Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of territorial entities where Afrikaans and Dutch are official languages


 * 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 no consensus. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:48, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

List of territorial entities where Afrikaans and Dutch are official languages

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For one thing, this is a full article, not a list as the title would lead one to expect. Aside from that, I don't see the value of a single article combining information about the official status in various locations of an arbitrary pair of languages. This article spells out the fact that Dutch and Afrikaans are closely related, but that's tangential to the question of the countries in which a specific language has official status. It really isn't different from having an article on territorial entities where, say, Tamil and Swahili have official status. Each language might support its own article, but combining them into one isn't useful. Largoplazo (talk) 20:30, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This is odd, because the same articles already exist on the Dutch, Dutch and Afrikaans Wikipedia. They both included Afrikaans and Dutch in the same article, like it is common to address Dutch and Afrikaans in the same article (see here, here and here). The proposal for deletion is a proposal to fast. You should have considered another proposal (f.e. change the title) or just talk to the writer (= me) to address your concerns. Direct nomination without asking is just rude.I90Christian (talk) 10:08, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * please refrain from decorating your comments here with templates, per WP:AFDFORMAT. thank you, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:11, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing how those three articles, of which one is about the narrow topic of the recognition of Dutch in South Africa, and the others of which are each about recognition of one of the two languages, are pertinent to this article that merges the two topics together. Also, different language Wikipedias are distinct projects. The existence of an article on another Wikipedia doesn't even guarantee that it passes muster there (it may be that it qualifies for deletion but no one has addressed it), let alone does it have a role in determining the status of a corresponding article here. Deletion decisions here are based on English Wikipedia's guidelines.
 * So, for example, I do see that the Dutch article on the recognition of Dutch has an Afrikaans section. I don't know the practices on Dutch Wikipedia, so I don't know whether it's accepted there that Afrikaans stands even today as a subcategory of Dutch. As far as I know, someone will come along and remove that section on the same grounds I would, as a digression from the topic of the article. Meanwhile, here, even the fact that you mentioned Afrikaans explicitly in the title indicates an awareness that readers here will consider it a separate language from Dutch. Whatever sense, if there is one, that Afrikaans is Dutch may underlie practices on Dutch Wikipedia, I don't believe that that sense would be held by editors here. Largoplazo (talk) 12:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * About deletion nomination without asking being rude: I don't know what I would have asked you. I didn't have any doubts. It was clear that the combination made sense to you, but I disagreed and I wanted to put this in front of the community for consideration. Largoplazo (talk) 12:50, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

*Keep. From a very cursory Google search sources exist which discuss the history of Dutch and Afrikaans as an official language in South Africa. . Presumably a deeper search would turn up sources for the other nations, if not academic sources, then at least official governmental sources. I'm not sure what is the point of the comparison to Tamil and Swahili. Afrikaans is a linguistic descendant of Dutch developed by Dutch settlers in South Africa, while Swahili and Tamil do not have such a history AFAIK. Patar knight - chat/contributions 15:30, 11 October 2017 (UTC) (Temporarily striking 18:47, 11 October 2017 (UTC))
 * I addressed that Afrikaans is related to Dutch, and stated that I don't see what difference that makes. They are, today, two separate languages, each with its own set of places where it's official. Largoplazo (talk) 15:36, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * They're two language with a good degree of mutual intelligibility (see Afrikaans). One developed as a daughter language of the other in the relatively recent past compared to other mother-daughter language pairs, and several countries have them as official languages. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another language pair that would be analogous. Saying that the Afrikaans-Dutch language pair is analogous to the Tamil-Swahili pair as you did in your nomination statement is incorrect and a misrepresentation of the former language pair's special relationship. Patar knight - chat/contributions 16:05, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The analogy is perfectly good in the absence of an explanation as to why a degree of interrelatedness beyond a given threshold (and what threshold is that?) suddenly makes it a good idea to have an article on Wikipedia that's about two things that aren't the same thing, where the information the article gives about each is completely unrelated to the information given about the other (the areas where Dutch and Afrikaans are official are mutually exclusive), instead of having different articles about them. Exactly what advantage does having this article confer over having two separate articles? The presence of the additional note that the languages are related? For one thing, that's off-topic (the topic being "where are these languages official", not "what is the linguistic relationship between these languages"). For another, it's already covered in articles that do cover linguistic relationships. There's no reason for this hodgepodge. Largoplazo (talk) 17:30, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm going edit my !votes about above until I can get a better sense of the sources available. It may be better to merge some of the content in this article to the main Afrikaans article and/or Languages of South Africa and add some hatnotes to relevant articles. I would maintain that the Afrikaans-Dutch language would be the best one to have an article on, but I'll strike my !vote and comments above until I look at sources more in depth..  Patar knight - chat/contributions 18:47, 11 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. No rationale for deletion is included in the nomination.  What's said could be basis for suggesting a split perhaps, into one article on Afrikaans and one on Dutch.  Note if the article was split, it would immediately become appropriate to merge them, because the languages are overlapping / closely related.  I think/presume that the nominator is unfamiliar with the languages, and should not be involved in judging how articles like this should be organized. -- do  ncr  am  18:55, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Since I gave my rationale and I specifically and prominently covered my opinion about the relevance of the relationship between the two languages, given that the article purports to be not about the languages (related) but about where they're spoken (unrelated), one might reasonably ask that you replace your contribution with a response that's consistent with the facts. En, ja, ik weet heel goed de verhouding tussen de twee talen (ik heb drie jaat in België gewoont), ek kan ook 'n beetjie Afrikaans lees en verstaan, and I've even translated from both languages on Wikipedia. So, clearly, my nomination is not based on a lack of awareness of and appreciation for the relationship between the two languages, but on my opinion of its relevance in this context. Largoplazo (talk) 19:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, I was thinking/presuming incorrectly about the language skill of nominator (sorry, and perhaps i could buy you a kopje coffee someday to attone). But, the nomination does not provide argument for deletion.  It provides complaint perhaps about the naming of the article (so discuss that at the Talk page and perhaps open a wp:RM request) and it complains about the scope of the article (so suggest a split of the article at its Talk page).  There is no issue about General Notability Guidelines being met, and no valid deletion argument at all.  In fact this should be Speedy Keep decided. -- do  ncr  am  23:25, 15 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Rename and rewrite OR delete The article could be tweaked into a valid entry but has been set up as misleading and WP:OR. I have linked it to the valid entries in Dutch and French. Either follow these examples or delete. In the current form, we are better with no such article. gidonb (talk) 02:19, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you point to the parts that are misleading or WP:OR according to you? I do not see any parts that are misleading and WP:OR. I90Christian (talk) 18:51, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I90Christian, thanks for the question. I hope to get to that in the next couple of days. It will take me some time to write on this topic. An other way to get there is just comparing with the articles in Dutch and French that are largely valid. gidonb (talk) 02:23, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: I don't see much consensus yet.
 * Merge and delete Merge any missing info to Afrikaans and Dutch language. This article is not a list, nor is is about places where Afrikaans and Dutch are spoken, but is instead about places where Afrikaans and/or Dutch are spoken. I doubt that very much Afrikaans is spoken in Belgium. Although these two languages are similar, the premise behind the title is incorrect. TimTempleton (talk)  (cont)  22:19, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – Miles Edgeworth Talk 02:40, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 02:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 02:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 02:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: No consensus since last relist, delsort may bring in new !voters

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Night  fury  12:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per WHATABOUTX. List of territorial entities where English is an official language and List of territorial entities where Portuguese is an official language need to be checked before this AfD is closed. ToThAc (talk) 14:51, 30 October 2017 (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.