Talk:Tabancale language

"Tabancara language" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Tabancara language has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 July 1 § Tabancara language until a consensus is reached. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 07:00, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 (talk) 16:54, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that only five words are known from the extinct Tabancale language of Peru and Ecuador?

• Source: Urban, Matthias (2024-12-31), "Small and extinct languages of Northern Peru", in Urban, Matthias (ed.), The Oxford Guide to the Languages of the Central Andes (1 ed.), Oxford University PressOxford, pp. 419–437, doi:10.1093/oso/9780198849926.003.0014, ISBN 978-0-19-884992-6, retrieved 2026-07-01

• • Reviewed: template:Did you know nominations/Nathan Webb (priest)
  • Comment: Borderline but the nature of the subject makes it impossible to write much more; prosesize gadget shows 1502 bytes of prose size; possible SOHA hook for August 9

Converted from a redirect by Kepler-1229b (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 7 past nominations.

🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 21:40, 7 July 2026 (UTC).

• @Kepler-1229b: Came here to review this, and right now DYKcheck is actually giving me 1495 characters of prose, rather than 1502 bytes (DYK works with characters, not bytes). If it is possible to squeeze out more information, that would be advisable since the article could easily be brought down further by copyediting. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:28, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: I've managed to obtain some more info, which should get it above 1500. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 05:36, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. The main concern here is that much of the article is taken up by the lede, which mostly just duplicates the body's content. I am personally fine with this; however, there are editors at DYK who believe that the lede shouldn't count towards the character count. Excluding the lede, the article is only about 1,150 characters long, which is short enough that the article would almost certainly raise scrutiny. I'm not sure if there's a way to move forward with this, whether it be to rewrite the article to make it lead-less (as some editors have done), or given how you said there's a lack of information out there, that maybe the article just isn't a good fit for DYK due to the short length and how it can't be expanded much further. For what it's worth, I don't agree with those sentiments about lede sections, but the article is short enough that the lede is disproportionately long compared to the rest of the article. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 08:56, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: I've done some more additions to the article now. This is probably the limit of what I can do content-wise. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 18:39, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

• The article was new enough at the time of the nomination. Without the lede, the article is about 1,400 characters, but because the rest of the article is now proportionately longer I'll accept it (and right now, DYK doesn't exclude the lede from the character count). A QPQ has been provided; I should note that said nomination ultimately failed due to concerns over the subject's notability, with the article ultimately being rejected. However, that is not relevant to the DYK check so that should be fine. I didn't find any close paraphrasing.

There are two issues that need resolving. The first is that I don't have access to the journal article, so I'll need the exact quote referencing the claim. Second, the article and hook don't exactly match: the lede and hook say that the language is known only from five words, but the article itself says "five words were recorded", which isn't exactly the same claim. This has to be reconciled before I can approve the hook. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:03, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: The article itself lists the five words, although other sources explicitly state this; and The Languages of the Andes Another group, the Tabancale, inhabited the village of Aconipa in an elevated area near the upper reaches of the Chinchipe river, approximately in the border area of Ecuador (province of Zamora-Chinchipe) and Peru (province of San Ignacio, Cajamarca). Five words of their language have been recorded: yema ‘water’, moa ‘maize’, oyme ‘firewood’, lalaque ‘fire’ and tie ‘house’. Their language must remain unclassified because these words do not exhibit any significant affinity with other known languages. In my opinion, "recorded" and "known from" are synonymous for all practical purposes, and the sources make no distinction. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 03:47, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

The hook is likely to be challenged at ERRORS or WT:DYK with the current wording. Maybe instead of "known from only five words", it should be something like "only five words are known" or similar phrasing? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:29, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: I've modified the phrasing of the hook slightly. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 13:59, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. However, the article still has the old wording, which still isn't supported by the quote. That needs to be adjusted too. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:40, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: Done as well. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:22, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, that should work. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:41, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Relaciones geográficas de Indias

@Kepler-1229b: I have added a documentation session to give some context at the beginning of the article. According to Torero the information about Tabancale comes from the anonymous "Relación de la tierra de Jaén" written around 1570 and published by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada in his "Relaciones Geográficas de Indias", which is available at the Internet Archive here. It might be worth quoting part or all of the section, what do you think?

Quote: "It is twelve leagues from this town of Pucare to that of Aconipa, which lies in the province of the Tabancales. It is situated on the royal road leading from this city to Valladolid and Quito; it is twenty leagues from this city [Jaén]. The language is different, for they call maize *moa*, fire *lalaque*, a house *tie*, water *yema*, and firewood *oyme*. They are held in *encomienda* by Juan de Robledillo, Rodrigo Arias de Buiza, Doña Aldonza Ramírez, and Luisa Rodríguez (an indigenous widow). They hold these *encomiendas* for a single lifetime, as has been stipulated. The natives are of the *behetría* type. They inhabit a cold region. Their land contains abundant gold. [via Google translate]" TSventon (talk) 13:43, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@TSventon Good call. I agree with adding a quote. I'll also expand the "Classification" section with those of other scholars. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 18:34, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@Kepler-1229b: I think it makes sense to start with the evidence in this case, as everything else is interpreting a single short text. I am a bit sceptical about the Tabancale being assimilated, es:Jaén (Perú)#Diego Palomino y la fundación de Jaén says en el ... censo de 1561 Jaén registra 2000 indígenas, en el de 1591 descendían a 106, but that is unsourced. TSventon (talk) 19:02, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@TSventon the standard for language articles is this specific order; the skepticism is somewhat warranted as Steward and Metraux did not provide exact evidence. A source for the quoted claim would be very nice. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 19:52, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Peer review

Tabancale language

I've listed this article for peer review because I wish to get the article to GA status; before this, I would like for any major issues to be ironed out by a review.

Thanks, 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 21:01, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

GuineaPigC77

Hi. This article seems very clear. Just a few small things.

• Pronunciation tool for the language's name?
• Documentation section: typo "partt"
• I wonder if expanding the Matthias Urban (2024) study description is possible? Perhaps show an example with "yema"?

I hope you find these short comments helpful! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 10:52, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

KevinTheCat

Agree with the above. There is nothing really wrong with this article. The only major thing that I would suggest is to combine both parts of the history section into one. I would put the sentence concerning its extinction at the end of the section, after the information on documentation so it flows better. You should also probably link Cajamarca Department and the first mention of Loukotka in the Classification section. ZKevinTheCat (talk) 12:53, 7 August 2026 (UTC)