why not maintain this division of labour? --Thorsten1 00:55, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I must disagree móst strongly in part: conlanging is not so much a "private hobby" as it is an artistic form. While poets take existing words from an existing language (usally) to create something of artistic beauty and even if no one understands what they mean by it; conlangers simply take of the foundational material of Language itself to create something of artistic beauty. Even if no one understands what they mean by it. As for "relevance to the real world", I can easily name two dozen artists who wasted their time on things that were not at all "relevant to the real world". We can start with JS Bach, work our way through Michaelangelo and end up near Zamfir. Art ìs irrelevant to the "real world" -- you can't eat it, can't sleep under it, it won't keep you warm in Winter (usually) and won't alleviate your arthritis. That doesn't mean art is without its own merit. That said, while I will later vote for the article's deletion, it should be noted that Wenedyk has as much relation to the "real world" as any other work of art. Elemtilas
 * Answer - Thanks for your kind words, Thorsten, I take no offense whatsoever from what you wrote. And I understand your point, too. Even better, I agree with you that we (wikipedians) should not be absorbing the minutiae of fictional worlds or of any other works of art. For that purpose I maintain a website, which contains all there is to know about Wenedyk. But we are not talking minutiae here, we are talking about an encyclopedic (or perhaps rather, wikipedic) entry. And this entry should nót contain a descriptive grammar of any kind, only something along the line of: Wenedyk is a language constructed by ... for purpose of ... with ... as its distinguishing characteristics ... and its significance is .... The same goes for Ill Bethisad: the details are in the IB wiki (with currently more than 1,200 articles), a number of websites and a mailing list; while the wikipedia entry consists of nothing but a short encyclopedic description of what IB is. From this point of view, I think the articles in question are far more justified than biographies of individual Star Trek characters and the like. But if lemmata on Star Trek and Babylon 5 are acceptable, I don't see why a lemma on Ill Bethisad wouldn't be.
 * Furthermore, I'd like to note that I have learnt about a lot of things through Wikipedia, things I'd never have known about without it. That's what I like about Wikipedia in the first place. But FWIW: most reactions I got about Wenedyk were not from people who knew it through Wikipedia, but from people who had read an article about it in a Polish magazine. Regards, IJzeren Jan 09:12, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: Wikipedia is not about the non-fictional universe; it's about the human universe, including things like Botchan and Superman. A language that was created and used by humans in the real world should not be dismissed on those grounds anymore than the above two articles should. --Prosfilaes 06:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment, mainly to Jan and Splash. - "it's about the human universe, including things like Botchan and Superman". Nobody disputed that the world of fiction has a place in Wikipedia. Fiction is a part of the human world. But that does not make any peace of fiction eligible for its own article. To use your examples, according to the article Botchan is "one of the most popular novels in Japan" which "[m]ost Japanese read [...] during their childhood"; and Superman "became one of the most popular and well-known comic book icons of all time.". I do not think quite the same can be said about "Ill Bethisad".
 * "From this point of view, I think the articles in question are far more justified than biographies of individual Star Trek characters and the like." I couldn't possibly agree more; but two wrongs don't make a right, and one can only deal with deletion candidates one at a time. Also, it would be very difficult to convince trekkies that they should learn to live without an article on the x-language spoken by the y-species in the z-galaxy - although its "existence" may have been brought to the attention of millions of square-eyed couch potatoes - when at the same time we decide to keep hobbyhorses like these.
 * "if lemmata on Star Trek and Babylon 5 are acceptable, I don't see why a lemma on Ill Bethisad". Frankly, if I had the choice between watching an episode of Star Trek or Babylon 5, or reading a spin-off book, and reading a book about or watching an episode of Ill Bethisad (in that universe's languages with subtitles...) I would almost definitely go for the latter. The fact remains, though, I simply do not have that choice. And since you mention it, the Ill Bethisad article is already borderline for me. The best case that can be made for is that it's one example of the intellectual standard an internet-based counter-culture to mainstream entertainment can achieve, so I'd vote a weak keep. If so, the article should naturally give due mention to Wenedyk and the other languages contained within the universe. But to outhouse its countries, their languages etc. - that is what I meant by "minutiae" - to separate articles is definitely over the top for me. By the way, in spite of what you said about the division of labour between Wikipedia and the IB Wiki, the fact is that Wenedyk contains way more (although not the same) information than Wenedyk does.
 * On a final note, it is hardly surprising that the idea of Wenedyk appeals more to Polish speakers with a knowledge of Romance languages (or vice versa) than to others; but this does not really disprove my point. --Thorsten1 11:12, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If, um, "millions of square-eyed couch potatoes" are aware of it, I don't see any reason not to have an article on it. We have articles on Cherokee, Oklahoma; I fail to see why something of cultural significance to millions of anyone, no matter how much contempt some people have for them, would be unimportant. --Prosfilaes 21:43, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

(UTC) Keep Waerth 19:20, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete nonotable, and no established basis. -Splash 23:19, 23 July 2005
 * Delete I'm an artlanger myself but I don't think articles on the individual artlangs are encyclopedic. Sorry Jan. Felix the Cassowary 00:45, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. Only one point of notability per CONLANG (top 100 on Langmaker), two are needed.  Almafeta 01:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. Part of understanding Brithenig article, which is considered notable (see its VfD page for why).  Almafeta 04:19, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm finding Thorsten1's argument the most convincing.  Unless used as a vernacular in some community, or at least having a sizable pool of people who are conversant in it even if they don't actually use it, I think a conlang doesn't belong in an encyclopedia.  The Literate Engineer 06:36, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I think those requirements are overkill. There's articles on poems that no one knows by heart; the question is not is it in use, but is it something that someone might be interested in looking up in an encyclopedia. And Wikipedia has (rightly) never been very restrictive about what people might want to look up. --Prosfilaes 07:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * the question is not is it in use, but is it something that someone might be interested in looking up in an encyclopedia. -- that sounds good to me. -- pne 11:58, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Verifiable phenomenon. -- Visviva 12:47, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. As a conlanger, and much as I would like to make public the art of conlanging to the greatest extent possible, I really don't see the need for grammatical treatises and descriptions of individual conlangs here on the Wikipedia. There is already a good Wikipedia article, Artistic language, which should serve as a central locus for this particular art form and has already got a quite a long list of conlangs there. I think it vèry meet and right for conlangers to link to their own pages or to some other conlang oriented source, if they wish to do so. I wouldn't create a Wikipedia article for any of my conlangs, even though at least one of them ìs "notable" per these criteria, and if I found one, I'ld delete it for the reasons stated. Elemtilas
 * Weak Keep -- having found and read the deletion policies, I have to reconsider my opinion. I still don't think most conlangs warrant individual articles, but they are works of art and as such should not necessarily be removed simply because some people don't get the artform or can't think of anything better than personal attacks against the artists that create languages. Anyone who wants to create such an article on a conlang should be responsible enough to really consider whether this piece of artwork warrants an individual and unique article of its own. If possible, this article should be merged with Constructed languages or Artistic languages or Ill Bethisad. Elemtilas
 * Keep. It would be a harm to Wikipedia were there no article on a subject a reader might look up, and none is done if there is. Why people want to delete perfectly acceptable minority-interest articles is their own business but they are not working towards an encyclopaedia that includes the sum of all human knowledge but rather an online Britannica. Hey! There already is one of those, isn't there? With fewer mistakes! Grace Note 05:24, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Nonnotable conlang. — Trilobite (Talk) 19:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep. BenctPhilipJonsson 19:33, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * User has no other edits but voting for keeping conlangs.mikka (t) 19:40, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * May I ask what the point of this editcounting is? As far as I am concerned, a user is either entitled to vote or not. This user was already a registered user before the vote started, and so he is entitled to vote; the number of his edits is not a criterion. But, since you are so interested in counting people's number of edits, why do you only count the edits of those who voted for keeping? --IJzeren Jan 22:51, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment Doesn't WP Not A Soapbox mean that WP is not an Art Gallery?  The Literate Engineer 19:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Therefore we should delete the page on the Mona Lisa? Dewrad 19:47, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * No, therefore an article about an artlang must be able to present equivalents of Mona Lisa's sections "Role in popular culture and avant-garde art", or "Identity of the model". That is to say, it must be a encyclopedia article, meeting such criteria as verifiability and compliance with No Original Research, that is about the language, rather than just a showcase for the language.   The Literate Engineer 20:03, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * As far as it's really necessary to point out: the existence of Wenedyk ís verifiable, and the article is nót original research. As the creator of the language, I can guarantee you that! --IJzeren Jan 22:51, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't see why Wikipedia not being a soap box means that Wikipedia is not an art gallery. An encyclopeida certainly doesn't need to go on about the identity of the model and its role in popular culture; it would fine to have an article that was an extended version of "One of Twain's minor works involving Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer meets King Arthur was originally written in 1889 but not published until 2006." --Prosfilaes 20:37, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete notability not established. JamesBurns 04:14, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment Notability isn't a criterion of VfD. Dewrad 06:31, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * While "notability" is not part of the policy-as-written, it is a de facto criterium for deletion, see Radiants comments on this issue. JamesBurns 06:25, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Delete. Notability is not established.  Those who think it is not a criterion for VfD need to learn some basic textual analysis skills. Indrian 20:52, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment Those on the other hand who do believe notability is a criterion for VfD would do well to review Wikipedia's policy on the matter. Dewrad 21:50, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Strong Keep I note with concern that a single user has originated all the current VfD's concerning conlangs. He seems to be on a one-man campaign to remove all articles about particular works of a given artform. I would like to request him to cease and desist.
 * Keep. While I do not condone notability as a criterion for inclusion (Wikipedia is not paper), it appears to me that this article sufficiently establishes notability in the context of artistic languages, since few of them ever acquire a vocabulary of Wenedyk's size. arj 14:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Weak delete. Only 875 Google hits, and most of the top 50 are Wikipedia mirrors or pages within a handful of conlang-specialized sites (the Wenedyk official site, Langmaker, FrathWiki and the CONLANG-L archives).  If someone can point out more evidence of influence on other conlangers, etc., I may consider changing my vote.  (Maybe we should consider discussing and voting on a Wikipedia policy on criteria for inclusion of conlangs, rather than arguing about what constitutes notability every time...?  Almafeta's conlang notability criteria might be a good starting point.  Where would be the appropriate place to propose/discuss such a new policy?) --Jim Henry | Talk 04:52, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * IJzeren Jan suggested (on the Brithenig VfD page) that we start the discussion on Talk:Constructed language. As far as I know that is a good place to discuss the draft policy, but I'm not sure about how to go about proposing it as a policy and getting it voted on, once the people discussing the draft have some consensus on what policy to propose.  Maybe we should copy Almafeta's conlang notability criteria to Talk:Constructed language/Conlang notability criteria or Talk:Constructed language/Conlang article inclusion policy draft, and then let people revise the draft and comment (in the main talk page) on the reasons for their proposed revisions, etc...?  --Jim Henry | Talk 16:57, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep suitably noteable for a constructed language. Eclipsed 22:36, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wenedyk


text:
Kusaal language

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Names
The general and accepted name for the language is Kusaal. The name Kusasi Is mostly used to refer to the people who speak the language, and it is not accepted by native speakers to refer to the language.

Grammar
The language is a fairly typical representative of the Western Oti–Volta low-level grouping within Gur, which includes several of the more widely spoken languages of Northern Ghana, and also Moore, the largest African language of Burkina Faso (and the largest of all Gur languages, with millions of speakers).

Nouns
Like most other Western Oti–Volta languages, it has lost the complicated noun class agreement system still found in e.g. the more distantly related Gurmanche, and has only a natural gender system, human/non-human. The noun classes are still distinguishable in the way nouns distinguish singular from plural by paired suffixes:

nid(a) "person" plural nidib(a)

bʋʋg(a) "goat" plural bʋʋs(e)

nɔbir(e) "leg, foot" plural nɔba(a)

fuug(o) "item of clothing" plural fuud(e)

molif(o) "gazelle" plural moli(i)

A unpaired suffix -m(m) is found with many uncountable and abstract nouns, e.g., kuʼom(m) "water"

The bracketed final vowels in the examples occur because of the feature which most strikingly separates Kusaal from its close relatives: the underlying forms of words, such as buuga "goat" are found only when the word in question is the last word in a question or a negated statement. In all other contexts an underlying final short vowel is dropped and a final long vowel is shortened:

Fu daa nye buug la. "Did You see the goat?"

Fu daa nye buug.   "You saw a goat."

Fu daa pu nye buuga. "You didn't see a goat."

Anoʼone daa nye buuga? "Who saw a goat?"

Adjectives
Kusaal shows the typical Gur feature whereby the noun and adjective stems are compounded in that order, followed by the singular/plural endings:

bupielig(a) "white goat" [ bu-(g(a)) + piel- + -g(a) ]

bupielis(e) "white goats"

There are a few traces of the old system (as in Gurmanche) whereby the adjective took the singular/plural endings appropriate to the class of the preceding noun, but the system is completely unproductive in Kusaal now.

Verbs
Verbal flexion is agreeably simple, as in other Western Oti–Volta languages and unlike less closely related Gur languages. Most verbs have five flexional forms.

(a) no ending, used for perfective aspect: M gos buug la. "I've looked at the goat."

(b) -d(a) ending, for imperfective: M gosid buug la. "I look at the goat."

(c) -m(a) for positive imperative: Gosim buug la! "Look at the goat!"

(d) -in subjunctive for irrealis : Fu yaʼa gosin ...  "If you were to look (but you won't) ..."

(e) -b(o), -g(o), -r(e) gerund, verbal noun: o gosig la mor dabiem "his (the angel's) appearance was scary" [Judges 13:6 draft] - literally 'his seeing they had fear'

Some 10% of verbs, with stative meanings, have only a single form.

The verb is preceded by a chain of invariable particles expressing tense, polarity and mood. Serial verb constructions are common and important, as in many West African languages.

Pronouns
Object pronouns can be severely reduced in form by the Kusaal final-vowel-loss rules, surfacing as single consonants, or even zero; they are preceded by a reduced vowel ending the previous word, which is a reduced form of that word's own underlying final vowel, preserved before the enclitic pronoun:

M boodi f.   "I love you." traditionally written M bood if.

M boodu.  "I love him/her." traditionally written M bood o.

Syntax
Word order is strictly SVO, but clefting is common.

Within the noun phrase, except for the typical noun-adjective Gur compounding, the rule is that associative modifier (possessive, genitive) precedes the head:

m buug "my goat"

la nobir "the goat's foot" (la "the", follows its noun)

Numeral and deictics (demonstrative, article) follow, with the quantitative in final place:

m buus atanʼ la wusa "all my three goats"

Phonology
The sound system of Kusaal is similar to that of its relatives; consonant clusters (except between adjacent words) occur only word-internally at morpheme-junctures and are determined by the limited range of consonants which can appear in syllable-final position. Clusters arising from the addition of suffixes in derivation and flexion are either simplified or broken up by inserted ("svarabhakti") vowels.

The roster of consonants includes the widespread West African labiovelar double-closure stops kp, gb, but the palatal series of the related languages (written ch/j in Dagbani and Hanga and ky/gy in Mampruli) fall in with the simple velars, as in neighbouring Farefare (Frafra, Gurene) and Moore. The reflexes of the palatal and labiovelar double-closure nasals of the related languages, [n] written ny and [ŋm] ŋm - are probably best analysed as a nasalised y and w respectively, but the scope of the nasalisation and the order of its onset with respect to the semivowel is variable.

The vowel system is not yet fully understood, complicated by differences between the Agole and Toende dialects and the system of diphthongs in Agole, which according to the most-favoured analysis, enables Agole with seven contrastive vowel qualities to cover the contrasts represented in Toende with nine qualities. There are short, long, short nasal and long nasal vowels; nasalization collapses the contrast between i~ɩ, e~ɛ, u~ʋ and o~ɔ. All may be glottalised (or 'broken' with a glottal stop), as in buʼud "beating", for 56 monophthongs in some dialects. Glottalized vowels may be distinct from the glottal stop as a consonant, usually in the form as in kuʼom "water". Glottal also marks some monosyllabic verbs buʼ "beat". In addition, some vowels are contrastively nasalised and others nasalised through the influence of nasal consonants. In the orthography a letter n followed by a vowel or glottal indicates that the preceding vowel is contrastively nasalised, unless in word-final position when nasalisation is indicated by a double nn and a single n is a final consonant.

The language is tonal, with tonal differences distinguishing lexical items (with few minimal pairs) and syntactic constructions. The intrinsic tones of individual words are often overridden with a different pattern in particular syntactic constructions, e.g., main verbs in positive main clauses become all-low-tone. Many words also cause tone changes in closely connected following or preceding words by "tone spreading". The tonal system is a terracing system with two tones and emic downsteps, but with the H! sequence being realized as extra-high in some contexts. The domain of tone is the vowel mora, but there are many constraints on the possible tone patterns with a word; uncompounded nouns show only 4 different overall possibilities at most for any given segmental shape, and inflecting verbs have only two possible intrinsic tone patterns.

Orthography
The orthography used above is basically that of the New Testament translation, which remained the only substantial written work available in Kusaal for a long time. The New Testament orthography, however, spells "goat" boog, and the vowel is intermediate between u and o, phonetic. It is adequate for mother-tongue speakers but does not suffice to distinguish the seven distinct vowel qualities of Agole Kusaal, does not mark tone, and has partly inconsistent word-division conventions due to the complications produced by the Kusaal final vowel loss/reduction phenomena. Since 2013, however, a unified orthography of the language has been in use and is used across various sectors including education at the University of Education, Winneba (Ajumako campus) and by translators who recently (2015) succeeded in revising the New Testament as well as translating the complete Old Testament into the language using the set of guidelines provided in the current orthography.

Study
Materials on Kusaal have gradually increased over the last few years. Some aids for learners were produced by the husband-and-wife Spratt team who pioneered the linguistic study of the language and may be obtainable from GILLBT (Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation) in Tamale, Ghana. Literacy materials, collections of folk stories and so forth have also been produced by GILLBT. There is also a simple dictionary compiled by David and Nancy Spratt from the same source. Also available are two master theses from native speaker linguists on the phonology (Musah 2010 ) and the syntax (Abubakar 2011 ). Much grammatical information on the Burkina Faso dialect (Toende) is to be found in Niggli's primarily phonological work cited below. Several other documents including the Orthography of the language are also available from GILLBT. Another fairly extensive grammar of Agolle Kusaal is available online.

title: Kusaal language