Talk:English language/Archive 26

Semi-protected edit request
please change: Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the coast of the North Sea, whose languages are now known as the Anglo-Frisian subgroup within West Germanic. to: Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the coast of the North Sea, whose languages are now known as English, Frisian and Low Saxon. (the Dutch Low Saxon dialects are dialects of the North Sea continuum too)Aaron1976 (talk) 08:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * ❌. We need a reliable source. Please see WP:RS for more.  City O f  Silver  08:33, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The current claim can't have a reliable source either because it's wrong.Aaron1976 (talk) 08:53, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Nevertheless, we still need a reliable source for changing it. If the current text were blatantly wrong and unsourced, we could just remove it, but you appear to be suggesting more that it's incomplete. Please find a good source for the change you want to see. (The Anglo-Frisian languages article is tagged for inadequate sourcing, and I was unable to verify what you said by looking for a source used in that article.) Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   17:52, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Anglo-Saxon vs. French influence
I just read this very interesting research about the origin of the vocabulary of English. It turns out that the most commonly used words in English have an Anglo-Saxon origin, whereas less commonly used words tend to have a French and Latin influence more often. Unfortunately the Wikipedia article is protected, but maybe someone else wants to add this interesting result into this article in the future. 80.71.142.166 (talk) 21:01, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * While interesting, it's basically a blog, and not scholarly research either, which is what is needed for a language article. - BilCat (talk) 21:21, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * any fule kno this, & it's in the article: "The most commonly used words in English are West Germanic.[207] The words in English learned first by children as they learn to speak, particularly the grammatical words that dominate the word count of both spoken and written texts, are the Germanic words inherited from the earliest periods of the development of Old English.[13]" - in word origin. Johnbod (talk) 04:23, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 December 2017
88.144.95.72 (talk) 19:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg 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. &mdash; KuyaBriBri Talk 20:06, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Introduction
There are several problems with this sentence in the introduction:

"It is closely related to the Frisian languages, but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), as well as by Latin and Romance languages, especially French."

1. The "but" after Frisian languages makes the sentence sound as if one would assume that English should have been influenced by Frisian, just because it is most closely related to it.

2. English hasn't been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages but Norse.

3. There should be no brackets in the sentence.

4. English hasn't been significantly influenced by other Romance languages but French.

I therefore suggest this sentence:

"It is most closely related to other West Germanic languages like the Frisian languages and Low German/Low Saxon, but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by North Germanic Norse, Latin, and Romance French. ArchitectMan (talk) 17:04, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That sentence should imply that English has been influenced by Frisian because it's most closely related to it. Most closely related means that they were part of the same language, then a dialect continuum, more recently than English and other Germanic languages. Language contact is part and parcel of a dialect continuum. This is also the view of mainstream linguistics which groups English and Frisian in an "Anglo–Frisian" branch of West Germanic, so implying a closer relation than English has with Low German and Low Saxon. Bearing this in mind I think your reworded version is a little misleading. I agree on the brackets though and that the sentence is a bit long and clunky. My vote would be to reword it to "...its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by Norse, Latin and French." – filelakeshoe (t / c) &#xF0F6;  10:43, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, maybe retain the "...and Romance languages, especially French." – in certain lexical sets, English has imported quite a lot of Spanish and Italian vocab, too. See List of English words of Italian origin and List of English words of Spanish origin, a lot of these are really common words. Also lots of Eurasian trade route jargon ultimately from Arabic, Persian and Turkish entered English through Italian. – filelakeshoe (t / c) &#xF0F6;  10:46, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

The first sentences of the introduction should inform about a) the countries in which English has the most native speakers: 1. USA, 2. UK, 3. Canada, 4. Australia, 5. South Africa, 6. Ireland, 7. New Zealand, b) which languages it is most closely related to: 1. Frisian, 2. Low Saxon/Low German, 3. German, 4. Dutch, 5. Afrikaans, and c) which languages its vocabulary has been most significantly influenced of: 1. French, 2. Norse. Since the introduction is very bad, i want to change it to:

English is a West Germanic language that evolved from Germanic dialects spoken by Anglo-Saxon tribes that settled in Britain. It derives its name from one of those tribes, the Angles, and thus ultimately from the Anglia (Angeln) peninsula in the Baltic Sea. It is the most commonly spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, and is regarded as the global lingua franca. The countries with the most English native speakers are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand. English is most closely related to the other West Germanic languages of Frisian, Low Saxon/Low German, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans. Apart from Latin and Greek, the English vocabulary has been most significantly influenced by French, a Romance language, and by Norse, a North Germanic language. ArchitectMan (talk) 20:13, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I guess it would be 3. Dutch 4. German 5. Afrikaans, not 3. German 4. Dutch 5. Afrikaans.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:FD44:66FE:20FD:AB22 (talk) 16:53, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 January 2018
Some grammer and spelling corrections. Lkj&#59;lk&#39;&#59;l (talk) 23:53, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg 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.  JTP (talk • contribs) 00:32, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

English letters around 1700
In Robert Morton's geography book "Geography Rectified - or, a Describtion of the World" , it seems like two versions of the letter  "S" exist. The "S" but also a letter looking like "f" without the "crossing line". Please see the fifth PDF-page (unnumbered in the original); the strange letter here illustrated by me by a "*", in a few examples - "I*lands", "Hi*tories", "Cu*toms", "al*o" etc. The sound value must be an S (or C) , I guess. I'm not native in English, I should add. Anyone who can explain this letter ? ("S" and "s" are also present, so this can't be the explanation.) Boeing720 (talk) 16:43, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a Long s. Dja1979 (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Weird and offensive map
The current map in the infobox seems a weird combination original research and misinformation. Showing countries where English is official or co-official is the default option and would be appropriate here as well. However, showing several countries with not even 1% native English speakers as "majority English" is both inaccurate, original research and downright offensive. While I do believe myself to be fairly competent in English, I most certainly do not identify as an English speaker, nor do any Scandinavian I ever met. Maps in infoboxes are for official status (de jure or de facto) not for estimates of how many people might speak a language with some (undefined) level of competence as a second or third language. Jeppiz (talk) 02:24, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it means "majority of the people there speak English" or have some kind of competence in English that. We could ask User:Sulez raz. But I agree that including it is odd, even silly and misleading. What kind of data is this based on? Who defines "competency" if that is indeed what is indicated? I looked at the map for French too, which is more sensible. No, I think we need a new map, and what is not blue or green on the current map should be scrapped--which would clean up the infobox a bit too. Drmies (talk) 02:29, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. My guess would by that orange, for example, means that the majority has (some) knowledge of English. The risk of misleading readers is big, as you say. Casual readers may think it means the majority are (native) English speakers. As you also say, the definition of competence is unclear. I agree we need a map; either one of the countries where English is spoken natively by the majority of the population or (perhaps better) one that shows where it is the official and majority language, and official but not majority. Those kind of maps would be clear and easy to source, unlike the removed map that was neither. Jeppiz (talk) 13:49, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Would make more sense to simply reinsert the previous map.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:26, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree, that map has been here for years, its criteria have been widely discussed and consensus is well established. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:06, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jeppiz! 85.246.33.91 (talk) 17:07, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

West Germanic languages
I don't see how it is necessary to include most West Germanic languages as being closely related to English in this article's lead. Obviously they will be since, well, English is a West Germanic language and therefore other West Germanic languages will be similar. Surprise, surprise. It's stating the obvious. Furthermore, I think it's common knowledge that English is related to German, Dutch and Afrikaans, just the same way Spanish and Portuguese, Hebrew and Arabic, are affiliated. They don't need credit. I believe the lead should just include the languages that are, at least, far more closer (in this case, Frisian and Low German). No point of adding all the other major West Germanic languages, which, I think, seems really superfluous. Meganesia (talk) 1:47, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is that whichever languages are excluded or included someone else comes along within a month or two and adds or removes them again. For people who don't know what "West Germanic" is it may be relevant to know that English is closely related to Dutch and German, for others it may be more relevant to have others mentioned. My main interest is that the list should be as short as possible (i.e. only the most relevant) and as stable as possible (i.e. with the least risk of people driving by to add their favorite language). Other than that I don't really care which languages are listed as English's closest relatives.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:58, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Weird timeline in lead
Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible!? What? Is there meant to be a "later" between "London and" and "the King"? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 20:46, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * tried to fix it.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:55, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 March 2018
Add runes to the writing system section as runes were used in old English language and other language articles have writing systems that are no longer used 72.73.79.36 (talk) 11:51, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * ❌ Please provide reliable sources that support your suggested edit. Iffy★Chat -- 13:08, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Runes are already mentioned.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:08, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

The English language is a Romance language
The English language is a Romance language. This can be seen in the video "Is English Really a Germanic Language?" by Langfocus. The words are Romance and the grammar is not like German grammar either. Spanish and French can be understood better than German. German is more difficult to understand. Skyrider999 (talk) 09:20, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately that is complete and utter nonsense. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:38, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * English: English LANGUAGE, French: LANGUE Anglais, German: Englische SPRACHE. And it has been proven through a text analysis and word comparison done in the video. Skyrider999 (talk) 10:13, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * We still have the word "speech" as well, do we not? Find some serious academic sources which stand up to the overwhelming consensus to the contrary then we can talk. – filelakeshoe (t / c) &#xF0F6; 10:31, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The video is an academic source because Langfocus seems to be an academic. Every Spanish or French text is a source proving that English has more in common with those languages than with German, which is too difficult with its Germanic words and grammar. Skyrider999 (talk) 11:09, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That video actually explains why English is a Germanic language regardless of the large number of words from Romance languages. English may have adopted many words from French and other Romance languages but its history and core grammar is undeniably Germanic. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:34, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, Skyrider did not even understand the argument of the video correctly.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:57, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

The English language is a Romance language
The English language is a Romance language. This can be seen in the video "Is English Really a Germanic Language?" by Langfocus. The words are Romance and the grammar is not like German grammar either. Spanish and French can be understood better than German. German is more difficult to understand. Skyrider999 (talk) 09:20, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately that is complete and utter nonsense. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:38, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * English: English LANGUAGE, French: LANGUE Anglais, German: Englische SPRACHE. And it has been proven through a text analysis and word comparison done in the video. Skyrider999 (talk) 10:13, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * We still have the word "speech" as well, do we not? Find some serious academic sources which stand up to the overwhelming consensus to the contrary then we can talk. – filelakeshoe (t / c) &#xF0F6; 10:31, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The video is an academic source because Langfocus seems to be an academic. Every Spanish or French text is a source proving that English has more in common with those languages than with German, which is too difficult with its Germanic words and grammar. Skyrider999 (talk) 11:09, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That video actually explains why English is a Germanic language regardless of the large number of words from Romance languages. English may have adopted many words from French and other Romance languages but its history and core grammar is undeniably Germanic. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:34, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, Skyrider did not even understand the argument of the video correctly.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:57, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Spurious "largest vocabulary" claims should not be proliferated on Wikipedia
Everybody knows claims like these are nonsense. It is impossible to compare the vocabularies of two languages, as arbitrary inclusion/exclusion criteria that cannot be possibly applied consistently to two different languages can yield any result one desires. And indeed, here's what the very source cited for the claim says: "How many words are there in the English language? There is no single sensible answer to this question. It's impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it's so hard to decide what actually counts as a word."

The claim is thus at best unsourced and needs to be removed.

--2A02:8070:E284:B100:DDE3:E568:376F:10FC (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * We had removed that once when the article was reviewed, but decay works its ways. I've removed some of the peacocking.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:43, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Scots is today considered a separate language from English
"Scots is today considered a separate language from English" is not exactly true.

That might read better as "Scots is today often described as a separate language from English". Certainly Scots dialects of English have for a number of years had formal recognition as a 'minority European language' - but one must observe that such recent recognition is essentially a child of 19th century romance and 20th century Scottish political nationalism, and not of linguistic fact or of serious Scottish history. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.247.246 (talk) 15:40, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 June 2018
2A02:C7D:8A2:9D00:55A7:7311:5CC6:BC18 (talk) 22:44, 23 June 2018 (UTC) 2A02:C7D:8A2:9D00:55A7:7311:5CC6:BC18 (talk) 22:44, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg 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 and provide a reliable source if appropriate.--QueerFilmNerd (talk) 22:48, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Phylogenetic tree
Hello. I may have brought this up several years ago, and please forgive me if a response was given at that time. I have not been back regularly to check. But I have an issue with the Phylogenetic tree on the page. It shows Low German descending from Old Low Franconian, which is an error. Low German is descended from Old Saxon and clusters more closely with Anglo-Frisian than it does with Old Dutch. Otherwise, I like the rest of it. Is there a way we can get this edited or corrected ? Leasnam (talk) 19:32, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

England/Great Britain
It seems silly from my point of view to have a lead for this article that links to Great Britain but not to England. The Angles specifically moved to and settled in the area now known as England (well in fact Anglia), and the reason it is named so is because they settled there and not elsewhere in Great Britain. Furthermore, the rest of Great Britain were not English speaking for several centuries - exactly because the Angles did not go there. Saying that they moved to the Island Great Britain may be technically correct, but it is less precise than saying they moved to England, and borders on being misleading since they only specifically settled in England.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:32, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually Anglo-Saxon England included the areas where most of the modern Scottish population lives. Johnbod (talk) 12:04, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, Berwickshire and East Lothian were part of Anglo-Saxon Bernicia. I don't think this is a good argument for not making the association between Anglo-Saxons, English and England, clear with a link to England instead of Great Britain.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:15, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Well the article begins (inaccurately of course): "English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, it ultimately derives its name from the Anglia (Angeln) peninsula in the Baltic Sea." I see rather more issues there. Johnbod (talk) 12:24, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * By all means bring them up. Though maybe with a little less gratuitous snarkiness?·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:53, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * ?? I just did. Johnbod (talk) 12:58, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No you didn't. You just expressed that you found it to be obviously inaccurate with a plurality of issues.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:00, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

The version of the lead that passed GA two years ago was like this: "English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca.[4][5] It is an official language of almost 60 sovereign states, the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, and a widely spoken language in countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and southeast Asia.[6] It is the third most common native language in the world, after Mandarin and Spanish.[7] It is widely learned as a second language and is an official language of the United Nations, of the European Union, and of many other world and regional international organisations.

English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England.[8] Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, Modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries. Through newspapers, books, the telegraph, the telephone, phonograph records, radio, satellite television, and the Internet, as well as the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and in professional contexts such as science.

There is little morphological inflection in Modern English, and the syntax is generally isolating. English relies on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as well as passive constructions, interrogatives and negation. Despite noticeable variation between the forms of English spoken in different world regions, English-speakers from around the world can communicate with one another effectively. Different accents are distinguished only by phonological differences from the standard language, whereas dialects also display grammatical and lexical differences." Since then general lead attrition has taken place as every editor and their grandmother who reads the article thinks they need to add whichever piece of information they personally find to be most imporant without taking into account the whole. I would support a return to that much more pithy version.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:59, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

..."one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England". 'England' did not exist at the time. 'Britain' (or 'what became England') would have been more appropriate in my view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.159.128.101 (talk) 5:08 pm, Today (UTC−4)

I also agree with the above comment there was absolutely no concept of 'England' at that time, the anglo saxons would have seen the land they were moving to as 'Britannia' as in the Roman province. British people still considered themselves somewhat roman until the 500s (the anglo saxon migrations mostly occurred in the mid 400s) the last legions had departed but Honorous had given the British Roman civates (cities) permission to organise their own defence and some form of roman civilisation existed for a while. This was the time of sub-roman Britain when most people on this island would have seen the land as a lost roman province that would be imminently reconquered by the roman central government which ultimately never happened because of the collapse of the west and later the east roman empire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.14.189 (talk) 15:16, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

North and south
Would it make sense to indicate that English is a particular blend of north and south European language elements? -Inowen (nlfte) 01:19, 9 October 2018 (UTC)


 * No. - BilCat (talk) 01:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 November 2018
Add an audio clip for "Western New England English" to give a wider scope of American accents. Audio clip Democratic New Hampshire Gubernatorial candidate Steve Marchand (from Manchester/ Portsmouth NH) interviewed on WMUR-TV. Lukeszczepiorkowski (talk) 01:28, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * ❌., see the  template for instructions on how to request audio recordings.  –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 02:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

"coast" of the North Sea
Hello all- The second sentence of the Classification section, Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the southeastern coast of the North Sea..., does not make sense. Seas don't have coasts; land does. I'm not sure what the author of that sentence intended, and I don't have the source material cited, but I imagine the intent was to describe the coast of present-day Holland, Germany, and Denmark. Could someone confirm this and correct the wording? Eric talk 13:08, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Your argument strikes me as silly - since coasts are a by necessity shared by both land and sea - also suggested by categories like "Category:Coasts of the Pacific Ocean. But sure, we can change it to something more geographically definite. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:36, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry if my reasoning came across as unsound; I did not think I was introducing a new view of how the word coast should be used. Thanks for your edit. Eric talk 14:06, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, more as overly pedantic than as unsound. But since this is certainly an article that attracts pedantic arguments about grammar, I think it makes sense to follow your reasoning. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:11, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Italics, capitalisation
In the "Classification" section, please change:


 * English: i shall, he shall
 * English: i dream, he dreams

to:


 * English: I shall, he shall
 * English: I dream, he dreams

86.190.171.208 (talk) 22:56, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
 * done, thanks. IdreamofJeanie (talk) 23:04, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:English language for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:English language is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:English language (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 23:22, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Intro
In the opening paragraph it says "... that later took their name, as England." I do not think this comma should be there. Can someone remove it? Parabellus (talk) 11:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2019
Somaliland's official language is english 195.246.109.2 (talk) 09:23, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg 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 and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DannyS712 (talk) 09:25, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Romance origins
Two editors did not want the following paragraph (ok it can be reformulated):
 * So a large majority of words (about two third) used in English have a Romance origin (from Latin, Medieval Norman, or modern French). Interestingly English is still considered in most linguistic classifications to be a Germanic language, even if there are today twice more words with a Romance etymology than those with a Germanic etymology, and its grammatical structure is closer to Romance languages than to Germanic languages (notably the Germanic aggregation for compound words has been almost abandonned, even if it kept epithetic adjectives before nouns and still prefers using genitive nouns before the nouns they qualify, instead of using them after an "of" preposition and the qualified nouns). The Germanic origin is more evident if we consider the most frequently used words (which form a tiny part of the English vocabulary), notably the pronouns, the prepositions, the auxiliary verbs, and common adverbs, and the remaining derivation of conjugated verbs (and notably the many irregular verbs).

The reasons stated were "lack of source" (but the sources are already in the article, except that the article is introducing the apparent contradiction that is English is a Germanic language, even if more than 60% of its vocabulary originates from Romance languages, twice more than from Germanic languages (~30%). Both figures being already sourced.

The WP:TONE also does not apply, I tried to use a correct tone, to not hurt anyone. But my formulation may be rephrased. It's evident that the article introduces an apparent contradiction, that has to be moderated by explaining some: notably the fact that the amount of vocabulary is not what defines the language, and that the frequency of use plays an important role: the Germanic words make up the most frequent part of English, but they still represent a tiny fraction of the Germanic vocabulary used.

The article clearly needs to be improved to solve this contradiction. That's what I tried. But blind reverts does not solve ANYTHING. These are just poor and abusive actions that is highly criticized by many people that fell that English Wikipedia is too much closed, open to jsut a few editors that decide everything in its content.

So please review calmly, find a solution. I did not want to hurt anyone. Don't be lazy with your blind (and very easy) reverts (which are clearly abusive) !!! verdy_p (talk) 08:44, 26 June 2019 (UTC)


 * There is no rule against reusing sources; in fact, it is encouraged. Due to the fact that the whole paragraph is unsourced, the reader is left wondering which one of the 280+ sources they're supposed to be looking for. Please list the sources you used to write that paragraph, we can continue from there. (I also added a header for this discussion on this page.)--Megaman en m (talk) 08:49, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You don't need to look everywhere: just the few sources existing in that precise section (where the paragraph was inserted), and the graphic on the right shows that clearly, all of them are sourced. But they already introduce the contradiction for most readers; this must be explained.
 * As well the article speaks about words from (modern) French and from (Imperial, and later Medieval liturgic and legal) Latin, but forgets compeltely that most words actually came from Medieval Norman (much more than from modern French, even if both are in a broad "Francophone linguasphere", as French also inherited from Norman, both being "Oïl languages", both also having Germanic origins from Frankish, and Romance origins from Imperial Latin, Medieval Roman Church Latin, and Legal Latin used by Medieval rulers largely influenced by Church).
 * Norman is important in the creation of modern English (against Anglo-Saxon and other Celtic languages that were used; what we call "Old English" is in fact a vernacular mix of Norman and Anglo-Saxon with many dialects in England) since the invasion of England by Willem the Norman (that also competed for the Kindgdom of France before he lost most of the Norman Duchy on the continent, but not in the Anglo-Norman islands which remain Norman possessions of the British Crown and where the Norman language is even official, and distinct from modern French that was developed only in the 17th century). However the Norman kingdom on England did not change the role of Medieval Latin as the language of the church and legal language of rulers; so both Norman and Latin continued to influence the development and unification of Modern English that started long before the development and unification of French (from various regional oïl languages and oc languages, including Old Occitan/Catalan). verdy_p (talk) 08:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * In that case, it shouldn't be difficult to add them to your paragraph. More specifically, I can't find sources in the article for your claim that "its grammatical structure is closer to Romance languages than to Germanic languages" along with your examples. I also can't find a source for "The Germanic origin is more evident if we consider the most frequently used words (which form a tiny part of the English vocabulary), notably the pronouns, the prepositions, the auxiliary verbs, and common adverbs, and the remaining derivation of conjugated verbs (and notably the many irregular verbs).", which comes across as WP:OR.
 * Then there's still the problem with WP:TONE, specifically your use of "so a...", "interestingly", "is more evident if we". This can easily be fixed once sources have been added to the paragraph.--Megaman en m (talk) 09:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Tone of these words is not a problem and not concerned by WP:TONE, as it evidently does not hurt anyone (and WP:TONE explcitly states that Wikipedia tone must be easy to read and should not use scientific jargon or that it should not be too much formal). Once again this can be reformulated if you want it to be a bit more "formal". And that's whre you can be useful (I'm not the best English writer, as English is a secondary language, like for many Wikipedia editors that you exclude abusively without taking any effort, but with a true censorship that clearly violates the WP:NPOV rule).
 * So please avoid using one "WP:* rules" (which are actually guidelines) notably when they conflict here (you selectively use one but forget the others: you have to analyze the globality and find some median solution; if you select just one, and use it absuvely, you violate WP:NPOV which is a rule or very strong guideline, not a simple guideline like those you stated abusively). verdy_p (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Please find a solution to the obvious contradictions in the article itself, that my initial paragraph just wanted to solve or explain. Because the existing article is evidently extremely biased in its existing formulation to minorate the Romance origins of modern English (which is in fact closer to modern French, than to modern German or modern Dutch!). verdy_p (talk) 09:22, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:TONE is relevant because it specifically states that "Articles should not be written from a first- or second-person perspective" and that the tone should be "formal". Concerning the main matter: linguists universally consider English to be a Germanic language. Furthermore, the contributions from French and Latin is mentioned in the lead itself "... its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), and to a greater extent by Latin and French" and also in the word origins section "... the vocabulary of English has a very high percentage of "Latinate" words (derived from French, especially, and also from Latin and other Romance languages)".
 * The reader already knows from reading the article that a lot of English words derive from French or Latin (which certainly doesn't make English a Romance language), so I fail to see where this obvious contradiction is. The biggest problem with your addition is the claim that English is closer to the Romance languages rather than to Germanic grammatically. If you could find a source for this, then it could maybe be worth it to devote a paragraph to the status of English as a Germanic language, rather than a Romance language.--Megaman en m (talk) 11:34, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You say: "the claim that English is closer to the Romance languages rather than to Germanic grammatically" - Wrong, I DID NOT EVER make this claim. it was explicitly making a claim from a lexical view only, because where the paragraph was inserted it was speaking from a lexical view. I explicitly stated (in the same sentence that you cut arbitrarily, but this cut you make is the important part I really wanted to add to explain the contradiction with a moderating expression, incorrectly seen as subject to WP:TONE even if it's necessary to oppose the important view) that this did not apply to the grammar and wanted to moderate the fact that even if most lexical terms in English are "latinate", they are still not the most frequently used ones. But if you want to speak about grammar, English is now very far from Germanic, as it has lost almost all its features: grammatical cases (surviving only in forms for the pronouns, and in the genitive mark -s for proper names), gender, agglutination and most conjugations (keeping only the preterit and past participle, with frequent irregular forms for many verbs, and the -s for the singular 3rd person in the present tense; English also lost the Germanic (and Latin!) SOV grammatical order, for the Romance SVO order under the strong Norman influence; even the infinitive was lost by using prepositions, making the language also now grammatically closer to Romance languages than Germanic which remains only as irregular traces in frequent forms). Also I did not make any claim about the vernacular Old English which had much more Saxon/Frisian forms, plus older Nordic terms that have almost completely disappeared in usage, just like the former Celtic words (which are more frequently observed in English only in Wales, Man, Northern Ireland or Scotland but not in England except a few cultural terms: most of these terms have been latinized by the Roman empire, then the Church, then jointly with Normans that also imported the Law French in English and even in the official motto in French of the Kingdom and its most prestigious order of honour). Linguists still consider English to be Germanic mostly because of Old English, but their view is biased by disregarding modern English in their analysis, because its current situation is even more complex and has of course borrowed many forms from other languages from the former British Empire. Modern English is no longer a language belonging to a family, it's now more like a creole or pidgin, even if it's ruled by an academic Oxford institution that attempts to make some order and standardization (but now fails with American English that escapes the Oxford rules, and now as well with Indian English, Chinese English, and South African English). verdy_p (talk) 10:25, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Phonotactics typo: invoicing > in voicing
"Clusters of obstruents always agree invoicing" should be "Clusters of obstruents always agree in voicing". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2806:102E:7:7556:1CC8:ED94:C102:8C9E (talk) 06:46, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 11:17, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:English language for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:English language is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:English language (3rd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 23:00, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

"Ingurisshu" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Ingurisshu. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed,Rosguill talk 05:40, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Inadequate sourcing
I am here to notify people working on this article that the sourcing is not up to GA standards, 2b in particular. There are several sentences and even paragraphs that lack in-line citations. Most of these are in the grammar section, which I have tagged. If you are familiar with English grammar and you have access to good sources that could fill in the citation gaps, please do so.--Megaman en m (talk) 12:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Every sentence does not need a separate source, not for GA and not for FA. Someone has been piling in unsourced material into different secitons since the GA review, this needs mostly to be removed.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:48, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Phonology edit request
I think the vowel charts from the phonology page should be added to the phonology section, as they're normally there. Could someone who can please do that. Ewokpedia (talk) 13:34, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Regional Variation table order
Hey, I was looking at the table and it looked out of order. The current version looks like this:

Wouldn't it be better to move the /l/ can always be pronounced [ɫ] section up a bit, so it'd look like this?

I don't know, it just feels more natural that way. Let me know what you think, I didn't want to make such a miniscule edit without asking for opinions. --Safto Rangen (talk) 04:31, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 October 2019
Might want to remove worldwide from region as it is not spoken worldwide for example not spoken in most of Africa and east Asia the Middle East and continental Europe and South America 2600:1000:B00C:494:B8A5:4620:F04:A063 (talk) 23:04, 31 October 2019 (UTC)


 * ❌. The infobox entry is supported by the information in the article itself. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 00:37, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

"English langauge" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect English langauge. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 18:26, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Infobox family and ancestors
Some changes to the infobox may need some thought. One editor added in North Sea Germanic as an ancestor and another editor changed this to proto Germanic. I have put proto Germanic in as the protoname instead, but my understanding is that ancestors in the infobox must be actual attested languages. While we know there was a North Sea Germanic language, it is hard to say it was attested as a single language and not a dialect continuum or family. Grateful for the thoughts of others whether this is a valid inclusion or should be reverted to oldest attested ancestor being Old English. For now I added a citation request. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 10:42, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

ETA: I have read the North Sea Germanic page which says in the lead: "a postulated grouping of the northern West Germanic languages." So without attestation, this is not an ancestor language, so should not be listed in the infobox as an ancestor. I have removed it. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 11:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

List of cognates
A list of random cognates without comment or sources does not belong in in a GA. I have removed it once and done it again now upon reversion. Do not reinclude it without consensus. It violates the GA criteria of sourcing and list inclusion and risks the article losing its quality status. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:48, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

There’s no need for a citation after everything FluffSquad (talk) 14:05, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

That seems to be an excuse thrown around quite often whenever one comes across unsourced material. I would appreciate it too if people took sourcing more seriously rather than handwaving it away.--Megaman en m (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2019 (UTC)


 * In this case the lack of sources is only a small part of the problem with the material, which seemed incongruous, selective and unclear what it was doing there. Deletion was the correct course of action.


 * To be clear, you could fill whole libraries with information about the English language. The question for a Wikipedia article is what is the relevant information that a reader of this article needs to know? The list of cognates were not wrong, and you could argue as to whether you need to source that the Dutch verb for "to zing" is zingen. Yet if we put all the cognates in this article, it would be very very long, and no one would read it - which would rather defeat the point of having it.


 * So no, common knowledge and subject specific general knowledge does not need to be sourced on Wikipedia, but that list of cognates does not belong in this article. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 15:24, 4 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm not going to argue that the list of cognates needs to stay, but if it were to stay it would need proper sources. Just because two words in two languages look alike and have similar meanings doesn't mean they're cognates. English much and Spanish mucho seem like obvious cognates at first, but they have separate, unrelated etymologies. This is why allowing for "common knowledge" to go unsourced can lead to misinformation.--Megaman en m (talk) 16:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Before committing to this list, you may wish to take a look at it, here: . It is the italic material under the misleading heading of "classification". It looks like a word dump in the middle of only vaguely related text. It is not clear what it is doing there or why. The list will always be incomplete. There are something like 2,500 English words cognate with French, ending in "-ation" alone. Then if you start using cognates like Man and German Mann, you have to start explaining about semantic narrowing in the English meaning. Before you know it, you are teaching the readers French, Dutch, German, Latin and Greek and who knows what else!


 * As regards sourcing, cognates are not etymologies. There are plenty of words for which the etymology is not what you expect, but then they are not cognates. Of course there would be some that turn out to be wrong. Please see and WP:OVERCITE. Sometimes a citation will be needed. Some cognates would not be obvious. They would need citations, but you would not need to cite every word. But again, citation is not the problem here. The problem is that this information does not belong in this place in this article. If it belongs anywhere, then "list of cognates between English and ..." as a new page would make sense. Good luck with that. It could take a while ;)


 * Finally, to say, the inclusion of cognates in this article if making some specific point, as an example, is perfectly fine. Then you would say "for instance, the Dutch verb for to sing is zingen..." and go on to make the point as required. In such cases it will be clear that this is an example of a class of cognates, and that the point being made will probably also have a citation which will lead the reader to more information as required. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 17:09, 4 December 2019 (UTC)


 * ETA as the editor who challenged the material, in case he wishes to add anything. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 17:24, 4 December 2019 (UTC)


 * ETA and I misread you when you said you were not going to argue for inclusion. For some reason I read that as that you were! Apologies. I almost deleted everything I wrote before anyone noticed it! but I will leave it to stand in case anyone does think the list should be there. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 17:29, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Error in consonants chart
Under Phonology at the top of the Consonants section, the chart indicates that tʃ and dʒ are Stops, but this is not correct. They are Affricates. Either a new row labeled "Affricates" needs to be created and tʃ and dʒ moved to that row OR, at least, change the current "Stops" row to "Stops/Affricates" and leave them all in the same row. Jdmcowan (talk) 14:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. I have added in a new table row as per your suggestion.✅ -- Sirfurboy (talk) 15:41, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit request
Dans le premier paragraphe de chacun des deux articles suivants, il est écrit que le deux tiers des mots anglais viennent du français. « Selon la linguiste Henriette Walter, les mots d'origine française représentent plus des deux tiers du vocabulaire anglais2. » > >> >> > >> >> https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglais > >> >> https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_du_fran%C3%A7ais_sur_l%27anglais > >> >> > >> >> Or, dans la version anglaise du premier des deux, on lit, dans la > >> >> section Words origins, 2e paragraphe « French words from various > >> >> periods of the development of French now make up one-third of the > >> >> vocabulary of English. » > >> >> > >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language > >> >> > >> >> Cet article est malheureusement bloqué et ne peut être modifier. Il y > >> >> aurait lieu de le faire.


 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg 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 and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Sceptre (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello, I will try to translate. It say that on both article Anglais and Influence du français sur l'anglais, 2/3 of english words come from french "according to the linguist Henriette Walter, the words with french origins are more of 2/3 of english vocabulary". The user also said that the english version say 1/3 and request a correction since he cant edit. Regards. --Gratus (talk) 04:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I had not noticed this before. Yet I am not sure the 2/3 claim is correct. I have always heard the 1/3 claim and I just noticed that French Wikipedia calls English a creole language (which some people do argue it is, but is not a universal view either). I will try to locate the source and read it and see where we go from there. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 08:28, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ETA: So yes, this claim is in the source, which is an interview with Henriette Walter published in L'Express. Not ready to update yet though. The reporter may have misquoted, or Henriette Walter may have mis-spoken. I think it needs a more academic source. I will see what else this person has said on the subject and what others say. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 08:38, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * . Okay I have looked into this some more, and there is no reason to change this article. One third turns out to be a good estimate for the amount of French vocabulary in English, although if you add in the Latin vocabulary, and count enough words, it is plausible you could get somewhere close to two thirds - although I found no source that says so. Not even from Henriette Walter besides this article (although that was by no means an exhaustive search. Yet it is not obvious from her publications that she repeats the claim in a published work. Her works are about French vocabulary, rather than English).


 * A secondary source with a 30% claim is here but that is no more authoritative than the newspaper article. It seems, however, that most people rely,for their figures, on a 1975 paper - a survey by Joseph M. Williams of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters and published in his work Origins of the English language. There does not seem to be anything more recent, but a blogger carried out some interesting primary research (not peer reviewed) that comes up with similar numbers, but demonstrates that results are influenced by the number of words included, and the more word lemmas you include, the higher the proportion of French vocabulary appears to go. See here: . This analysis got up to 40% French at 5,000 word lemmas using a good corpus of American usage, and Latin adds another 20%. It may be possible to reach the two thirds if you added a larger corpus, and words of Latin origin may well often owe their emergence in English to French, despite being unaltered Latin words, so Walter's claim may not be wrong per se.


 * Nevertheless it is not clearly right either. I have decided to leave the French Wikipedia article alone, but don't think we should update this article to match. The most reliable sources say its about a third, and in any case, words actually in use by English speakers bias strongly towards the core vocabulary which is more heavily Germanic in origin. We could write more, but I think this is the wrong article for it. The article Foreign language influences in English would be the appropriate place for that. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 11:20, 27 January 2020 (UTC)