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Archive 15←Archive 18Archive 19Archive 20Archive 21Archive 22→Archive 25

Poetry

Poetry is not mentioned in the article. seems odd to not mention it.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:06, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 September 2014

41.37.14.161 (talk) 21:06, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 21:54, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

English in the 5th Century IMPOSSIBLE and here is why below!.

All you do is tell your lies here. Engish language did not exist until the Norman's( Orginally a tribe from Scandinavia) brought it over from present day France over sometime in the late 13th century. Facts are 1. German language did not exist until 8th century!. Why see ptolemy's maps from 2nd century AD, Germania (Mostly Roman, Christians and where latin speakers and writers, and Germania Manga which includes the area's of Schleswig-Holstein ( East and northern side, Non Christians, most likey did not speak latin). Charlemange was note: First German king in mid 8th century who started the use of the German language see Monk "Abogran". So how could these Anglo Saxon mythical tribes speak OLD ENGLISH when the German language did not exist in the 5th century its IMPOSSIBLE!. Attila the hun also traveled up the Danube and then the Rhine and was killed in Gaul (France) no where near the Angles. No Huns made it that far ever, And the later Avars around the 8th and 9th century had bases in Hungary and Bulgaria. Mongols in the 13th century also never made it to Schleswig-Holstein area. Please supply some artifacts some copies of the actual documents from 1000-1500 years ago. And shame me in front of the whole world. Also the slavic tribes see http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Limes_Saxoniae. Arrived in 9th century but yes all the Germanic and Germans tribes left for Britannia in the 5th century AD. My history is not the best but I believe only two unarmed Saxon tribes arrived by ship in the city of present day Wessex around 460,470AD but Saxony is near Czech Republic?. All English old documents like the dooms day book 1066, Bede the Monk, as example are in latin, all your churches before say the 16th century where all christian and later Catholic. I could go and on but you really should know better. OLD ENGLISH. Thou shall be quite now. https://www.google.com.au/search?q=germania+magna&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=VYZ5U5ziGcnikAWAsoG4DQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=684#q=magna+germania&spell=1&tbm=isch https://www.google.com.au/#q=britannia+latin+cities+names http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/List_of_Latin_place_names_in_Britain ROMANS spoke and wrote in latin. SCHLESWIG HOLSTEIN WAS IN GERMANY MANGA they where not Christens like you!. OLD ENGLISH is mostly a latin based language — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.80.98.184 (talk) 16:35, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

"My history is not the best..." sums it up. What you, or I, believe is irrelevant. We summarise what reliable published sources say. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:48, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Silly person, "German" is not "Germanic". Try again. German is only one of the many Germanic languages. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Could someone construct a Navbox for the English language showing all major variations:

Peter Horn User talk 01:32, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Is there a good reason why Template:English dialects by continent is not sufficient? - BilCat (talk) 01:42, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
I was not aware of its existence, but now that I am, I would suggest that it appear (be added) at the end of all of the articles I listed above and any others. Peter Horn User talk 02:05, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
It's at the bottom of all those pages that you listed already. You can add to any of the other dialects listed in that box that do not have it, or I can do it. - BilCat (talk) 02:23, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
By all means go ahead. Peter Horn User talk 00:12, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Spanish

Isn't it Spanish who has the second most native speakers? --2.246.2.216 (talk) 16:02, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Map of knowledge of English

The map show Norway as having zero knowledge of English. I don't have the figures but I would estimate the level of knowledge as being similar that of Sweden.

79.78.6.131 (talk) 08:50, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Jon Dane. jon@torchcomputers.co.uk

Presenting A Neutral POV re: contributions to propagation

I've been thanked numerous times for my recent edit that has placed propagation of the English language back in to a more balanced position. Previously the paragraph on propagation suggested that 'American-dominated media and technology' was the reason for the rise of the English language when the reality is that English was already the lingua franca thanks to the leading British literary, (William Shakespeare) scientific, (Issac Newton) naval (sextant) and technological (Michael Faraday) advances over three centuries, that in the modern world English is the language of science, technology and aeronautics thanks to such luminaries as Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Alan Turing and to the likes of the BBC, the largest broadcaster in the world, as well as the large part played by the US media which deserves recognition along with the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, American and British contributions as well as nations around the world whose scientific endeavours are all premised, recorded and published in the English language. Twobells (talk) 13:39, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, the United [dubious – discuss] States takes too much credit, methinks. Furthermore, this article should reflect a NPOV, and not be wilily praising one country over another. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 15:41, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
Does anyone joining this discussion have any specific suggestions for reliable sources about the worldwide spread of English and what factors had the most to do with that spread? If we stick to the standard reliable sources about the history of the English language (and I see that some of those are already cited in this article), can't we just emphasize what the sources say and agree to leave our opinions at home? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 18:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


Number of words in English

Is this worth adding to the page?: Technically speaking, English has an infinite number of words if you include chemical terms, and the longest word is infinitely long. Amino acids (e.g. glycine, alanine) are the components of proteins, and are certainly considered words - look them up in any dictionary. Small proteins (called peptides) are strings of these, and can be named: glycylalanine, if you string the two above-mentioned together. This gives rise to an infinite number of peptide names, unless you want to set an arbitrary limit on how long a peptide can be. To take small example, insulin is made up of 51 amino acids. You could name it properly as Glycy-isoleucyl-valyl... etc for 48 more amino acids; which is why we call it just "insulin". But we can give names to ALL of the possible peptides 51 amino acids long. Using the 26 common amino acids, this gives us 26^51, or over 10 to the 71st names. That's about the number of atoms in our galaxy. For proteins, which are large peptides, the number of names is of course larger. Jnfrancis9 (talk) 02:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

This has come up a lot before... You might like to type "number of words" into the Archive search field and read through what you find before we go further. Garik (talk) 15:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

If more than 52,000 Greek words have been incorporated into the English language, should not the "Hellenic" % be higher, i.e., around 40%? 58.165.33.165 (talk) 07:18, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know where the 52,000 number comes from, but *no* estimate of the number of English words is anywhere near as low as 130,000 (40% of which is 52,000). The 7% number given in the article would imply an English vocabulary of about 740K words, which is in the middle of several estimates given in English language#Number of words in English. Rwessel (talk) 08:35, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
misplaced text dump
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

By Aikaterini Spanakaki-Kapetanopoulos. Greek is undoubtedly a language of special importance that has been used for centuries to express and refine philosophical and scientific concepts. It is not by chance that the international scientific language has formed, and continues to form, many of its terms by borrowing Greek root words. While all languages lend and borrow words, it appears that the Greek language has contributed an extraordinarily large number of important words of to modern languages. The English language and international scientific terminology contain a more than hundred and fifty thousand Greek words. According to a research conducted by Mr. Aristidis Konstantinidis, the English language and international scientific terminology contain a more than hundred and fifty thousand Greek words. His study, which took 28 years to complete, led to the conclusion that one out of four English words is of Greek origin. Lexicographic research shows that Greek is the language of sciences and literature in the English language. According to Mr. Konstantinidis, research on the effect of the Greek language on European vocabulary revealed that, in 1991, French contained 1250, and German 1450 words of Greek roots. Modern English contains words from Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Thukydides, Homer, Hesiodos, and Galinos. The effect of the Greek language is recognized in the European vocabulary and especially in the English language, but has not yet been systematically studied. Research done on the French and German languages has shown that there were about 1500 Greek root words included in dictionaries, which is quite a misleading figure. Scientists recognize the fundamental role Greek language has played in forming the vocabulary in their fields, but they do not have an overall picture of the effect on other scientific fields. In Greece, the importance of Greek root words that have been borrowed by other languages is underestimated due to lack of knowledge and systematic work. All words that have been recorded by Mr. Konstantinidis in his research are words that Englishmen and Americans recognize in their dictionaries as words of Greek origin. The research therefore, has not been based on personal interpretations of etymology. Moreover, a number of dictionaries, except for the Oxford dictionary, identify many words as being of Latin roots, disregarding the fact that some Latin roots may actually come from Greek. E.g., the word "electric" (electricity), is reported as coming from the Latin "electrum," however, without mentioning that this word, in turn, comes from the Greek "electron" (amber) or "kechrimpari." The Oxford Dictionary includes 10,500 Greek words, which constitute 21,6% of the dictionary. Ancient Greek words, that were loan words from Persian, such as the word "agaria" (chore) or Hebrew words, such as "satanas" (satan), have not been included in the study. It's worth mentioning that according to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, the English language has borrowed 57 words from Turkish and 34 words from all Slavic languages. Greek, however, has contributed 41,614 words. Both English and international terminology uphold and respect Greek rules and tradition. Ηistorical spelling, complex consonants or consonant clusters are often maintained to a great extent, despite the fact that they are not pronounced. The Greek letter [ψ] is given as [ps], Greek plurals are sometimes maintained despite the fact that they represent a difficulty for foreigners. E.g., the word "Ipatitis" (hepatitis), maintains the Greek plural, hepatitides, phenomenon-phenomena, criterion-criteria, phalanx-plalanxes etc. Moreover, grammatical rules are also maintained, as for the creation of complex words. As regards dasia-accented words (Greek polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek) the English letter H is added. For instance, there are 23,000 dasia-accented words in medicine alone, and 11,000 in zoology. Denying the Greek etymology of words in Western languages does a disservice both to those languages and to Greek. It carries the risk that future generations will not recognize words of Greek roots and their importance. Consequently, neglecting the Greek cultural heritage can lead to denial of Greek identity. Those who advocate the replacement of the Greek alphabet (another Greek word) by the Latin alphabet, do not realize that this would lead to going back to ancient Greek and polytonic system. But why the English chose Greek to borrow from? First, it is the wealth of Greek words that provides the possibility of selecting among synonyms in order to express oneself adequately and with conceptual precision. It's not by chance what Americans say when in need of a specialized or precise term, that "the Greeks have the word for it." Second, it is the plasticity of the words from which many derivatives can be produced. In medical terminology, 394 basic words produce 17,000 derivatives. It is not by chance that Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, the well-known French chemist, used Greek in order to name many chemical elements such as chlorine. It is the magic of history and etymology. Behind a word there is often hidden an entire history, as all the simplicity of the Spartans' life is hidden in the word laconic, . Greek is characterized as the language of sciences, since words that do exist in English, are replaced by Greek words when they are used in the context of scientific terminology, e.g. the science of deserts in known as erimology, from the Greek word "erimos." It can be agreed that there is disconnect between demotic and literary language. The literary language is populated to a great extent by Greek words either for reasons of prestige or because it's a centuries-old tradition. English is becoming the modern language of science, and some countries such as France, Sweden and Italy are trying to resist this trend. Yet, most countries use English terms, and therefore Greek vocabulary has infiltrated in many Latin-based languages through English. Although Greece is a small country geographically (Greek word "geographia" meaning geography), it is so rich in history and culture that it has affected much of the world. The Greek language has followed a dynamic course as it infiltrated numerous languages. The Greek language is an element of cultural heritage of Western civilization and a priceless treasure for Greeks and non-Greeks to be proud of.


Bibliography Babiniotis G. (1998) "Lexicon of Modern Greek", Lexicology Center: Athens, Greece. Konstantinidis, A. (2006) "The Universal Reach of the Greek Language", ISBN 960-90338-2-2. Athens: self-published.1.121.171.185 (talk) 03:24, 9 March 2015 (UTC)1.121.171.185 (talk) 03:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Top-importance, B-class article

Hello, everyone,

I've begun watchlisting this article and following all the recent changes, after occasional visits over the last few years, to see what can be done to improve this article from B class to a good article, and then to a featured article, in view of its top importance for several WikiProjects and high number of page views. What do all of you who have been here longer recommend as a path forward for improving this article? What sources do you recommend that we obtain from libraries or other channels to look at as article edits continue? What aspects of the article's content most need updates and expansions? I've read several of the standard reference books about the English language over the years (I was a student of other languages and of linguistics as an undergraduate, and later a teacher of English to speakers of other languages in various places), and I'd be glad to bring more into my office to check as edits proceed. What resources should we have at hand to improve the content quality of this article? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 18:12, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I've read back a few years in the archives of this article's talk page, and have read the previous reviews of the article from featured article and good article nominations and from the editor-requested peer review (which received a very helpful reply). It seems to me that there are a lot of ways this article could be improved almost immediately simply by referring to the sources already mentioned in this article's bibliography and double-checking the various article sections for accuracy and completeness. I've been looking for other sources at libraries of popular books and academic books already. Let's try to bring up the article to at least good article status. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
Repeating a question asked earlier today intended to reduce edit wars here. Do we have a source that uses the term "national language" with consistency, for editing this article? Looking back on the persistent editorial disputes that have plagued this article for years, a lot of them appear to revolve around the term "national language" and which countries can be designated as having English as a "national language." But actual linguists who research issues like this hardly ever use that term, but rather distinguish "predominant language" or "majority language" (which can be fairly well defined for many countries with regard to use of English) and "official language" (which is also a more definable, and source-available, term). Why use the term "national language" in this article at all? What reliable source uses that term? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 01:40, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
I've begun doing a careful line-by-line read through the whole article, checking references as I go, and updating the citation format of the references as I verify the references. I can already see that the 2012 peer review of this article was very thorough in identifying things to fix in the article. I'll take on my favorite task, which is finding, verifying, and updating bibliographic references for the article, and I of course welcome all editors who enjoy raising the standard of Wikipedia articles to join in here in updating this top-importance article about the English language. I was quite astounded when I discovered that English language has been a top importance article for years for more than one WikiProject without gaining even a "good article" quality rating. Let's build on the basis of the good work of earlier editors on this article and refer to reliable sources to balance out its treatment of different subtopics and make it more coherent and organized. I'd be very happy to nominate this article for good article review, with other Wikipedians getting the credit for making the major improvements, as this article improves during the coming year. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 20:48, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 December 2014

English is not the national language of Ireland.

213.165.168.221 (talk) 13:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Not done: Evidence being? Cannolis (talk) 13:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Do we have a source that uses the term "national language" with consistency, for editing this article? Looking back on the persistent editorial disputes that have plagued this article for years, a lot of them appear to revolve around the term "national language" and which countries can be designated as having English as a "national language." But actual linguists who research issues like this hardly ever use that term, but rather distinguish "predominant language" (which can be fairly well defined for many countries with regard to use of English) and "official language" (which is also a more definable, and source-available, term). Why use the term "national language" in this article at all? What reliable source uses that term? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Evidence being the Irish constitution.
Yes, the sentence is problematic with regard to all the countries it mentions. I was expecting (and invited) discussion of the term "national language" in the context of this article after a recent round of edits. I have specifically invited a couple of the editors involved in the series of edits to identify reliable sources on the topic by questions posted to their user talk pages. I have meanwhile been looking up sources myself. The earlier suggestion by another editor in that series of edits to look at an official publication of the United States Census was very helpful, as that reminded me that most English-speaking countries have an official census survey that includes information about language use in the country. I note that none of those sources refer to English as the "national language" of any country. Therefore, in agreement with the Wikipedia no original research policy, I will revert the unsourced, dubious statement in article text about English being a "national language." Of course I continue to invite editors to discuss sources for this article here, and I hope in the next several days to add more sources to the article, which I have been checking line-by-line to verify that links haven't gone dead and that the sources say what the article text claims they say. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 20:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Treatment of grammar

The section on grammar is rather short given its central place in language, and is totally unreferenced. I could possibly look into doubling its size and adding refs. Tony (talk) 07:45, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

We have separate articles on English grammar and the like. What is listed here on this page is just a succinct summary of some of that information. There is no need to lengthen what is given on this page for the grammar section. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 11:56, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
The good article review for this article, written by an experienced Wikipedian with much background in linguistics who has developed several Wikipedia articles into good articles or featured articles, is a helpful guide to what to improve in this article. Check what he says about the grammar section in the good article review. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:30, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
If you want to include unnecessary information here that is already included on other pages and in consequence clutter up the article so that it is less accessible to some users, go ahead. I won't stop you. I would highly recommend against doing so, however, as it is unnecessary. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:16, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
There is a standard way here on Wikipedia to use summary style to point from topics to subtopics. For an article with a name like "English language," almost everything about English might be on topic--but that is why no one subtopic should take up too much space in the article. For each subtopic section or subsection, we are of course allowed to use the main article template to let people know that there is a longer article on English phonology, a longer article on Old English, and so on. What might be instructive for the editing process here is to look at professionally edited reference books about languages of the world that devote a few pages to each major language, to get some sense of what is distinctive about English among human languages, and how much space to devote to grammar (the issue here) or phonology or whatever. This should be something that editors interested in improving this article to good article status and eventually featured article status should find pleasant to do collaboratively, referring to reliable sources along the way. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:55, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. The amount of depth and smatch wordstock-wise that English has in comparison to other Germanic languages, the way that English has evolved, the position of English in the world as in comparison to other Germanic languages are all interesting things worth considering finding sources for if you want to expand what is already here, in my opinion.
I will say, though, that I am not concerned about whether this article becomes featured or not. What matters to me is whether or not it is an article that is useful, helpful, factual and pleasant to read ("pleasant" as in "not harrowing the mind just to go about reading"). "Featured articles" are great, but I'm more concerned with the quality and richness of the article itself as a whole rather than if it complies with the stringent standards required for featured articles nowadays.
That said, if the edits that you wish to make contribute to the overall quality and richness of this article, then I not only support, but am willing to assist, in your making of those edits. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 01:15, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
I don't agree with a word Tharthandorf says concerning the grammar section. It is most inadequate given the relative treatment of the other sections (particularly the lexis) in this summary style. "If you want to include unnecessary information"—that's the cart before the horse. Tony (talk) 08:04, 13 December 2014 (UTC) I think the way to ration additional info on grammar in summary style (for rationed it must be) is to focus on the distinctive elements of English grammar—only a few, and a mention with an example, possibly, and a ref. I've dug up three authoritative sources. Might take a few days to write a draft additional paragraph. Tony (talk) 08:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
What, exactly, is "distinctive" of English grammar in comparison to other Germanic languages that isn't already included in this page that is warranted to be included in this page? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 13:44, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
I have a slightly different complaint. Grammar, in standard linguistic usage, includes phonology. What's meant here is English syntax and morphology. Garik (talk) 15:25, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

The linguistic map, at the bottom of the summary, shows a light blue for areas where other native languages are spoken, yet it shows only Celtic languages, with Scots absent. Given that it is present on lists/graphics for the Germanic, West Germanic, Anglo-Frisian, and many more pages on language, this is a noticeable discrepancy, which I should think warrants at least a mention of Scots' absence, if not the graphic's removal. Though, its keeping seems difficult to justify - for surely there are numerous graphics on native tongue throughout the British Isles that would include Scots?

Secondly, in the "related languages" section, the most pertinent linguistic entities - the English languages - are mentioned off-handedly in brackets. For what purpose? The creoles would be suitable for such a hushed inclusion/reference, but the English languages are the most closely related "full" languages to English, so it's an egregious fault of style for them to be presented in this manner, while the more distant Frisian languages are the first to be directly discussed. 94.253.209.255 (talk) 14:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

What reliable source do you suggest that we check to clear up how to present this information? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:01, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The linguistic map, at the bottom of the summary, shows a light blue for areas where other native languages are spoken, yet it shows only Celtic languages, with Scots absent. Given that it is present on lists/graphics for the Germanic, West Germanic, Anglo-Frisian, and many more pages on language, this is a noticeable discrepancy, which I should think warrants at least a mention of Scots' absence, if not the graphic's removal. Though, its keeping seems difficult to justify - for surely there are numerous graphics on native tongue throughout the British Isles that would include Scots?

Secondly, in the "related languages" section, the most pertinent linguistic entities - the English languages - are mentioned off-handedly in brackets. For what purpose? The creoles would be suitable for such a hushed inclusion/reference, but the English languages are the most closely related "full" languages to English, so it's an egregious fault of style for them to be presented in this manner, while the more distant Frisian languages are the first to be directly discussed. 83.131.87.163 (talk) 14:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

22 and 23 December 2014 edits on diplomatic use of English

Here: "English surpassed French as the dominant language of diplomacy during by the twentieth century."—"During" changed to "by". And there was no ref in any case. Are you sure this is true, Rwessel? Tony (talk) 12:49, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for raising the question. Does anyone else have sources at hand? I have Crystal (2003) English as a Global Language immediately at hand as I type this. The question here, of course, is not whether or not the replacement of French by English as the "dominant language of diplomacy" happened, but when it happened, right? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:47, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
No I'm not sure, but on reflection "during the twentieth century" is probably more likely. The original text was "English surpassed French as the dominant language of diplomacy during by the twentieth century." which is clearly incorrect. That was changed to just during, then reverted back to during by, and then I changed it to by. I should have probably just reverted that back to during. But yes, this is not adequately sourced. Rwessel (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
I think yet earlier the article text said that the surpassing had been completed by the end of the nineteenth century, but anyway I'll check some sources before I touch the article text again. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:48, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
"By" indicates a boundary by which time it had happened, completely: 1 January 1901. "During" leaves much much more wriggle room. "During the first half of the 20th century" would be my guess, without even consulting the sources. Tony (talk) 06:04, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I would say English eclipsed French as the language of diplomacy only in the second half of the 20th century. Per this source English reached parity with French at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. DeCausa (talk) 08:10, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
The setting up of the united Nations appears to be the turning point as far as I can see from the sources. Suggest:"English achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of the United Nations after World War II, English's position had become pre-eminent.[2][3][4]"
I've gone ahead and added it in - obviously revert if anyone disagrees. DeCausa (talk) 10:08, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for finding and citing sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:04, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

30 December 2014 edits on spread and historical development of English

  • "In addition to native words inherited from Anglo-Saxon and those borrowed from Norman French"—was Anglo-Saxon a language? An expert might say "Anglo-Friesian", although in the lead that term hasn't yet been explained. Thoughts, anyone? Could be just "Old English"? Tony (talk) 12:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

    Oh, and should it be "from the 17th to mid-20th centuries" or "... century"? I've been slapped for using the plural in such an expression, and I can't remember the reasoning, although it seemed sound I recall. Tony (talk) 12:25, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

    Also, this is not clear (at least to me): "With the exception of exit (a Modern English borrowing), Middle English had already distanced itself from other Germanic languages, having the terms wharf, schift (="shift"), and wending for "change"". So "wharf" and "schift"/"shift" as opposed to what equivalents in the other Germanic languages? The last is the only one to have that comparison—so this is a bit confusing. Tony (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

On the first point, citation no. 2 in the Old English article appears to have a quote from David Crystal to the effect that "Anglo-Saxon" continues to be in use as a synonym for "Old English". Anglo-Frisian, on the other hand, is the broader language classification that includes both modern English and the modern Frisian languages as well as their historic predecessors. It isn't a synonym for "Old English". DeCausa (talk) 14:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Btw, I don't think "substrate" is the right word here - they simply came from Old English/Anglo-Saxon which is of course a Germanic language. DeCausa (talk) 15:14, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
"Substrate" was just off the cuff—but I don't see why it's not ideal, given that in the viewpoint there is back from the addition of non-Germanic layers to the vocabulary centuries later. The Old English basis of the lexis remains to this day as a substrate: of the 100 most frequently used items in the spoken language, I don't think any are not from the Germanic origins. However, I'm not glued to the use of "substrate" if people really don't like it. Tony (talk) 07:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
"Substrate" is where a lower status language is replaced by an incoming higher status language but leaves a residue behind. That isn't what happened with English: the indigenous survived the higher status incoming language, and it was the incoming language that disappeared leaving behind the residue: it's a case of superstrate i.e. Norman, not substrate, I think. DeCausa (talk) 12:02, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Do you have a source for the supposition that substrate refers to lower- vs higher-status languages? My dictionary doesn't say that. Tony (talk) 12:31, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
This gives a definition, and aslo says that English's substrate is Celtic and its superstrate is French. DeCausa (talk) 12:46, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
DeCausa—OK, a pity, but you're right, best to avoid technical ambiguity. Going to bed. Will fix these things. Tony (talk) 15:39, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for the thoughtful process in view here of considering each change in article wording carefully and seeking out sources calmly in discussion with other editors. You will see that I have added more informative section headings to each main part of the discussion for future reference as editors search the talk page archives. This process of checking sources will do much to improve the article. Here just now, I'll note, after reading a recent edit summary, that numerals are neither mandatory nor preferred in referring to centuries by the Wikipedia Manual of Style. What has happened over the years, I think, is that the examples in the Manual of Style and the practice we see in articles on Wikipedia has been too heavily influenced by the typing habits of people who try to save keystrokes rather than match the practice of the best printed reference books. I think that in every dead-tree manual of style you consult, you will find plenty of support for writing "nineteenth century" or "twentieth century" when referring to historical time periods, and little support for writing either term with numerals in a scholarly context. Making the style uniform in this whole article, which is definitely preferred article by article under Wikipedia's style rules, is a simple matter of find-and-replace in the article text, I think. Feel free to let me know about any style manual for the English language published in the last one hundred years that has preferred anything other than spelled-out words to designate centuries. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Plenty. Historians tend to prefer spelling them out, but so what. In this article, a clear majority are in numerals, and there's no reason to go with the minority. As for the theory that numerals are used by preferance by lazy typists—please. Tony (talk) 07:47, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
This is a genuine question. The issue of how to write out century names first came up for me while editing another article for which I had been relying on sources in which the term "twentieth century" was spelled out in words in direct quotations I was including in references for verification. I noted that another Wikipedian, for whom I have very high regard as a subject matter expect on that subject, switched the entire article, including the direct quotations, over to "20th century," so I looked up the relevant section of the Wikipedia Manual of Style, and found that neither style is mandatory on Wikipedia. (Presumably, it is helpful for a given article to be consistent about having one style or the other, as you have kindly suggested.) User:Tony1, when you replied above, "Plenty," I was hoping the next sentence would name at least one or two examples of style guides that comment on the issue. I have two style guides from my days as a professional editor immediately at hand, and indeed one (for academic writing) tells me to always write out century names as lower-case spelled-out words unless the designation occurs as part of a proper name. The other (for news service writing) says to spell out century numbers from one to ten, and to use numerals for larger numbers, consistent with that guide's more general style advice for numbers, again with an exception for proper names. (The classic example of a proper name with a numerical designation for a century is 20th Century Fox. I'm just curious. I've read Steven Pinker's book The Sense of Style recently, and he reports that a researcher who actually looked into the matter found that rule books for English grammar, usage, and style have remarkably little agreement among one another in what they advise. (I'll have to check the source he cites to follow up on that more.) You'll note that I haven't reverted per the bold, revert, discuss cycle here, but rather turned first to discussing. I think that will have to be the process here for editing this article. Let's keep discussing, let's keep looking things up, let's check and double-check sources, and let's make sure to provide rationales for editorial decisions as we go along so that readers who are prompted to commit the next edits when they see a "mistake" know how to check whether or not it's really mistake. Have a happy new year. See you on the wiki. P.S. What Google Ngrams Viewer says on the issue is not definitive for us, but it is suggestive of what the general practice of professional editors of English-language books has been.[5] -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:47, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Weiji, I just noticed your post: my linked name didn't come through the echo system. I think if you type ping|username, within double curlies, it will register on echo—let me try it: @WeijiBaikeBianji:. I'll consult a few style guides, but the fact that this article is inconsistent suggests we should decide at some stage which one. I'm certainly in the numerical camp, unless there's a good reason to expand (and we are a little short on space, especially given my plan to add some very summary facts about the distinctive aspects of English grammar). I didn't much like the one language book of Pinker's I've read (too lazy to go upstairs to find the title). Too much of a Hallidayan, perhaps I am. Tony (talk) 12:30, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
@Tony1:, thanks for your thoughtful comments, and thanks for showing me markup that works to generate a ping (as your reply to me did). I thought that my next step over on this article would be to list out some more sources I found on my last few runs to my alma mater university library. I like how the editing process here is grappling with a variety of ways to improve the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:13, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
  • "the language has become more analytic"—I don't challenge this, but it needs a reference. Also, it doesn't say since when. I'll look into this, but if others know the answers already, please ... Tony (talk) 12:36, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I just went into edit-mode to add a reference, and found a horrifically complicated referencing system (never my strong point). And why do the refs at the top start "6" and "7"? Strange. Tony (talk) 12:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I haven't said so before, but generally I find that this article is pretty good—there's much to like about it, so the editors have been doing a fine job. I do find that the strong lexical emphasis suggests that more balance is required in the treatment of the grammar. There's an awful lot of detail beneath each of the phonetic charts: if there's a space problem, I think this and a few other bits might be reviewed for their length. Did I see talk above of putting this to FAC at some stage? It's within reach, I think, in the next six to twelve months.

    I've self-reverted "substrate" to the previous "from Anglo-Saxon", per @DeCausa:'s source above. @WeijiBaikeBianji:, I was about to change my "19th century" back to "nineteenth century", but surveyed the article for other spelled-out century-numbers, expecting to find a mix—aside from that example, every single one is a numeral. It's no big deal for me, but it will mean changing from one style to another throughout. It might be good to seek a little more editorial opinion on it (I tried your ngram with opening prepositions to try to exclude book, chapter, and section titles from the search—still a majority are spelled out).

    On the lack of a reference for the claim that "the language has become more analytic", I went to the en.WP article, linked to at that spot in the text here: it's seriously underreferenced itself, and what's there isn't useful. So I've added a ref (85) from an item in the bibliography at the bottom (McArthur's Oxford Companion), and toned down the claim to evolution for the moment. Tony (talk) 14:06, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

  • @Tony1:, agreed with you that this article is built on a strong foundation, and there are several active editors here who have much (more than I) to contribute to building it up to a good article and then a featured article. I became more aware of this article's revision history and previous good article reviews and peer review when I noticed how high it is in page views. I'm very optimistic that the last peer review (by Maunus, who writes good articles about other topics related to linguistics and languages) can be used as a checklist for improving this article at least to good article status. The suggestions Maunus had are along the lines of what you see as overemphasis and underemphasis in the article, Tony. On the typing habit of "19th century" versus "nineteenth century," I'm so used to how I type that I may not change, but I will also by editor consensus accept the article being in British spelling, so I will not mind if other editors change article text I contribute here to "19th century" for dates and to British spelling for spelling. I became convinced by your rationale above that this article is so long that saving keystrokes is a genuine consideration, so I'll go with numerical century designations here. My next editorial tasks on this article will be 1) adding new reliable sources to the article's bibliography, and 2) making the inline references consistent with an inline reference style that is documented in a user page by user RexxS, which I have used to great success in the article IQ classification. I agree with you that the inline references can be much more user-friendly and fellow-editor-friendly. I'm glad to see that we have a collaborative path forward here for improving the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:15, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Bianji (is that your short-form name?), any moves to make the edit-mode ref syntax more concise would be much appreciated. I seem to be seeing two systems mapped onto each other—one for repeat citations of the same text. I quail at learning how to do it, and I'm coming up to my 10th anniversary as an editor. :-) Tony (talk) 05:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Article improvement in the new year (2015)

Just yesterday I received by interlibrary loan a circulating copy of the massive Cambridge Grammar of the English language (2002), and I intend to use that to check and update this article. I also discovered with joy that new online access I have includes access to the multivolume Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed., 2006), which includes many helpful articles about most aspects of the English language. I'll be able to dig into its articles to update the bibliography of the Wikipedia article here and to maintain this article for years to come. To reply to a question from @Tony1:, I'm not sure myself what reference styles have been used for this article before, but I have produced documentation for a reference style that I find very helpful for bringing articles up to good article status (I've seen it done) with a reference format that is clear to readers and collaborative for editors. I hope throughout this year to update references (mostly) while deferring to other editors (for the most part) in updating article text, so that after some reasonable number of months this article becomes much improved, and is recognized as much improved (even if I get no credit) through the Wikipedia good article review process. (Then going for featured article review would be a good follow-up step.) I see several editors have been making good improvements to this article since I put it on my watchlist a couple months ago, so let's keep up the good work, and see how for the journey can proceed. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I've been checking references for this article exhaustively. Now I've begun unifying the reference format, linking to documentation of that format at the very top of the article, at the beginning of the references list, and at the beginning of the bibliography with an HTML comment. For a while, all I will be doing to the article is verifying, updating, and unifying the references. I'll try to track changes introduced by any other editor in an off-wiki draft of the whole article, so feel free to tinker with the article in the interest of improving it as time goes by. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:21, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Having now checked the WikiProject Languages template for articles on spoken languages, I'll begin moving around sections of this article to fit the typical section order of other Wikipedia articles on languages of the world. At first, that won't involve much change in article text, but that will help identify which sections need to be expanded and improved with new references (Grammar, undoubtedly) and which need to be trimmed, by moving existing content into existing subarticles (Lexis, undoubtedly, per both previous reviews of this article). I'm trying to make these changes step by step, in the interest of the convenience of readers who read this article to compare English to other world languages, and in the interest of being collaborative with all of the rest of you who desire to improve this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:50, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Revision of stress

Recent changes by Erutuon have greatly improved the phonetics/phonology coverage in this article. I feel, though, that the role of pitch prominence in signalling stress is still rather underplayed. Wells (2006) says "... differences of stress in English are largely signalled by pitch movements ..." (p. 3), and many other writers on English phonetics/phonology agree. RoachPeter (talk) 15:33, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I've recently been reading about pitch accent, and I was surprised to find out that's correct: English is in some sense pitch-accented as well as stress-timed. (This contrasts with Ancient Greek, which was pitch-accented and mora-timed.) Regrettably I don't know that much about pitch in English, and pitch seems a difficult topic, so I wonder if it's even possible to briefly describe how it works. Being a native speaker doesn't really give me any special insight on this. — Eru·tuon 23:36, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Please tell us more about the source "Världens 100 största språk 2010"

I see a recent edit has restored a link, [6] which every time I try to follow it leads to a log-in page with no particular indication of what is behind the logging-in. How might most of us verify this source? More generally, what is the best sense among the linguists watching this page about where one can best go for the underlying fact to report on Wikipedia, namely the number of native speakers of English? The differing estimates I see for various languages in various sources suggest that this is hardly an exact science, while some talk page discussions I've seen before suggest that some sources enjoy more regard than others for answering this question about different languages. Please discuss. I'm happy to look up the sources you recommend. I can't seem to drill down yet to the "Världens 100 största språk 2010" webpage, but I'm sure that will be easy enough for me to read once I can access it. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:51, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I see Maunus has removed the link to this source from the article infobox. I have not yet been able to verify this source, even when logged in at a major library's computer system. I think the source does not make credible comparisons between major languages (I speak Mandarin, another language mentioned in the source), so I am happy to see this source omitted from this article. But since another editor reinserted the source in the infobox earlier, I hope he will join talk page discussion here before doing that again. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm still tracking changes and verifying references

I was at my favorite university library today, returning some books I checked out for the Edit-a-Thon in my town last weekend and checking out some books about English cited in this article. I'll continue to verify all the references and keep the bibliography current with what's actually used as sources in the article. For the Phonology section, I strongly recommend the article Lass 2000 "Phonology and Morphology" from the Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 3 (already cited in this article) as a very thorough source that was won a lot of praise (and citation) from subsequent authors. As of today, I have the full text of that article at hand in my office. I'll trim away from the bibliography some references that I see have been removed in the latest rounds of chopping out extra verbiage. I'll probably eventually rely on the Crystal 2003 Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (which I now own) to double-check all the factual statements in the article and add in references for summary statements. Keep up the good work; this article will improve very nicely with so much collaborative editorial work on it that includes actually reading the sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:13, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the Lass chapter is about the development from Middle to Early Modern English though - not contemporary English.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:33, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Count me in for updating Geographical distribution and Vocabulary. I see that the article references continue to be a moving target, which is to be expected as several editors work on it diligently, but on my latest library run (yesterday), I was able to use the library's computers to view this article as it was at that moment, and to check out some more books for verifying some article statements, while getting downloads of some other cited sources. I see that the Geographical distribution section needs a top-to-bottom rewrite, with much improved sourcing, which I am happy to do. I will further keep checking the vocabulary section, which has been helpfully trimmed, but feel free over the next few days to trim it some more. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:38, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
The best source for vocabulary I think is the chapter by Dieter Kastovsky in Denison & Hogg 2006. For geographical distribution I want to separate out the dialects and varieties section to form its own section, which I would very much like to write in the main, before others chip in. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:44, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Speaker data

@WeijiBaikeBianji: reverted my edit with the edit summary "second-language user use of English is what makes English distinctive among major world languages". However, I didn't remove the second-language data from the info box, but the foreign-language data. I'm not convinced that English is distinctive in this regard from, say, French, Spanish, Italian, German, or Arabic, all of which have huge numbers of FL learners that never become L2 speakers. If we're going to give that number for English, it would only be fair to provide the numbers for other languages commonly learned in schools in their info boxes. — kwami (talk) 23:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

What relevant definitions are we talking about here for each category? What I have in mind (what I expect would be of interest to readers of this article all over the world) is the question, if I know this language, however acquired, to given level of proficiency, how many people can I talk to around the world? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:11, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Regardless of whether you are convinced the sourced give figures for L2 and Foreign language speakers in their statistical summaries, and I think it is highly unlikely that any other language has 6-700 foreign language speakers. No good reason to exclude the number that I can see. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 00:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Why wouldn't readers of other language articles be interested in the same thing for those languages? The ration of FL learners to native speakers of French or Arabic is probably comparable to that of English. Maybe those of other languages too. So why only indicate this for English? What I'm worried about is a bias toward English because this is English WP. — kwami (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
That is irrelevant, if the data exists for those languages and sources mention it prominently then it can be added. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 00:24, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
As Maunus says, perhaps second and foreign language learning should be mentioned in more articles. It's notable if some languages are learned more commonly than others; it indicates something about the language, its cultural, religious, or technological importance, or the fact that people want to visit the country where it's spoken. Religious importance is true in the case of Arabic. I guess some factors relating to English are colonialism, ubiquity of American media, and the development of the internet. As the factors relating to language learning are worth mentioning, so also is the number of language learners. — Eru·tuon 01:32, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Edits

Maunus, nice work.

I noticed this: "The change from Middle English was also carried by the expanding influence of the Chancery standard. This variety was developed at the court of Westminster in the 15th century and spread to the surrounding areas from 1450, with a further push of influence from the introduction of printing in London in 1470."

The pre-existing "carried by" could be unclear. What about "was influenced by", since the type/direction of influence seems clear from the context?

"with a further push of influence" – unsure about the level of formality in "push"; might be ok, but "push of influence" doesn't seem right. What about "reinforced by"? Tony (talk) 04:26, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

No problem, I'll change that. By the way feel free to tweak my wordings when you find anything like that. I am not particular about that kind of thing unless it affects accuracy.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 04:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, continued very good work here by Maunus. I was away from typing yesterday, but today I'll try to put the final push on for gathering all of the (now trimmed) list of references for the article, and then I will note which references I have at hand in full text. I will bear in mind Maunus's comment about giving a second look to fine points of wording as the thorough content edits continue. Keep up the good work, and congratulations to all on the collaborative editing atmosphere. I had hoped for this article to become a good article by the end of the calendar year, but it looks like that schedule is now considerably accelerated. I'll make another library run within a week for yet more sources, and have two good sources coming just now by interlibrary loan. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
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