Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Russian language/archive1

Russian language

Self-nomination. I've tried to give an overall sense of the language without veering off into politics, military history, ethnography (well, a very little)... all the stuff that really should be dealt with separately. A. Shetsen 06:24, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• I'm not a linguist, but it seems fairly complete. There are a few problems with writing here and there, so this is a weak objection. If someone with knowledge of Russian and/or linguistics wanted to do a quick edit I'm sure it would be ok. Exploding Boy 16:36, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)
  • Could you be more precise? Which sentences do you object to? Otherwise, how can this be "actionable"? A. Shetsen 17:19, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Copy-editing your own text may or may not be valid, but, at any rate, I've gone over it, eliminating as many passives as possible, breaking up some of the longer sentences, and generally trying to simplify. A. Shetsen 19:14, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • In action to a comment in Talk:Russian language (unfortunately anonymous) that complained of incomprehensible passages in the treatment of consonants, I've revised the Russian language#Consonants section. Thank you, 128.175.100.74, whoever you are. A. Shetsen 20:01, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Objection. This looks pretty good, but I do have some problems with this article. It looks rather messy, mostly because of the notes (there should be a good wiki-way to include footnotes, I think), and the tables. I realise the note problem is not actionable, but the table problem could be fixed. Probably removing the borders for some tables (especially those with only one row) would make it less messy already. My second problem are the examples. These have little context, and I can only why these specific excerpts where chosen. If it is only to show how the language looks, one or two examples would be enough. If it is attempted to show the evolution of the language, some more context and annotations are needed. I would also very much like a sound sample of the Russian language. Jeronimo 10:03, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Tables. Are you objecting to their visual appearance, or to their use, period? I've removed the borders. Notes. Do you mean the three or four paragraphs in small print? They define the approach taken to various technical points. If Russian were written in the Latin alphabet, some of them would not be necessary. Originally they were in ordinary print. Do you think that would look better, since the notes would then be in the main flow of the text? Examples. Any language has its cultural context, acquired by native speakers largely in childhood, whether spontaneously or in school. The examples are all schoolbook illustrations of linguistic and cultural development. I've provided notes to each of them, mostly on linguistic points. Any attempt to comment on the culture must be done very carefully, because POV and ideology are involved, both on the part of the reader, and on the part of the writer, as seen in the text. Perhaps the latter POV/ideology should just be picked out by the reader. But I don't think we should pretend there's no cultural dissonance between native speakers of English and those of Russian. Dissonance is not conflict, by the way. Spoken examples. Which ones? What do you suggest? Songs, television broadcasts, recordings of text being read? Also -- I know the Wiki language template encourages audio examples. But I wonder about their utility to someone who is reading the article for a first acquainatnce with the language, and cannot understand it.
• As for the notes, I am indeed referring to the smallprint text, labeled "Note". But Wikipedia doesn't have a footnote syntax (that I'm aware of anyway). The tables are much better this way; this is much easier for the eyes to read. The example annotations are a good addition, I think. This is sufficient for me to remove my objection. I would still like one or more sound samples, but I don't really care what they contain. Perhaps it would be good hear one of the written samples spoken out loud, but any random sentence would be fine with me. Jeronimo 20:36, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I will provide: (a) audio examples of all the individual sounds mentioned in the text; (b) two or three very short audio samples of continuous speech. A. Shetsen 20:01, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Exploding Boy 11:20, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
• Support. However, are there any well known reference works that could be listed as further reading? (I'm thinking of something roughly equivalent to Fowler's "The King’s English".) Dan Gardner 01:29, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I used Russian sources. I'll try to find some English general references as well, but after I add the audio as per Jeronimo's request above. A. Shetsen 03:36, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • While still working on the audio, I've added the references I used, and a few other books in English that I've looked over. Comrie et al on 20th century Russian is what you're looking for, I think. If you want a how-to manual, see the Gramota web link. A. Shetsen 21:56, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Perhaps a few unlinked links and so, but nothing that stops it from being a featured article. Nikola 21:43, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I've added one-line labelled stubs for all the remaining red-links. They were all for the individual letters of the Cyrillic alphabet... A. Shetsen 22:21, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)