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Talk:Jules Gilliéron/GA1

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GA review

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Passed. ThaesOfereode (talk) 10:11, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 08:28, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: ThaesOfereode (talk · contribs) 14:09, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]


I figured I already made some comments on this page and have some expertise on the topic. Unfortunately, you're putting me back somewhat on my goal to have written half of all GA linguist bios, but I enjoy the challenge. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:09, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, great work as usual; the following is mostly about clarity. Comments below:

Thanks for taking this on, and for your help with the article earlier. Some replies below, with more to follow. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bringing this up here since I failed to catch it earlier: the "Citizenship" section of the infobox should contain the name of the country (e.g., Switzerland), not the adjective describing it (e.g., Swiss) per WP:INFONAT:

Use a country name (e.g., "Cuba") or legal category linked to an explanatory article (e.g., "British Overseas citizen"), not a demonym (e.g., "Cuban" or "American"). Per MOS:USA, use "United States" or "U.S." or "US", not "USA".

ThaesOfereode (talk) 15:55, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hm: it's interesting that INFONAT seems inconsistent on that front (it later advises "British subject" as a possiblility, which is far closer to "Cuban" than "Cuba"), but I've made that change. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:57, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Passim

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  • I know it's (for some reason) convention not to italicize some French names (e.g., École pratique des Hautes Études), but I think we should use the {{langr}} template (which follows MOS:LANG without italicizing) for accessibility, esp page readers.
  • I might suggest translating Patois de la commune de Vionnaz (Bas-Valais) as 'Patois of the Town of Vionnaz (Bas-Valais)' since "patois" here refers specifically to Franco-Provençal rather than the French dialect (dialecte) of the region.

Biography

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  • the youngest of the four sons of Jean-Victor Gilliéron and Méry Ganty – {{nee}} here?
  • paleontologist → palaeontologist – Not 100% about this one; Wiktionary says "alternative spelling".
  • Jules's elder brother, born in 1850, was the artist and archaeological draughtsman Émile Gilliéron → Jules's elder brother Émile, born in 1850, was an artist and archaeological draughtsman – Removing the last name is a good WP:POSA cut and front loading it to the first part of the sentence avoids the WP:SOB issue.
  • He subsequently enrolled, in the winter of the same year, at the University of Basel – Not strictly speaking actionable, but why create this parenthetical before another clause? I think He subsequently enrolled at the University of Basel in the winter of the same year flows better.
  • the linguist Jules Cornu – Is this what the source calls him? My expectation is that the contemporary term would have been either Romanist/Romanticist or philologist, even if they were by our standards a linguist; the linked German page uses Romanist.
    • We don't necessarily need to use contemporary terms: we're writing for a modern audience, not a nineteenth-century one. Augustus is described as an "emperor" in his article, for example, because that's the term we use for him and people like him today. In particular, "Romanist" now usually means someone studying Roman history, so that should definitely be avoided. I think "linguist" is both accurate and the clearest option we have for the readers we're going to get. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • dialects were not monolithic and that linguistic geography – I'd link "linguistic geography" here at first mention.
  • should therefore concentrate on individual linguistic features rather than dialect groups – Like, an individual's linguistic features or singular features unique to a grouping of people? Can we clarify this a bit?
    • I don't see a reading here that makes "an individual's" more likely than "discrete", but would that clarify it? The point is that these people didn't really think "dialects" existed as meaningful units of analysis: they could talk about different isoglosses for e.g. the word "bee" ("people in village X, Y, and Z use word A, while those in U, V and W use word B"), but wouldn't extrapolate from that to saying that people spoke bounded dialects ("therefore X, Y and Z are Fooian speakers, while the inhabitants of U, V and W speak the Barian dialect"). UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think you might be a few steps ahead of me. I'm trying to ascertain what "individual" means in this context because certain linguistic literature uses "individual linguistic features" to describe language use in individual people. Given the later ambiguity of whether or not Edmont only interviewed one person in each town and the later framing of language change as psychological, it seems pertinent to disambiguate this. Is Gilliéron treating the individual towns as discrete units or idiolects? ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:35, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Here, "individual linguistic features" means individual words or variations thereof -- he wasn't trying to generate complete maps of a particular individual's idiolect. Edmont definitely did only interview one person in each town for each word (I'm fairly sure it was the same person for all the words in question, but would need to confirm that). UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:25, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Can we say "words" then? Features can encompass a wide variety of linguistic features, like tone, stress, phonotactics, etc.; if this is constrained to words alone, then let's leave it there. ThaesOfereode (talk) 23:17, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Not sure: here's the source quote:

      [to those sharing the beliefs of G. et al] it became necessary to represent and study each linguistic fact separately, abstracting oneself from those dialectical limits to which Meyer had denied any real objective existence.

      I can't see that "word" is a reasonable synonym for "linguistic fact" which, as you note, could cover more things than just words, though the ALF worked at word level. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Okay, we can leave it alone for now then. ThaesOfereode (talk) 20:08, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • where he attended from November lectures at the École pratique by Gaston Paris – Again, weird parenthetical, but I think this one is ungrammatical. You might try: where beginning in November he attended lectures at the École pratique by Gaston Paris
    • I think "ungrammatical" might not be the right word, but rather "structurally ambiguous" or perhaps just "awkward"; I originally read this as a prepositional phrase "from November lectures" (i.e., from lectures held in November) rather than an adverbial phrase (i.e., beginning in November). "On Sundays" is less ambiguous because you can't have "Sundays lectures" ("Sunday's lectures", notwithstanding). It's not really a pass or fail issue, but I think rephrasing might do this some good for readability. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:29, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • by Michel Bréal, a prominent philologist of ancient Greek → Ancient Greek – The language is a proper noun (i.e., "George studies Ancient Greek", but "George owns an ancient Greek statue"). Soft recommendation to link.
  • he also worked as a substitute professor at the Sorbonne – Are you sure this is the Sorbonne University and not a metonym for the University of Paris? The linked page is a university established in 2018.
  • Is there an inflation metric for francs? Wouldn't be surprised if not, just figured it was worth discussing.
    • I had a go at this but the code was beyond me: you have to first convert it into 2003 francs, then 2003 Euros, then contemporary dollars, and somewhere in that process the templates ended up producing nonsensical numbers. 09:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)
  • In January 1883, Gilliéron was appointed to succeed Arsène Darmesteter as a lecturer in linguistics under Gaston Paris. – Where? Also you can just say "Darmesteter" and delink since he was previous established.
  • the study of the living dialects of France – French dialects or "dialects" as in the older term meaning "languages other than the national language (e.g., Chinese "dialects")? Recommend linking Languages of France or Varieties of French as appropriate.
    • French dialects or "dialects" as in the older term meaning "languages other than the national language (e.g., Chinese "dialects")?: I mean, that's a philosophical question, isn't it? G's work covered the whole country (and some of other countries), but as we've noted, he didn't agree that you could meaningfully draw a line on a map and differentiate "French" dialects from e.g. the Langues d'oc. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • If that's the read G had, that's quite interesting since the langues d'oc were historically long cordoned off as a distinct language. No matter then; leave as is since it's not necessarily pertinent to GA. ThaesOfereode (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • he took the post of "Professor of Dialectology of Roman Gaul" – At l'École practique?
  • though Iordan later wrote – Who?
  • he was awarded the Légion d'honneur – For what? What rank?
  • and the Romanian Ioan Bianu – The Romanian what? Everyone else is marked for their specialty.

Linguistic work

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  • He required Edmont to record only the first answer given by each interviewee so as to preserve, as far as possible, the repondents' basilectal response. – Is this what the source really says? If Edmont was meeting these people for the first time and administering the questionnaire in Standard French, I'd expect the most acrolectal response the informant could muster. Is it possible that they wanted to preserve the first response (i.e., the most "base" response)? Do you have the quote available?
    • Here's the quote: The fieldworker, Edmond Edmont, was told (a) to transcribe only the first answer given by the interviewee, and (b) to avoid any “extortion” of further (multiple) responses. The challenge was therefore to elicit only the basilectal component of the multiple competence of the interviewees. I'm not sure I'm seeing exactly what the problem is here, but maybe you could suggest a solution? UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:34, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gilliéron was critical of alternative approaches which allowed multiple responses – Meaning "multiple informants" or "multiple choice answers"? If the first, a horrific scientific choice!
    • Multiple answers from the same person: e.g. "what's your word for abeille?" "Swarm-fly... ah, no, bee!" He thought that people might "correct" themselves towards a more standard response, whereas their first, instinctual response was likely to be what they "really" felt to be the correct equivalent. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:34, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • rather than, as the Neogrammarian view predicts, appearing uniformly and simultaneously – I'm not sure that's the correct view of the Neogrammarian concept. The Neogrammarians saw sound change as mechanical, not instantaneous; Brugmann would never have argued that Grimm's law occurred immediately and across all pre-Proto-Germanic speech. The focus is on sound laws being exceptionless, which their opponents ridiculed as unrealistic in the face of seeming exceptions (e.g., the history of Grimm's law before Verner's law had been accounted for) and psychological exceptions like analogical change and eggcorns. Strictly speaking, uniformity is a result of speech groups splitting. In other words, the sound changes occur and spread to others in the speech group; those who do not develop the sound changes ultimately become different languages.
    • Okay, I went back and did a little review and read part of your source too. I think the best way to think about it is that linguistic diffusion sees a linguistic landscape as a gradient, where a sound change begins with certain words and are passed around to other words based on the frequency those words occur in conversation (cf. Chen & Wang apud Philips p. 3: "a phonological rule gradually extends its scope of operation [...] until all relevant items have been transformed"), whereas the Neogrammarian sees language much more as – for lack of a better metaphor – a patch update, where sound changes affect a defined set of phonotactic constraints (e.g., k → ts / _{i, e}) occurring in the same conditions (cf. Osthoff & Brugmann apud Philips p. 1: "all words in which the sound subjected to the change appears in the same relationship are affected by the change without exception"). It looks like contemporary research are more about which is more influential in language development rather than whether one is "right" per se like it obviously used to be. I might suggest something like His work was in the early tradition of lexical diffusion, where sound changes are seen as spreading word by word in accordance with their frequency of use, against the the prevailing Neogrammarian view which argued that sound changes were mechanical events applied in particular phonotactic conditions and unlinked to their frequency of use or something to that effect. ThaesOfereode (talk) 15:51, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Looks good: I've added with only very minor tweaks. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:54, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Christos Nifadopoulos – Can we gloss this person by nationality (Greek?) and profession?

Assessment

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  • between the historical and geographic origins of a word – By geographic, do you mean borrowings?

Lead

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  • The first lead paragraph I think needs to be a "greatest hits" piece and I don't think it is. I would recommend leading with his most important contributions and importance as a contrast to the Neogrammarian movement. The second paragraph should be more about his "born in", "schooled at", "taught at", "became citizen of", etc. parts of his life and then the third paragraph should discuss his legacy overall and anything else important enough to be in the lede.
    • This is a personal/stylistic preference rather than the criteria, isn't it? MOS:LEAD is our standard for the GA review, and it merely says The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. The notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences. I don't see anything in there about what each paragraph should cover, and indeed there are plenty of GAs and FAs that adopt a variety of styles and approaches. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:18, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, I didn't mean to imply this was strictly a GA mandate. This was a softer recommendation than I think it comes across as. Other editors have recommended this to me on my GAs so I'm passing it along here. If you don't think that works for this, no problem. ThaesOfereode (talk) 23:37, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a reason two citations are in the lede? They're not necessary so long as they're in the body.
    • Citations are optional rather than banned in leads (MOS:LEADCITE). They are required immediately after a direct quotation (WP:WHEN), and no specific exemption is made for leads, so it's usual to cite direct quotations in article leads. I did the same for "has been credited as...", since I take statements like that to be implying an attribution to at least one specific person. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:18, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Apologies for the delay on this one. Beginning source review with citation numbers based on this version, using RNG to select citations, offline sources or sources in languages I can't read (i.e., Romanian) will be accepted AGF:

Great work as usual, UndercoverClassicist. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:58, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@UndercoverClassicist: If this were just the one page issue, I'd just fix it at this point, but I did have some minor things asking for your comment. Just pinging to bring attention to this so we can pass it through. ThaesOfereode (talk) 22:13, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks for the ping -- I had seen this but then promptly forgot about it! Now all done. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:29, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Great work as usual and congrats on another GA. ThaesOfereode (talk) 10:09, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comment

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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