Talk:Sprachraum

Mapping the Sprachraums
Seeing the news on Timor I found it curious to see that its president's name and surname were to much like those of co-national, althought I found out that in Timor an official language is Portuguese mine is Spanish but I guess they aint that different and many names are equally native to Spanish and Portuguese... This at hand I wanted to find a map where to see the Anglosphere, the Francosphere, The Lusosphere, the Hispanosphere and so on, thus I arrived here... Is it posible to map the Sprachraums to any degree of precision?Undead Herle King (talk) 21:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Taalgebied
While Dutch is indeed well known by many linguists, it cannot be included in this article, simply because the world Taalgebied has not entered the English language in the same way as Sprachraum. Sure - one could use Taalgebied instead of Sprachraum in theory, but then you would have to include a (possible) French, Italian, Spanish, Russian ..... version as well ! Travelbird 12:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Raum must be translated as "space", not as "room". Zimmer is room. In the context raum could also be 'area'.

==Clean up? I do not understand why this article needs to be cleaned-up. It is concise and well-written. If there was a problem, it appears to have been corrected through editing. Vonratt 01:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Side comment
I found the line "an alternate English term would be glottosphere" pretty funny, seeing as how the term is pure Greek. --Saforrest 19:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, well, before that it said "A more English-natural word would be glottosphere." I don't even know what "English-natural" means, but glottosphere is certainly not it.  Oh well.  Adso de Fimnu 20:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Glottosphere
Glottosphere is "English-natural" as against Sprachraum for two reasons:

a. Greek coinages are more "natural", or let's say, more common in English, than German borrowings.

b. Any English-speaker can pronounce the Greek-origin word whereas it takes either knowledge of German or a pron key to pronounce sprachraum with reasonable accuracy.

Not only that. The pronounciation of the au is copmpletely different in the two languages and the plurals in English and German diverge even more so. I can only imagine linguists adopting this term because its originator was German.

Cakeandicecream 16:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

literal translation
I don't agree with "language space" as a literal translation of "Sprachraum" at all. Literaly it means language room. The German word for space is "All". Should noone object, I'll edit the article to this effect in the near future.

Cakeandicecream 16:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * While "All" is one German word for "space", there are two others: "Weltall" and "Weltraum". "Space travel" in German is "Raumfahrt"; "Allfahrt" would be completely unacceptable. An "astronaut" is a "Raumfahrer" in German. Nobody would mistake a "Raumfahrer" for a "room traveller". --° 17:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for your comments with which I agree 100%. Would you object to changing the literal translation of "Sprachraum" to language room?

Cakeandicecream 11:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, to me it sounds wrong. What do you think of this: dict.leo.org. --° 17:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * , --° 18:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That's much better. Thanks for your tip. I'm changing it to "language area".

Cakeandicecream 07:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone anonymous changed "space" to "room" again. Reverted and hereby stating that "literally translating" raum as room sounds ridiculous in this context (native Dutch-speaker here, but I do understand/speak German as well). "Area" would be a non-literal translation, while "space" is the best fit. --Nicolas Barbier (talk) 21:24, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Coordinate with Dialect Continuum article
Cross-reference or merge with dialect continuum article.
 * I'm inclined to support such a move, although I'm not ready to attempt the big edit this morning. DavidLeeLambert (talk) 14:37, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Reversion of move.
Why did revert the move? Glottosphere sounds better and more natural than Sprachraum while being just as accurate. Rex 10:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A Google search on "Glottosphere -wikipedia" yields only 1-5 of 14 results in any(!) language, of which some seem to have been taken from this Wiki article without a reference, as the context "An English alternative term would be .." proves. On the other hand, "Sprachraum -wikipedia" yields 23600 results in English. Therefore, Glottosphere has to be regarded as original research, see No original research. I will remove it.
 * Glottosphere is the English variant. If you want to edit a wiki in German go, to the German wikipedia.Rex 23:05, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Source?-- Matthead discuß!    O       02:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * A dictionary?Rex 10:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

no way, Sprachraum is a perfectly valid loanword in English. dab (𒁳) 16:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't seem to find in my dictionary. Which would make it a barbarism. Glottosphere is more natural given the Romans and Greek influences in science.Rex 17:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Name move to Glottosphere
I propose to move Sprachraum to glottosphere. Both terms have identical meanings, but I feel that glottosphere is, despite a closer linguistic relation between German and English, more natural to English which already has many greek and latin vocabulary. Also, Sprachraum might give dificulties when non hgerman speakers want to pronounce the term and is feels that it only (or mainly) concerns German(ic) linguistics. Sprachraum can still be used in the article or given as a synonym but the title, in my opinion, should be moved to glottosphere.Rex 19:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Glottosphere is made-up (today). It may succeed, then it will have its place in Wikipedia. In the meantime, Gesundheit, Schaudenfreude, Blitzkrieg. Kindly, User:Ejrrjs says What? 19:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * According to this link, http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/glottis, it is given as an existing word.Rex 19:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose Ive never heard glottosphere before, and i can easily pronounce sprachraum, i dont see why anyone could mispronounce it, it is secured into the English vocabulary just as the French Coup d'etat, and cliche are, so yes; referring to Ejrrjs's comments; we might have to move Gesundheit, Schaudenfreude, Blitzkrieg, and other names like Hinterland. -- Hrödberäht 19:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * According to this link http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Glottosphere it is a redirect to the very same Wikipedia entry we are discussing. User:Ejrrjs says What? 20:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, technically that doesn't matter that much, it just proves the term does exist. It might be different for a native English speaker, but I think glottophere sounds more natural than Sprachraum does anyone else hear have that feeling?Rex 21:23, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It proves that it was written in Wikipedia. Does it count as proof for the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? User:Ejrrjs says What? 21:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose move from the well-known Sprachraum to a rather unkown, unsourced term which has been entered twice by, claiming "Greek coinages are more English-natural" . See No Original Research -- Matthead discuß!    O       02:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Id like to mention this artikel as well. -- Hrödberäht 03:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

multple languages/Sprachraums
This sentence doesn't seem to make sense:
 * Even within a single language, there can be different Sprachraums, otherwise known as dialect continua.

Shouldn't it be:
 * Even within a single Sprachraum, there can be different languages, otherwise known as dialect continua.

...especially since the introduction says that a Sprachraum is an area where a family of languages are spoken? For example, the Chinese Sprachraum consists of multiple sinitic languages in a dialect continua. &mdash;Umofomia 00:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and made the change regarding this. &mdash;Umofomia 01:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Original research
This name seems to be made up as a term in the English language. It's not in either of the dictionaries I've consulted (Chambers and OED). A quick search of Google seems to point to nothing other than company names, sites regurgitating Wikipedia content, or German-English translation sites. Neither Credo nor Oxford Reference have anything about 'Sprachraum' in English either. If this is indeed a linguistics term in the English language, surely someone can point to some references...? Matthew (talk) 14:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * If you search Google Books for phrases like "the Sprachraum", "a Sprachraum" or "Sprachraum is" you can find some references. They are rare and few, but some exist. --:Slomox:: &gt;&lt; 19:06, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Anything not in German? http://books.google.co.uk/books?as_q=sprachraum&num=10&lr=lang_en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES&lr=lang_en&as_vt=&as_auth=&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_isbn=&as_issn= I can't see anything? Matthew (talk) 21:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Search for "the Sprachraum" or "a Sprachraum" or "Sprachraum is"... --:Slomox:: &gt;&lt; 23:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I've got 20 hits tops, a number of which are referring to the Sprachraum when talking about a German source. Is this term really notable in the English language and actually a proper linguistics term in the English language? Matthew (talk) 22:32, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Capitalisation and plural
As this is a loanword used in English, i guess the plural would be sprachraums, not Sprachräume, the German version, yet Sprachräume is used in the article. Looks strange to me.--ospalh (talk) 09:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, this should be changed. --2.244.218.213 (talk) 09:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

No, sprachräume is the correct plural in English as in German. btw not even in original english words the plural always uses an -s suffix Norschweden (talk) 19:50, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Francophon(i)e
today "corrected" Francophonie (as used in English) to Francophone, a usage that is new and strange to me; I've always heard the shorter word reserved (as a noun) for speakers, rather than their territory. Does English really have its own distinctive usage of this word? —Tamfang (talk) 17:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

English
Fog 46.20.197.145 (talk) 06:37, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Term being repeated
It says "Not to be confused with Sprachbund and Sprachbund". Both terms are identical. Presumably that person intended to put in another term for the second one. Tesseract12 (talk) 23:08, 24 April 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tesseract12 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 24 April 2022 (UTC) OK, it is signed now.