Talk:List of French words of Germanic origin

Occitan as cornerstone of French language
Although the cornestone of the French language is Occitan, Frankish was the second largest contributor albeit not the only source of Germanic words in French. I do not necessarily dispute this, however, the article is not about the French language and its contributors, it is about the Germanic words in the French language. Therefore, such a statement would be better served on the French page. Leasnam (talk) 07:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It doesn't even make sense to say that Occitan is the "cornerstone" of French. The two languages came into existence roughly about the same time. Funnyhat (talk) 01:56, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The tag and the article
I took a look at this article. I believe the tag is misplaced. This is a list-class article, which means first of all that one expects a long list, and second, that this list, typically in dictionary form, is integral and does not lend itself to being divided. This is in fact a dictionary. There is no way to divide a dictionary into subarticles, such as an article for A, an article for B, etc. At least, that is not common on WP. This dictionary is properly set up by accessible letters. There are a lot of long dictionaries on here; this is no different. So, I'm going to remove the current tag.

However there are some concerns. It needs tags no doubt but I am not sure which should go on! First of all, the scope of the article is rather large to say the least and breaking it up will not help in the least. All the Germanic words in the French language! Good Lord. That is like having a dictionary of all the Latin words in English. You might just as well just do a dictionary of the English language. So here you might just as well duplicate a French dictionary and put it in here. So, my first concern is whether to have an article like this in the first place. If the answer in no then it should be tagged for deletion.

If you are worried about the introduction, well, don't. In the first place most of it is wrong. Calling for references will not help; it is all general knowledge and introductory material. The editor though meaning well does not have a very clear picture of this area. Links to other WP articles will help. I would say it could be corrected and condensed to a single paragraph or possibly two like all the other lists. So, the intro might be tagged as inaccurate or not up to WP standards.

More serious is the lack of information about most of the entries. Typically they do not reference WP articles, they reference Wiktionary. In other words, most of it is dead links because Wiktionary items do not yet exist. If they do exist they say nothing at all about any Germanic origin of the words. One would expect to see some etymologies proving the words are Frankish. However the editor seems to be having trouble with what Frankish means. He or she wants to use it for Gallo-Roman. So, I question the accuracy of the entire thing. I do not see any current use of it. Nothing can be trusted.

However, many good articles start as being not too useful. They are potentially good articles. Almost very article is potentially good. You might want to keep it around for people to work on and make good. If we make a fundamental assumption that a dictionary summary of this nature might be desirable and useful then we might assume it would be wanted and kept. In that case my main concern is accuracy. I wonder just how much of this is cooked up. The only way to find out if you are not already expert is to go through it item by item. So, I am going to change the tag to an accuracy tag. I believe the current tag was not the decision of a committee. Of course I could always be wrong. Let me say this. If you want to restore the length tag, please indicate how you would envision it being broken up. I don't think dictionaries should be broken up.Dave (talk) 08:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Dictionary format
If anyone has the time a tabular format in my view would be much superior to bulleted. Perhaps "Word", "Etymology", "Notes". You could do that while you are checking the accuracy of these entries. Ideally also each entry should have a footnote stating the etymological sources. That probably would require no more sources than what are there now but the harvref system would be used extensively.Dave (talk) 11:27, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Further developments on the tags
Here are the two tags in question. Please discuss. The first tag I think (no discussion was included) refers to the inclusion of all Germanic words even recent loans from English. I'm sure it only touched the surface. To be discussed is what words should be included (I believe). If there is no discussion I presume we would leave it the same. Therefore I am not restoring this tag to the front but am putting it here. If we do not do it that way the tags might be a permanent addition as interest seems too low to attract much demand. The second tag I am also putting here instead of out front. The only way to verify accuracy is to work thru all the items. It might be being worked thru for the next 10 years. So, better to put the tag here. One more item. I think I will start a table. In that case it needs a column expressing the Germanic language of origin. We don't want to put forward "zap" as a Frankish word.Dave (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Later. I started going through these. My intuiton is confirmed; at least 50% of the expressions are not Germanic. I don't know what criteria were used or what the editor understood he was doing. I'm using CNRTL supplemented by other dictionaries. CNRTL is good; I wish we had it for English. Equivalent to the Oxford. If rejections continue at this rate we are not going to need even to think about shortening it. But of course many must have been left out. Start with these.Dave (talk) 02:51, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello. The criteria used is that if an expression contains a word of Germanic derivation it gets included. Also, CNRTL is good, but not a sole authority. I use a range of various sources, and if there is a disputed or uncertain etymology which points most probable to a Germanic origin (CNRTL oftentimes calls these "radicals" (roots) with no further connection) then it gets included. Leasnam (talk) 17:20, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Split - Article is long and should be split. Thoughts???--Jax 0677 (talk) 23:48, 18 November 2012 (UTC)