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Well, we now have a language identification, the first of its kind. Other questions under that tag are (that actually are about language identification):

So, what is the community consensus on language identification questions?

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  • The second one isn't about language identification at all. It's about resource identification, which is on-topic, so long as the resource in question is related to language learning. The first question doesn't seem on-topic.
    – Flimzy
    May 2, 2017 at 19:36
  • @Flimzy That question is there since it's under the identification tag
    – Anthony Pham
    May 2, 2017 at 21:26
  • Sure, but it's not about language identification, and the tag doesn't actually suggest that it is.
    – Flimzy
    May 2, 2017 at 21:39
  • What is the purpose of the identification tag if not to identify a language? Is there a better StackExchange community to have asked the question on?
    – kojow7
    May 3, 2017 at 21:18
  • @kojow7 If these types of questions are not allowed, they will be removed and maybe burnt (destroyed)
    – Anthony Pham
    May 3, 2017 at 21:32

2 Answers 2

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No

The site is for questions about or related to the acquisition of new language(s). Clearly, identifying languages does not meet the scope as discussed in various other meta questions and as a community during private and the early stages of public beta. Thus these questions should be closed as off-topic as not being within this site's scope.

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  • There are also two important considerations: (1) the existing users are not familiar with the language identification; we are lang.teachers or lang.learners; (2) this kind of questions would barely help any future visitors: nobody would come here to find a question about the language identification.
    – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine
    May 2, 2017 at 1:11
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The first question—Does this language still exist or is it extinct?—is off-topic and would better belong on Linguistics SE, as suggested by Anthony Pham.

However, the other question—British colonial era English reader's primer—is of a different nature. It is essentially a resource request with vague data that first require identification of the resource. Resource requests for language learning are normally within scope for this site.

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  • 1
    The second question is about identifying a learning resource, which I think is perfectly fine. It's not unlike "When I was in high school, we used a Spanish text book I really liked. The cover looked like X... can someone help me identify it?"
    – Flimzy
    May 2, 2017 at 19:36
  • @Flimzy Book identifications though should not be valid. They belong in other sites like Sci-Fi and Fantasy
    – Anthony Pham
    May 2, 2017 at 21:25
  • @AnthonyPham That depends on the type of book.
    – Flimzy
    May 2, 2017 at 21:38
  • @AnthonyPham Since it was a book for language learners, I consider the second question as within site scope, even though it was not a great question. I have updated my response.
    – Tsundoku Mod
    May 3, 2017 at 9:38
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    @AnthonyPham Book identifications that relate to language learning material should absolutely be on-topic.
    – fi12
    May 4, 2017 at 20:04

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