The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Théophile Obenga#Fringe linguistic theories. Seems to be the most reasonable solution here. If a different result is desired consider nominating Théophile Obenga for deletion or nominating this redirect at WP:RFD. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:11, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Negro-Egyptian languages (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This recently created article is non-notable pseudoscience at best, and does not warrant an article per notability. But it's more likely to be a non-notable racist conspiracy theory or hoax. I redirected it for now to Pseudoscientific language comparison, but it isn't even notable enough for a rd. (And it isn't mentioned at that article.) There are also two rd's that should be deleted with this: Negro-Egyptian Language Family and Negro-Egyptian. Another linguist-editor's comments, and my response, are on the talk page. — kwami (talk) 18:28, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete (See [1] for the article prior to its being redirected.) This is a complete joke, hoax, or just plain incompetency. Anyone with a basic background in linguistics would be horrified (or amused) by the misclassifications, bizarre claims, and incoherence of the article. The hoax book "Black Civilizations of Southeast Asia (Austro-Asiatic)" comes to mind. Perhaps consider moving it to Uncyclopedia! — Stevey7788 (talk) 20:52, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I must commend the contributor for his creativity. The incredibly detailed linguistic evolution narrative in there is a true marvel. There are striking similarities with the Book of Revelation. — Stevey7788 (talk) 20:58, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2019 March 23. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 18:43, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Egypt-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 20:05, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 20:06, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Even with my superficial knowledge of linguistics, I know that this is not how languages evolve: "Rather than produce new words with every new idea or phenomenal experience, which would result in the need for an individual to exhaustively remember hundreds or even thousands of words, through an agglutinative process, the vocabulary of Negro Egyptian was able to be expanded—new words were constructed and semantically extended from a core set of words." Remembering hundreds or thousands of words is not difficult for Homo sapiens; most four-year-olds do exactly that. But winnowing the root words of the purported protolanguage down to just ten consonant-vowel pairs no doubt makes it much easier to find the kind of false cognates that pseudolinguistics rely on. And there's some really twisted logic at work (something about transposition of vowels and consonants at the ends of words) when you put Middle Egyptian and its direct descendant Coptic on different branches of the linguistic tree.

Moreover, this idea doesn't seem to be at all notable as a fringe theory. The article is kind enough to tell us exactly who is responsible for the concept: Théophile Obenga, Jean-Claude Mboli, and Asar Imhotep. Obenga is a notable fringe theorist and seems to be the origin of the term "Negro-Egyptian language family", but I see no reason that his linguistic claims merit a separate article. The details of the purported language family as described in this article seem to be the work of Mboli and Imhotep. The first section of the article body, which contains most of the linguistic substance of the article, cites nobody except the two of them. Googling shows that they have virtually no online presence except in their own self-published works and in the narrow community of Afrocentrist fringe thinkers. A. Parrot (talk) 22:01, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What I find amusing is that they think Afrocentrist pride is served by claiming that Africans don't have the mental capacity of a 4-year-old. — kwami (talk) 22:53, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fringe theorists are not exactly known for thinking through the full implications of their ideas. A. Parrot (talk) 23:06, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I didn't realize that Théophile Obenga mentions this. I'd be happy with a redirect there, though we'd need to be careful about making clear that it's pseudoscience if there's pushback per BIO.

However, as per comments on the talk page there, I doubt the bio passes WP:PROF. Should Théophile Obenga be put up for AFD? — kwami (talk) 23:20, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Thank you to User:Doug Weller for bringing this to my attention. I accepted this at AfC because it appeared to meet WP:AFCSTANDARDS. Beyond that, I offer no opinion either way. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:03, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I responded to the comments made by the editors: Talk:Negro-Egyptian_languages. I am willing to work with other editors (especially those who would make prudent, critical assessments about the content of the article and who have specialized knowledge in African linguistics) to improve the overall quality of the article in the draftspace. Obenga, Mboli, and Imhotep are proponents of "Negro-Egyptian", who are all of African descent (which makes the gross mischaracterization of the article as "racist", possibly due to an inclination to make a hasty assessment, incorrect). Obenga's and Mboli's work are in French, whereas, Imhotep's work is in English; this makes it particularly reliant on Imhotep's work. Yet, it should be noted that most of the article is arranged to reflect the revisions Mboli (2010) made to Obenga (1993). With that said, I did try to use sources from Mboli for the content in the article. Once again, I am willing to work with others to improve the overall quality of the article in the draftspace and am open to friendly, constructive criticism that can improve the overall quality of my edits. -- Daniel Power of God (talk) 19:44, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Regarding consideration of notability, Obenga (1993) and Mboli (2010) are both included in WorldCat and Stanford Libraries. Both are also referenced in the article:

• For Obenga: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2953212; https://www.worldcat.org/title/origine-commune-de-legyptien-ancien-du-copte-et-des-langues-negro-africaines-modernes-introduction-a-la-linguistique-historique-africaine/oclc/803672621&referer=brief_results.
• For Mboli: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9084221; https://www.worldcat.org/title/origine-des-langues-africaines-essai-dapplication-de-la-methode-comparative-aux-langues-africaines-anciennes-et-modernes/oclc/748366638.

Obenga is known for his participation in the UNESCO symposium: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000032875/PDF/032875engo.pdf.multi; https://books.google.com/books?id=gB6DcMU94GUC&pg=PA65&dq=%22negro-egyptian%22+language&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22negro-egyptian%22%20language&f=false; https://books.google.com/books?id=Ta0wDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA41&dq=%22negro-egyptian%22+language&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22negro-egyptian%22%20language&f=false. This is also referenced in the article.

Imhotep has also participated in DISA (Diopian Institute for Scholarly Advancement)'s Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference (2015 - https://www.diopianinstitute.org/images/Documents/27th_Program_2015.pdf; 2018 - https://www.diopianinstitute.org/images/Documents/30th_program_2018.pdf), which is also referenced in the article.

I am also willing to work with other editors to improve the overall quality of the Theophile Obenga article as well. - Daniel Power of God (talk) 11:35, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - Per Nom. AfC is not exact science and sometimes even the worse of the worse fall through the cracks. --CNMall41 (talk) 02:54, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak delete Merge Its clearly a thing, and seems to be highly notable. But it also seems as if this is (really) the work of one notable academic and polemicist (to be clear, both him and this theory are notable for being mainly a loony fringe, the stuff that gets noted when nothing else is about).Slatersteven (talk) 08:46, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Let me make this clear (as there seems to be some confusion). The only notability this has is as a silly season story linked wholly to one controversial academic. As such I vote merge with its creator (which is the only reason it is notable, it is not Independently so). Note I have change my vote to reflect this factSlatersteven (talk) 08:26, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.