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user:W.andrea has brought attention to the length of the article in this notice. I tend to agree with them; it probably is too long at 14,841 words, and inching toward WP:TOOBIG.
Among featured articles, there aren't too many languages represented (see here), but among the few there are:
Much of it is related to the overblown sections §Phonology and §Morphology. We have a dedicated article Sanskrit grammar that also includes a phonology section. The two sections in this article should be trimmed to summary size, with the rest merged into the subarticle, ideally with another subarticle about Sanskrit phonology which oddly doesn't exist–with Sanskrit being the first language in the world to be described in a structuralist phonological framework millenia before Trubetzkoy. Apart from the current length issue, this is also a classical case ("aptly" so for a classical language) of unsychronized content forking.
I must admit, I'm unsure as to what the problem is here. What's the issue with the article being as long as it is? Is it just a case of being too much information to digest? Or putting strain on the servers? Too long to load? My instinct is that the more detailed it is, the better! Dāsānudāsa (talk) 22:14, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I tagged it primarily because it took a long time to load. I was on a slow connection and it took something like 10 seconds, and all I wanted to know was the ISO 639 code. But also, long articles can have too much information, yeah; WP:SIZESPLIT says Large articles may have readability and technical issues. A page of about 10,000 words takes roughly 40 minutes to read at average speed, which is right on the limit of the average concentration span of 40 to 50 minutes. — W.andrea (talk) 14:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we should be overly concerned about what SIZESPLIT says. It takes more than 40 minutes to read a book and people still buy books. On the flip side, studies have also shown that few people read past the lead of a Wikipedia article, and yet nobody is saying we should chop articles down to four paragraphs. I prefer the portion of the size guideline at WP:HASTE, which says:
"Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage"
and if Sanskrit isn't one of those subjects, then I don't know what is. I'm all for carefully splitting content to other articles per WP:Summary style—books have chapters, after all, and long chapters have sections—but I don't think we should remove good content that some serious readers might want to read simply to adhere to some idea about average reader behavior. I'm more interested in catering to the curious or passionate reader with some staying power and who can't get enough of the topic. Let the average readers drift off after 40 minutes and go do something else. Mathglot (talk) 19:31, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm less worried about the overall size too (although loading time of large articles can indeed be a pain on mobile browers when the connection is slow), but it's obvious that important pieces of information grow out of sync in multiple articles when there's no hierarchical structure of topics and subtopics. Sanskrit grammar is obviously a notable topic of its own, so anyone who wants to know the details can be guided there with a hatnote, while in this article, we can keep a short outline. And ideally in a less weirdly-written style without all those in-text attributions ("According to Ruppel", "states Jamison"). I've just noticed it now, which perfectly illustrates the point of concentration span ;) –Austronesier (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fixing the in-text attributions.
Old:
In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison):
(edit conflict) Actually, I've started on it: see Draft:Sanskrit epigraphy. First thing I noticed, is a rather haphazard organization of the existing content, as a mix of timeline-based, and region-based content (and the former is not in chrono order). I will continue for a little bit more, then pause to let anyone jump in; will give you a sign shortly... Mathglot (talk) 21:39, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done for now, and released to Sanskrit epigraphy. Section § Epigraphy here has been summarized via excerpts, reducing total length by 14kb. The actual body text has been only very minimally changed, so there is plenty of room for improvement to it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:06, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It is now two months since user:W.andrea very thoughtfully added the "very long" tag to the article in this edit with edit summary, "Tag article as {{Very long}}. It's at 14,835 words, near the 15k word threshold given at WP:TOOBIG. For comparison, Latin is at <7k.)" Through the stalwart work of user:Mathglot and the very helpful in-depth suggestions of user:Austronesier, the article size is now down to 12,444 words. Although it is still a a long long way to the Latin Tipperary, it not near the threshold. Therefore, I am removing the "very long" tag to let the article breathe a little and discourage further reductions for now. Although I had not added the tag, I did open this thread. I hope user:W.andrea will not mind. We can revisit the issue in a few months and see where we stand. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk»00:12, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course! I'm not terribly invested in this article, just got peeved once about how long it took to load :p Great work bringing down the word count! — W.andrea (talk) 01:00, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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It doesn't really do much; it's pronunciation guide is just IPA transcription. Since these transcriptions are already given in the sections titled "vowels" & "consonants", it seems redundant to keep it. AchyuthaVM (talk) 15:43, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the article refers to Sanskrit using present tense. If the language is extinct, is it appropriate to use "was" instead? Or does the revival mean it is no longer extinct? guninvalid (talk) 17:23, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Extinct means that the language is no longer spoken and that no one studies or can study it. A dead language is one that is attested and can be studied and learned. Since Sanskrit still exists, it can be referred to in the present tense AchyuthaVM (talk) 04:24, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
guninvalid, your question is an interesting one. I would say that a language doesn't stop being a language conceptually because it is dead, although it stops being spoken. Look at some of the tenses in the lead paragraph, which I think are all correct, with past tense being used for events completed in the past, or about other than enduring concepts:
"Sanskrit... is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch..." – (conceptual language relation)
"It arose in South Asia..." – (it is not still arising now)
"Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism..." – (was the sacred language and still is)
"It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia..." – (event in the past)
"it became a language of religion and high culture..." – (gradual event, but completed in the past)
I would say that we use the past tense for historical developments, and present tense for a language that although belonging to the past with respect to living native speakers, it has ongoing significance and continues to exist as a language of religion, scholarship, and cultural identity. Does that make sense? But I'd love to see a more scholarly treatment of your question; maybe @Kwamikagami, Austronesier, and Lambiam: could offer ideas. Mathglot (talk) 01:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sanskrit is a language, as is Coptic. They have liturgical use and are used daily. I think present tense for features that continue to exist is fine. — kwami (talk) 01:33, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Kwamikagami, I'm thinking about the way that conceptual relations (like grammar) use the present, regardless whether there is any daily use or not. For example, at Gothic verbs#Class 1, we say, the "Some class 1 verbs have an irregular past", not *had an irregular past, or at Tocharian languages#Categories we say, "Tocharian verbs are conjugated in the following categories", not *were conjugated—in my mind, because these attributes of the language now 'exist' as some kind of Platonic ideal, even if speakers no longer do. I don't know quite how to express this kind of present tense usage, and that's the part that I wonder if it is addressed in a scholarly way. Mathglot (talk) 02:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We'll say that an extinct animal 'is' in a certain family, but that it 'was' distributed in a certain location or 'had' certain habits. Fine IMO to do the same for languages. When we say a verb 'inflects' in a certain way, what we're essentially saying is that our records of the verb show that pattern. Where we have problems I think is when we have advocates who use tense to deny that the language is extinct, sometimes even when it's hardly attested. — kwami (talk) 05:10, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we are not allowed to use the present tense for extinct languages, then we should write: "Sanskrit was an extinct language." The recipient of this message would reasonably draw the conclusion that Sanskrit is no longer extinct. IMO it is not relevant whether Sanskrit is still used – it is not used as a living language. Think of a language as a building. The people who built the building and lived there are long gone, but the building is still there – we can study it and describe it. In such descriptions we use the present tense for its features, like, "The floor of the central courtyard is paved in rich marble mosaics." We would use the simple past (or the narrative present) in describing how the building was used, like, "Visitors were welcomed at the gate and then led into the courtyard." We know Sanskrit mainly from written texts. These texts are written in a language that we can study and describe. When describing the features of this language, the present tense is IMO the most appropriate, as in, "Conjugational endings in Sanskrit convey person, number, and voice." These endings still convey these semantic aspects to today's readers of Sanskrit texts. (Of course, when describing the historical evolution of a language feature, unrolling in a time that is long past, the simple past or historic present is indicated.) For describing its use, the past tense is better, as in, "Sanskrit was used as the language of all official records." --Lambiam10:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Great illustration at the top of your comment. One might even add, "Hebrew was an extinct language", and mean precisely what you indicate the reader might assume wrongly in the other case (paceSanskrit revival), but this time correctly. Agree with all the other points you raise, and the instincts among our small sample seem to be in general agreement about this, which still makes me wonder if outside style guides deal with this verb tense issue at all. Irrespective whether they do or don't, I wonder if we should mention this issue either in our Manual of style, or in a style section at WP:WikiProject Languages. Mathglot (talk) 01:54, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Having no information on this subject is rather subpar for a Wikipedia article about any language, let alone for a language as prominent and well-researched as Sanskrit. I have encountered more information about Vedic accent and Classical Sanskrit stress in passing, in more general linguistic publications not specifically about Sanskrit, and here I see nothing. Indeed, I find it so hard to believe that no editor has ever written anything about it in such an article that I suspect that there might have been information which has since been deleted - possibly accidentally during some restructuring/rewriting. 62.73.72.3 (talk) 17:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right, in this earlier version there used to be at least some standard info on Vedic pitch accent and its loss in Clasical Sanskrit, albeit weirdly attributed to just one author, as if it were something highly controversial and usual. Maybe someone didn't like this information because they felt offended by the idea that their own pronunciation isn't exactly like the one used in Vedic times? That might also be the reason why this sourced information has eventually disappeared entirely, if it wasn't just by mistake.--62.73.72.3 (talk) 17:42, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The history section in articles of other languages dive straight into the earliest attested form of the language. See the Greek and Latin articles for comparison, where discussion of PIE is considered a tangent. In fact, even the dedicated article for History of Latin talks less about PIE than this one subsection of the Sanskrit article. There is already a separate article for Indo-Aryan migrations, so the detailed discussion here, including cognate tables and PIE sound shifts, certainly seems tangential. This might be done for Anglo-American readers, for whom comparing Sanskrit with Greek and Latin would provide more familiar context, in which case it violates NPOV. Ugraśravas (talk) 11:59, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Already done Ultraodan (talk) 12:06, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
Done I added a small section on accent and linked the appropriate pages in a "see also" subtitle. AchyuthaVM (talk) 09:14, 25 January 2025 (UTC)