Talk:Attested language
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Is this sentence redundant?
[edit]In contrast, unattested languages may be languages for which no direct evidence exists, languages for which all evidence has been lost, or hypothetical proto-languages proposed in linguistic reconstruction.
"No direct evidence exists" seems to mean the same thing as "all evidence has been lost", unless reconstructions are considered indirect evidence (in which case, the second item on the list would still be redundant). Unless anyone objects, I'll reword this. — An anonymous username, not my real name 00:42, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
Image
[edit]ThaesOfereode, I'm not sure I understand the image caption. Did you perhaps mean, "The oldest attested sentence"? --Paul_012 (talk) 14:38, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
- I did. Thanks for catching that. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:45, 20 October 2026 (UTC)
Article title
[edit]Per WP:AND, Attested and unattested languages might be a better title for this article, more clearly indicating its scope. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:41, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
- I'm inclined to agree. I'd say WP:BOLDly move it. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2026 (UTC)
Unattested <> Unsupported
[edit]Unattested language redirects here, so I think we should treat that concept more seriuously.
Of course, Atwikanician language is uattested (I just made that up), but what I think we miss is something like list of plausible types of evidence for the plausible existence of otherwise unattested languages - to distinguish Unattested language from pseudoscientific nonsense. E.g., we should mention toponymic evidence, in addition to direct mentions of an otherwise unattested language in extant sources (assuming toponymic evidence not to count as an attestation; it is not listed as such in the aritcle).
But I'm no expert, and I don't have sources. Anyone? Nø (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
- Ehh... Not expert either. I think we may want to stress the contrast between attested and protolanguage and just vaguely skip past the "unattested language" part, e.g., implying that the concept of a non-protolanguage that was hypothesized but not yet attested is somewhat meaningless. 海盐沙冰 / aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads 16:29, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
- Just to clarify: Serious unattested languages are not merely protolanguages; they also include various strata, e.g. showing up (as I mentioned) in toponymics, or as "odd" words in an attested language or group of languages, that do not have cognates in related langauges. See e.g. Vasconic substrate hypothesis (serious though contested), Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate, Germanic substrate hypothesis, and in general Stratum (linguistics)#Substratum. (I think - as I said, I'm no expert.) Nø (talk) 20:38, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
- I've now added "or substrate language", wikilinking Stratum (linguistics)#Substrate influence on superstrate. At least, that takes care of cases like Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate for which there still is fairly good evidence. (Possibly toponymics ought also to be mentioned, covering cases like Vasconic substrate hypothesis and Old European hydronymy - with hydronyms (river names) being a subtype of toponyms (place names, or more generally, names of geographical features). Nø (talk) 16:11, 20 October 2026 (UTC)