Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of European languages by country


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. TravellingCari 21:34, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

List of European languages by country

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

I don't believe this list is seriously maintainable. There are two possible scenarios for the future of this article. It may include all languages spoken in these nations, regardless of origin (perhaps limited by number of speakers). There would be inherent problems with this solution, the demographic make-up of all these nations would have to be tracked, not to mention the massive WP:NPOV violation an arbitrary cut-off could pose. The second is listing the 'native' languages of a nation. There are even more problems with this solution than the first one. What constitutes a 'native' language? Does this language still have to be spoken in that area? At what point in history do these definitions kick in? I can think of many examples for why this article is not sustainable. Moreover, it is unnecessary. The articles for each European nation, as well as the European Union contain detailed information on the linguistic make-up of each individual country to an extent unachievable in such a simplistic list. We are not an indiscriminate collection of information, and this is a redundant, unsustainable list. So, those were my 2¢, and the reason why I propose to Delete this list. PS: Oh, and we haven't even gotten to the problems with the word "country" yet... +Hexagon1 (t) 12:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.   — Cliff smith  talk  15:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete, agree with nominator. I'm sure, for instance, that you could find some people in Ireland that speak Polish, French, German, Welsh, etc.  At what point do you decide that a language is too "minor" to be included?  And, of course, once you do decide on a cutoff point, then the list becomes POV.  As I see it, the list is either going to be unmaintainable, or inherently POV, and this problem can't be addressed in the list's current form.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 12:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC).
 * Delete. I've been an editor of the article this year, but just as the nominator has stated, there are many problems/potential problems with the article. People have decided to just add any language even with just a few speakers (if we were to do that with a country like the U.S., the list would be too big). There are already several language articles regarding official languages, and each country has its own page. If the article is kept, there should be more guidelines as to what languages are added so it's not just a free-for-all. Seems right now that the only people who go to the article are the ones who want "their" language to be represented. It's always susceptible to POV when sub-national or unrecognized "countries" are allowed to be listed separate from their recognized unit. Kman543210 (talk) 12:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak delete This article could be useful, but there are problems I'm afraid we cannot get around. As others have pointed out, we can't just add languages as we please, you can find speakers of any language in any country. The best solution would be to only include official languages and regional languages but then we already have problems. Official languages is fine, but what about countries that oppress their regional minorities (Greece comes to mind) and refuses to recognise them. Either we don't include them, but then it's a list over countries recognising minority languages, or then we include them. The latter is easy enough for countries in the EU, as the European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages can be used as a source, but then it's a list for languages in EU countries. I'm interested in a discussion rather than a quick deletion, but at the moment there seems to be huge problems. JdeJ (talk) 13:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I am willing to discuss before deletion to see if a consensus can be reached in terms of criteria, but I never received any response to the one subject I put on the talk page. Seems like there could be problems either way, but if we can come up with a concensus on criteria for inclusion, maybe it wouldn't be as problematic?  Seems like most of us agree so far that it shouldn't be a "free-for-all" in adding additional languages. On the other hand, I shan't cry if the article is deleted. Kman543210 (talk) 14:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete While it's not a bad idea for an article, this is mostly original synthesis, and badly done. I get the point-- there's an official language, and then there are other languages that are spoken by ethnic groups that have a large population inside the country.  The editors of the article identify a group and conclude that French is a language in Italy, German is a language in France, Turkish is a language in Germany, Greek is a language in Turkey, etc..  Without data about how many speakers there are of a particular non-official language, one might as well just say "a lot".  One could say, accurately, that Spanish is one of the languages of the United States, and point to substantial numbers of Americans who use Spanish.  However, there's a distinction between the language that is used daily in a nation's governmental and commerce, official or not, and a language that is used by bilingual speakers.  Strangely, this list indicates nobody speaks anything in the United Kingdom that didn't originate in the British Isles.   Badly executed concept.  Mandsford (talk) 14:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not a viable list. If I use my country as an example, France, and refer to Languages of France, there is a great many regional languages and dialects (32) as well as languages brought by immigrants spoken in France. That would not realistically fit a table. According to a partial census, the most widespread mother languages besides French are German dialects (2.12%), Arabic and dialects (2.05%), Occitan dialects (1.33%), Portuguese (1.27%), Oil dialects (1.25%), Italian (1.19%), Spanish (1.06%), Breton (0.61%). The list just doesn't reflect that in any way, only arbitrary regional languages are listed (although the spread of Italian for instance is largely due to immigration), no weight is given. This is outside the scope of a list in my opinion. Equendil Talk 19:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per nom and equendil. Plus, why European? That seems a completely arbitrary constraint to put on a list of languages by country. On top of which, grammatically, "European" refers to the languages, not the countries, while in practice the list is the other way around. If this gets deleted List of African languages by country should be next. maxsch (talk) 23:14, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.