User:KenkuBarkeep/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Changes to Old English vocabulary

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
Etymology is extremely interesting to me, and I plan on studying Medieval Literature. Although Middle English is different from Old English, I think a brief look at how it changed over time would be fun. I also think looking at the way language changes over time is extremely important to understanding modern language as well as the world around us. The histories of words provide further insight into their modern uses.

Evaluate the article
The lead jumps right into things by specifying that most Old English words are dead and have been replaced in modern English, but it does not do a good job of specifying what Old English is. Many people mistakenly refer to early modern English and Middle English as being Old English when they are all quite different. Specifying the period in which is was commonly spoken and the distinction between it and Middle English would be helpful to readers. It also does not specify if the vocabulary it lists below will be from the 20% that survived, from the 80% that died, or a mixture of the two.

Any catalogue of words is fascinating, but there doesn't seem to be much aside from a list of vocabulary, which has admittedly been neatly organized based on use. However, when concerning changes to language, it does not bother to specify how so many words died. It specifies what happens with each individual word, which is very nice and extremely important to keep track of. However, a brief section concerning how Latin, ancient Greek, etc. seemed to overtake the Germanic origins of Old English on the larger scale would have been appreciated. The article seems content to briefly mention that what little of Old English mostly died without going into detail regarding how it was replaced. It seems to be part of a series and likely left it to the history page. However, it could at least reference the history page regarding the broader changes.

The article is very well-organized. There are multiple categories to make finding Old English words and their histories easy based on what they pertained to. Additionally, every category is alphabetized. The writing itself is easy to read, but it being a series of lists makes it more difficult to actually want to read unless one is particularly dedicated to learn this slice of Old English. The length of the descriptions at times can make it quite daunting, and it almost feels as if some parts were lifted straight from the Oxford English Dictionary with the many "see also"s, which would lead somewhere on the OED but do no such thing on Wikipedia. It also does not provide a pronunciation for the many Old English words provided.

It does not seem to have any bias, but there is not much room for bias on this subject. There also only one photo which is a very small piece from Beowulf.

The sources in this article are barebones. There are frequent mentions of the "OED" without ever linking to it. At the bottom, it specifies the Oxford English Dictionary for further reading, but it also adds the Online Etymology Dictionary to the references. This makes it unclear if the articles frequent use of "OED" is referring to the Oxford Dictionary or the Etymology Dictionary. It also opts to not use any links to the material it references from the OED, adding to the confusion.

The talk page makes it clear there are not a lot of people working on this article. Whoever worked on it must have had some degree of passion for a time, but they lacked direction and clear understanding of how to meaningfully contribute and craft to a Wikipedia article.

(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)