Languages C‑class High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage C This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Europe Unassessed

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Europe, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to European topics of a cross-border nature on Wikipedia.EuropeWikipedia:WikiProject EuropeTemplate:WikiProject EuropeEurope ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Croatian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language Serbian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_language Language and dialect map 2008.; http--www.muturzikin.com-carteseurope-carteeurope1.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.0.35.15 (talk) 09:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Languages Unassessed

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Europe Unassessed High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Europe, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to European topics of a cross-border nature on Wikipedia.EuropeWikipedia:WikiProject EuropeTemplate:WikiProject EuropeEurope ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Shouldn't the Sami language be in here?

• It is (currently) listed under Finno-Ugric languages -- is that good enough? Pagan 07:37, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about Provencal (or is it included in catala) ? Pagan 07:34, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

• Actually, at least now both Franco-Provencal and Provencal (under Occita) appear -- are these duplicates? Pagan 07:34, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've just added Volapük to the list, and am checking Interglossa and Basic English in order to add those. I was surprised not to find them on the list, so I wondered if there was some reason for this. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We seem to be doing only natural languages here. Those artificial ones are not widespread and have no native speakers.Dave (talk) 23:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is the justification for including Asian Indo-European languages like Persian and Romany but not Hindi, Marathi, etc.? It should also be noted that languages like Persian cannot really be said to "linguistically belong to European language families" as stated in the first paragraph. While related to European languages, Persian belongs to the Indo-Iranian language family, only found in Asia, which derives from the language of the Proto-Indo-European speakers, whose Urheimat is widely contested but generally believed to be somewhere near the Black and Caspian seas. — Ливай | ☺ 21:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This must have been fixed. The ones currently in there are only the ones in the Causasus, which apparently is being considered part of Europe. South of it are the Near East and the Middle East but you can make a good argument that the Caucasus is not those and is not central Asia. As for Romany - well- is there a place on earth without gypsies? I for one doubt it.Dave (talk) 23:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is not quite NPOV: These are languages of non-European origins which are spoken in parts of Europe. Maltese, Turkish, Tatar. Semitic and Turkic languages have been around parts of Europe for some 14 centuries now (in fact long before Hungarian, which no one questions as a European language). And then, Indoeuropean languages originated out of Europe as well. -- User:Perique des Palottes 2005/02/17

This looks fixed to me, I don't see it.Dave (talk) 23:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

About the lenguage map. it shows galician (NW of spain) as a celtic language, however galician is an romanic language, brother of the portugues

It's been fixed.Dave (talk) 00:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Turkey is soon to be an EU member state, and in any event 3% of Turkeys land area is within Europe. Can, therefore, Turkish be added by somebody who understands these things ? (Alas, not me). Thanks --jrleighton 13:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It's been fixed.Dave (talk) 00:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The classification is more or less well-construed. But there should be more about them on this very page. A language is what makes a human human. There should be more data provided here.--~::Annie Chung::~ 16:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What classification? What have you got in mind (if you can remember)?Dave (talk) 00:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The map Image:CelGerLatSla europe.PNG is stupid. What is the green area labeled "Celtic" supposed to represent??? It certainly doesn't represent the area in which the main language spoken is Celtic! The creator of this map seems to be deeply confused about the status of Gallego... In other cases, there is a fatal tendency to follow current national boundaries. AnonMoos 00:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the new map is not very good. It certainly isn't Wikipedia-like. Also it mixes ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 language tags, which doesn't seem sensible. Evertype 08:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As long as it doesn't show Celtic being spoken in Trieste(!?) like Image:CelGerLatSla_europe.PNG does, then it's got to be something of an improvement... AnonMoos 16:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The first (uppermost) map contains a quite important error. There is no Danish-spoken minority in Scania (the southernmost peninsula of Sweden). The local dialect, “Scanian”, have been claimed to be an own language. However, persons claiming so did not arrive to that conclusion in the ordinary linguistic way. Please don’t accuse me for being a language denier as some nationalistic politicians! Scanian is close enough to standard Swedish to be mutually understandable. Since there is no Scanian writing standard it should be considered a dialect, not a language of its own. (The word “Scanian” was invented by me for this propose. I did not know any English word for the Swedish dialect of Scania.)

2006-11-06 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

You are incorrect. Scanian (skånsk or skånelandsk) is a Danish dialect closely related to the dialect of Bornholm and that of Amager (in the area of Dragør and Tårnby). Your argument about Scanian being close enough to Swedish to be mutually understandable is void. Danish, Norwegian (Bokmål) and Swedish are all closely related and mutually understandable (Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages#Classification )

Denmark have three major dialect groups. One of these is Eastern Danish (østdansk), with the Amager, Bornholm, Blekinge, Scanian and Halland dialects.

The fact there isn't a standard for Scanian does not mean it isn't a language. It just means it has no standard. A standard is not required in order to assign a language the label "language". Due to Scanian being Danish it is correct to say there is a Danish minority in the kingdom of Sweden. The fact Sweden denies this does not change the presense of the Danish minority.Dylansmrjones 03:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is two ways of defining language. One is language as a social construct: a variety defines itself as language by creating it’s own rules of writing. However, by this definition there would not be any non-written languages. The other way is as a group of mutually understandable dialects. I myself use the first definition for written language and the second for non-written ones. By this definition Scanian is not a language of it's own. Your expression “Danish minority” is misleading, Scanians does not view themselves as Danish! They might be proud of being Scanian but they don't want independence from Sweden. In other words there is no “Scanian Republican Army” or anything such.

2007-05-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

You are again incorrect. Scanians definitely view themselves as Danish. Swedish persons in Scania may not view themselves as Danes, but the native Scanian population surely does. There is no republican army but that is completely irrelevant. And there are several groups working for independency of Sweden. By any of your definitions Scanian is a Danish dialect. Dylansmrjones (not logged in) 80.197.57.23 11:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What did you get that from? My mum is a Scanian an she does NOT perceive herself as a Dane. I have visited Scania at least once a year for 25 years and I can’t remember meeting any locals who call themselves Danes! Furthermore, I have never heard of any groups working for the independence of Scania. According to my mum there is such a group but it is really marginal. About Scanian being a Danish dialect I don’t think all linguists agree with you. I have read an essay by a Swedish one who don’t.

2007-08-11 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Ironically, there is in fact a Jamtlandic Republican Army (JRA), though. For those of you who don't know what Jämtland is, I can tell you it's a province in northwestern Sweden which became Swedish in the mid 17th century. The dialect spoken (or today rather used to be spoken) is a Norwegian one, at least when you ask Norwegian dialectologists. (This should be marked in the map somehow.)

Jens Persson (213.67.64.22 (talk) 22:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Sorry, but the Jamtlandic Republican Army is not meant to be taken seriously. If Jamtlandic should be considered a Swedish or Norwegian dialect is probably a matter of definition. In this case I don’t know what most linguists would say.

2008-01-19 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

The JRA comment was ironic, so no need for you to state the obvious about its non-seriousness. But no smoke without fire, of course. But the problem what language one should associate a geographical area with is still unsolved. How do you mark bilingualism? I'd claim Jämtland is bilingual - Swedish (by political belonging) and Norwegian (by tradition). The corresponding for South Sweden (Swedish and Danish) and Southwest Sweden (Swedish and Norwegian). All these questions would be resolved though if we accepted the fact that Mainland Scandinavian is, from a linguistic point of view, only one language (with several literary standards with corresponding oral standards).

Jens Persson (90.230.148.118 (talk) 17:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC))[reply]

The map previously discussed has been replaced by a more reliable one. However, it does show several minority languages as if they where regional majority languages so it can still be improved upon.

2009-04-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

I don't see it...65.101.174.47 23:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Voila (Stpaul 07:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC))[reply]

In the list, Why is galician show as "son" of the portuguese? although both have the same origin (Galician-Portuguese), they are diferent languages. Also, the Fala language is often considerated a galician dialect, not portuguese --Alyssalover^(talk) 08:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Galicia is very far apart from the towns where the Fala is spoken... FilipeS 18:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Against the merger, the subjects are very different, and there are many other languages outside the EU.

True, but all Languages of the EU are within the category of European Languages. I don't claim that the entries are synonymous, but that the EU languages are a subgroup of European languages. --Sinatra 09:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The EU languages includes things like language policy and so forth, whereas European Languages is a purely geographical exercise. This is important, as languages and language policy are very interesting within the EU.

Very true, the difference between the political question of the languages of the European Union and the geographical question of all European languages is very important, so I oppose. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 07:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose for the same reason. Andrew Dalby 12:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which is the context? Merge with what? It is possible that someone removed the 1st line. --Antonielly 13:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is an interesting idea, but the "cultural-anthropological definition of Europe" with which this section begins is unreferenced. Since it excludes more than half of geographical Europe it appears to be a bad definition. In fact it looks more like a definition of "the parts of western Europe that we like", therefore none too neutral. Am I being unfair? Andrew Dalby 20:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After writing the above comment I have noticed that the whole long section "Common features of European languages" is identical (except for a few recent edits) with a section of the article Eurolinguistics. This looks a bit like spamming, in a respectable way. Since it hasn't been properly wikified, and it all depends on the so-called "cultural-anthropological definition of Europe", which isn't referenced and doesn't correspond with the normal English meaning of Europe, I am now thinking of taking nearly all of the section out of this article and replacing it with a cross-reference to Eurolinguistics, which seems to be a better place for it because it's all about the research relevant to this special definition of Europe that's going on in certain German universities. Does anyone object? Andrew Dalby 18:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The definition is now referenced. --Sinatra 22:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree Remove this section a place a link

Hello! I think this article should be merged with (into?) the Eurolinguistics article. They handle very similar topics. Moreover, a lot of sections are almost identical in content between them.

Maybe the list of languages could be put into a separate article, e.g. List of languages of Europe or List of European languages.

What do you think? --Antonielly 13:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. ...Croatian (e.g. léta he flies, is flying with long rising accent vs. lêta years with long falling accent) and Slovenian (e.g. sûda of the vessel with long falling accent vs. súda of the court with long rising accent)... — words used in these examples are wrong. The supposed Slovene words are definitely not Slovene (vessel = posoda, genitive: posode; court = sodišče, genitive: sodišča). They probably aren't correct Croatian either (vessel = posuda, posuđe, genitive: posude, posuđa (should be verified with a native speaker of Croatian); court = sud, genitive: suda). In the first Croatian example: 'to fly' is leteti, 'he flies' would be (on) leti. I don't think leto exists in Croatian, 'year' is godina and 'summer' is ljeto (leto means year in Slovene and 'summer' in Serbian).

2. ...Cz. restaurace, Slow. Slovenian reštaurácia, ... — is Slow. intended for Slovak? Slovenian 'restaurant' is restavracija and it probably isn't same as in Slovak. NikNovi 15:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the last section 8.10 'Issues in language politics', the word 'relais' seems to be used in the sense of 'relay'. Is this a simple typo or has a new word been created to denote the translation of one language into another and then into another (as the European Union is considering doing in future)?

Since this is a geographical grouping, I don't see why languages that belong to so-called "European language families" but are spoken outside Europe are included. This includes the three examples given in the opening paragraph, Afrikaans, Pennsylvania German and Persian (Persian is there because of the migration of the Ossetians into the Caucasus, but that doesn't make Persian a European language; Afrikaans etc. because of migrations out of Europe, but, again, Afrikaans is not a European language). The relationships of these languages with European languages are important but they are dealt with in articles such as Iranian languages, Germanic languages.

There is a second question: does a modern migration make a language into a European language, or are languages brought to Europe by modern migrations excluded? Something needs to be said about this. Andrew Dalby 12:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Most of the many indigenous languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family."

Wikipedia article on indigenous languages says that: "An indigenous language is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples"

Is there any indigenous Indo-European languages (in Europe)? There are of course several Finno-Ugric indigenous languages and Basque might be one too, so the sentence seems to be just plain wrong. Even if indigenous meens something else, why shouldn't other language groups and Basque not be in the introduction? 213.243.181.212 21:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If we take the definition of "indigenous" to its limit, no group can be proved to be indigenous anywhere. I am not sure when the Sami languages reached their current locations, but other Finno-Ugric languages are no more indigenous than the Indo-European ones. And even the ancestors of the Basques arrived from somewhere.

I think the problem you raise is the same as the one I raised just above: when does a migration become too recent to be counted? My suggestion is that the word indigenous has to come out of the article, and, instead, we have to say that we place in a separate section of the list languages spoken in Europe as a result of modern migration, say (for the sake of argument) after 1850. What do others think? Andrew Dalby 12:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fenno-Ugric languages in Fennoscandia and Siberia are certainly indigenous, as before there was only ice for tens of thousands of years. Samis are indigenous people too but Finns are usually not called so because the is a Finnish national state (the definition is very much political). If there was not Finns would be "indigenous people" too and same might be true of Estonians also. I did take the word out just indigenous because of this confusion. There need to be a separate article on the origins of European languages in general.213.243.181.212 17:01, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is just nonsense. First, there is no linguistic evidence whatsoever that Fennoscandia has been populated by speakers of Fenno-Ugric languages since the end of the Ice Age, and such an idea is rejected by the majority of specialist in Finno-Ugric comparative linguistics, who even date Proto-Uralic thousands of years later. Second, it is a historical fact that Finnish is not an "indigenous" language in most parts of Finland, for instance; most parts of central, eastern and northern Finland are known to have been inhabited by "Lapps" (= Saami) even in the Middle and Early Modern Ages before the northward spread of Finnish and Karelian.

As for the idea that there ought to be a separate article "on the origins of European languages in general", I can see no justification for this. The topic is far too wide and diverse. --AAikio 18:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am removing this map from the page and moving it here for the moment because it is misleading. A map is of course useful, but this one is misleading. If only a single map is used, it should show the *predominant*, not minority languages for each area. Therefore, the language for the entirety of the British Isles should be shown as English - the *majority* of people in Wales, Scotland and Ireland speak English as their first and (in most cases) only language.

And this is just the area I am familiar with - if this is anything to go by the entire map is unreliable.

On the flip side, the map also suggests stark boundaries that simply don't exist in multi-lingual countries where two or more languages are either the official languages or are widely spoken.

TO summarise: good idea, but the data used is wildy innacurate. Perhaps it would be better to have a series of smaller maps showing the spread of each language, with gradations of colour/tone for what percentage of people speak that language in that particular zone (ie a high percentage (dark) blue for German-speaking people in germany, a lighter blue for German-speaking people in Switzerland, since it is only one of serveral official languages there, and not everyone speaks it)

Thanks - PocklingtonDan 16:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Languages overlap, that's so true! But I think the series of maps you propose, if you care to draw them, would rather belong in the articles about single languages, not in a general article about languages of Europe.

Whether the map is misleading depends on what people want and need to read from it. You apparently want to know the "predominant" languages of each "area", and you seem to think of areas as being fairly big; OK then, it's true the map is not ideal for you. But for people who want the locations of as many as possible of the languages listed in the article, including minority languages, because they don't know these locations in advance, the map may be of some use. Maybe better than removing the map would have been to improve the caption? Andrew Dalby 21:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have now put the map back and tried to do as I suggest. The map's not so very bad, really. Improvements to caption or article text are welcome! Andrew Dalby 18:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This map is really pretty bad, and not of a standard for wikipedia. It should be removed. Just looking at spain, where I am right now, and Scotland, where I'm from, I can see glaring errors that make the rest of the map completely unreliable. Interestingly I actually came to this article from Reddit, where the map was completely ridiculed for its inaccuracies. Every commenter was able to find an error, omission or downright nonsense. This was reddit readers remember, if they think the map is poor, it must be dreadful.81.37.127.125 (talk) 20:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What the map appears to represent is a classification of 'native dialects' in a simplified taxonomy. The part classified as Dutch in northwestern France is for instance accurate as a classification of original native dialects, which are dialects of Dutch, but these dialects have nearly completely been replaced by standard French in public life over the last century. Furthermore the Dutch taxon subsumes language cousins (Low Saxon, Limburgish) not generally considered 'Dutch' by their speakers (or by the Dutch for that matter). Same with the English, Italian language area, and probably many others. In most cases of argued language overlap we find local dialects belonging to one language group overlapped by a standard administrative language taught in schools from another one. There is merit in having a map based on the classification of native dialects, even if these have largely disappeared in public life in favour of a standard language from another group, but to make the classification principle more obvious it would be nice to add a map representing the dominant language in public life. In this map Dutch would for instance not appear in France, while Frisian would be reduced to the province of Fryslan in the Netherlands, where it is an administrative language and taught in schools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.18.192.124 (talk) 10:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This page is a disgrace for Wikipedia, an article of such relative importance as the languages of Europe should not be allowed to look this bad. The second half of the article may very well be a copyright violation, it reads exactly as if it was taken from a book - note in particular the frequent use of "we may assume" and similar sentences. The only thing that speaks against the article being a copyright violation is the wast amount of errors. Saying that the Irish alphabet is still used in many books is completely wrong, it has hardly been used in any new books for the last 40 years.

Well, you actually find it in reprints of dictionaries that are still used! --Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The author even appears to be unaware of the fact that all Slavic Orthodox nations are Europeans

You appear to be unaware of the fact that there are different definitions of Europe ;-) - Ok, I have added a remark on that. --Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- he talks about features being common to European cultures, but then points out that they also appear among Orthodox Slavic nations. Neither does the author seem to have any insight into European minority languages. Frisian is listed as being in a weak position while many much weaker languages are listed as being in a strong position.

There is probably a problem of definition again.--Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I just noted that the statement of "weak" vs. "strong" minority languages was not made by me. --Sinatra 10:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The author also implies that Flemish would be a weak language in Belgium.

I certainly did not want to imply that Flemish is in a weak position. --Sinatra

These are only some of the countless errors, and then I haven't even begun to list the statements without sources. If not major improvements to the text is made, the second half of the article, starting with Common Features of European Languages, should be deleted.JdeJ 15:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As to the section about "Common Features of European Languages", I proposed deletion some months ago (above), and no one has disagreed, so I'll now do it. As I said then, the material is repeated at Eurolinguistics; it is essentially a puff for a researcher's comfortable theory, and certainly doesn't need to be in two places. Andrew Dalby 18:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not reacting earlier. Since it is me you're talking about, please let me tell you that I've not set up any theory yet, but just collected observations. If you would like to simply put a link to Eurolinguistics (e.g. in the form "For a description of common features among European languages see the article Eurolinguistics"), that would totally be okay with me. -Sinatra 21:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The text sections that remain are not necessarily better than those just deleted, but I think they deserve to remain and to be improved. Do others agree? Andrew Dalby 18:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! This is a good beginning. I'm rather busy at the moment, but I will contribute as well in the future, and I hope others will join in as well. JdeJ 02:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By now I've had time to improve my text under Eurolinguistics, from which I had pzut some information here. I personally would prefer to reorganize this entire article here (starting with the definition of Europe); but I guess this should be done by the author who started the article. --Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Norwegian Bokmål mentioned specifically and not Norwegian Nynorsk? I know that there is some discussion about which category Norwegian Nynorsk should be in, but it looks very odd to just leave it out. - Nidator 16:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC) -[reply]

Good point. I deleted bokmål because it is not a language, it is just one of the two different literary standards used for the Norwegian language. --AAikio 09:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried to reorganize the contributions on languages in Europe a little bit: see European languages. I added the various definitions used for Europe and put the list of languages in a separate article. I also deleted the information in the article Eurolinguistics, so that it doesn't occur in the Wikipedia twice. I hope everybody is happy with this. --Sinatra 12:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The big problem (hence the NPOV tag) is that you use the English word Europe with a meaning that you have defined; unfortunately this word already exists in English and it has a different meaning (see any dictionary). I think your material was OK as a self-description of your research in Eurolinguistics; it won't do as a Wikipedia article about Languages of Europe or European languages because it begins with, and relies on, a definition of Europe that is not generally understood or accepted. In research, you can do that. In encyclopedia articles, you can't. Andrew Dalby 20:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment. Please note that I don't use a definition for Europe that I myself have established. It is a definition used by anthropologists (which indeed I find very useful, because it is based on culture, and language history is very much related to culture). I have quoted Huntington, certainly not an unimportant name. I have quoted a renowned politician, Helmut Schmidt. If you think that more sources should be quoted I can do that. I understand that Europe in everyday language is most frequently associated with the geographical definition, but I don't think that this forbids the use of a different technical meaning in an encyclopedia. A word like dialect also has different meanings in everyday speech and in linguistic terminology, and I guess nobody doubts that this should be reflected in an encyclopedic article. This is why I have mentioned all current usages of Europe (quotes included). And I have said for which definition the observations presented holds true, so I don't quite see why the article should be NPOV. --Sinatra 23:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Huntington's name may be important, if you say so, but he is politically highly controversial (see the Wikipedia article about him). You're citing him (the only native English speaker you cite?) for a definition of the English word Europe which differs from that used by nearly all the other speakers of English.

I'm pretty sure (from my experience) that quite a number of Europeans who speak English use Europe not in the geographical sense.

To me, this makes it appear that you are doing something political yourself. Otherwise, why choose him?

No, I'm not doing anything political, I'm interested in culture, that's why I chose a definition from cultural anthropology. Other scholars who use this definition of Europe are, e.g.: Jeremy Rifkin, Lawrence E. Harrison, Mariano Grondona, Ronald Inglehart.

Similarly, in setting out by stating a new definition of Europe, one that is likely to be very comfortable and satisfying to global powermongers who speak western European languages, you appear to be hanging on the powermongers' coat-tails. Otherwise, why start out like that?

Because I would like to be comprehensive, as it should be in my concept of an encyclopedia. If there are definitions of terms that are technical and not part of everyday language, this should be reflected in an encyclopedia.

But this impression, that I have derived from the way you start out in the article, may be quite false.

In fact I'm really interested in your work, which, I'm sure, is valid and important. What I don't agree with is turning it into the whole body of an encyclopedia article called (last time I looked) European languages, as if the European languages that don't fit into the new definition are to be squeezed out.

That's not the impression that I want to give. The link to List of languages in Europe lists the languages in Europe in a geographical sense (however, most allochtonous languages are missing there--which makes the problem even more complicated). My own passages are introduced by the remark that these passages refer only to the languages in Europe in its anthropological sense. I do not claim that this is already a complete article.

In a good article under this heading, their features need to be discussed just as much as the languages that fit your special definition.

I totally agree with that. However, I'm not an expert in the Slavic orthodox or "eastern European" languages. If somebody wants to add sub-sections on these languages, I have nothing against it.

In fact, you are doing something different from writing an encyclopedia article about all European languages.

Again, I'm trying to write on all European languages--re Europe in its cultural definition... - Information on Europe in its geographical sense may be added

You are identifying Areal features and you are defining a very important Sprachbund, perhaps the most significant in the world right now. If your text, just as it stands now, were headed European linguistic area (or, for those who prefer the loanword, European Sprachbund!), were linked to all other relevant articles, with a brief summary at European languages, then I would welcome it, praise it and even draw other people's attention to it!

I'm not sure that we have enough common features to speak of a European sprachbund. As a matter of fact, some of the features are indeed also present in the "eastern European" languages as well. My goal would be to have information on Europe lato sensu added to Europe stricto sensu. Maybe you are able to do that.

Andrew Dalby 13:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

-Sinatra 19:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was bold and restored the page to a version before the edits by User:Sinatra. IMHO, the article "Languages of Europe" should really describe the languages of Europe, and not the languages of Central and Western Europe. Btw, does the redirect American languages refer to Indigenous languages of the Americas or to Indigenous languages in the United States of America? --zeno 21:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Zeno! I checked your userpage and can see that you are an administrator of the German Wikipedia, so I understand that you are keen on contributing good articles to this encyclopedia and I respect this. It is also my aim to make good contributions to Wikipedia. However, I feel disrespected if you delete contributions without referring to the arguments that have been discussed. The consequence of your reorganization is that we now have 1. an article that lacks two important definitions that--as I have tried to point out--are used in the academic world and also in everyday speech; 2. an article that lacks many references and sources that I had added in my new version. Viewing these two aspects what we have now is a version now that is farther away from a good encyclopedic article than before. Can you give me a reason why you would like to neglect the other definitions and why you would like to insert unsourced statements? --Sinatra 19:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Sinatra, I generally appreciate if specialists in certain fields contribute to Wikipedia. But sometimes they are biased and try to present their views as the generally valid views on a certain topic. I have the feeling that while you may have worked a lot in the research of European languages, you try to push a certain view into Wikipedia which is not at all shared by the majority of linguistic researchers. I think it is a little bit problematic to rely on and cite one's own work that much in a Wikipedia article. Are you sure your book is so relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe? Hint: You may be biased.

I have no problems with mentioning relevant minority views in articles (that should generally be the case in Wikipedia!), however, they should be presented as such. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. I would also like to point out that the approach of Eurolinguistics, especially your interpretation of it, is not shared by most linguists. As I have heard, many linguists have not even heard that the "discipline" of Eurolinguistics exists.

For example, mentioning it in the first sentence of an article about the languages of Europe is not in the interest of our readers, who want to learn about European languages, and not about a rather obscure branch of linguistics.

If you want to elaborate on the opinions shared by the people who work under the label of Eurolinguistics, it might the best to do it in the article "Eurolinguistics", but not here. But be prepared that also there you may have to live with the fact that other people may have different opinions on the matter.

With kind regards, --zeno 12:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since you bring up the topic of NPOV, I see that I still haven't expressed myself clearly. Let me try again. I am not at all interested in views or opinions, I'm interested in facts and observations. So the only passage where I had mentioned views was in the section on language politics, and there I had only summed up other people's suggestions without evaluating them. I don't see how this should violate any WP rules.

If you think that Eurolinguistics should not be mentioned in the first sentence of this article, this is fine with me. What I would expect though from an encyclopedic article, though, is that it gives all usages of the entry word, in this case: the three definitions that I cite.

Let me also point out that I did not just quote myself, but also other linguists. To what extent my book is relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe I don't dare to decide--to avoid the criticism of original research, I quoted two prominent eurolinguists who reviewed my book. That there are linguists who are not familiar with certain subbranches of linguistics does not surprise me. I wouldn't claim to know all branches either. If I'm correct, you're from Freiburg University, and I know that colleagues there are familiar with Eurolinguistics, as they are working in this field themselves (and I also know that some of them use my book). Other universities where eurolinguistic research is carried out are Mannheim, Berlin, Leipzig, Regensburg, Passau.

--Sinatra 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sinatra: What I would expect though from an encyclopedic article, though, is that it gives all usages of the entry word, in this case: the three definitions that I cite.

If we followed this logic, then we would have to mention several different definitions of "Europe" in every article that covers some European topic.

Yes, I would definitely expect that from an encyclopedic article: if an author uses a polysemous word without making clear which sense is used, how could a reader be clear about the content? - Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we should make that clear. But: Why talk about Western Europe in an article that may cover all of Europe? Because you did so in your book? --zeno 07:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because some scholars use Europe in this way. The article should of course also include information on Europe in its other senses. Actually, my version did not exclude information on the other senses.-Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To what extent my book is relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe I don't dare to decide--to avoid the criticism of original research, I quoted two prominent eurolinguists who reviewed my book.

The crucial point here is: The two reviews were not published in a widely accepted linguistic journal, but in an online journal of which you are (1) the editor and (2) the author of about 50 % of articles. To put it in other words: Your own, private publication.

Whether a linguistic journal is widely accepted or not and whether it is an on-line journal or a printed one, is not the guarantee for quality. But what can probably be expected is that a peer-reviewed journal makes quality more probable. Please note that, although I am the editor and so far the author of most articles, all articles--including my own--have been peer-reviewed. - Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can turn these sentences around: Being peer-reviewed is not a guarantee for quality. It can also be expected that a wide acceptance of a journal makes its quality more probable.

If JELX is peer-reviewed, who were the reviewers for the different issues? I could not find that information on the website.

The consulting editors of the journal are named on its main page. Who reviewed which article and review remains anonymous, of course.

If your research may be interesting to a wider range of people, why don't you try to publish it in the usual publications?--zeno 07:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "usual publications"? Printed publications? Are you trying to tell me that on-line publications are principally less valuable then printed ones? -- I don't know how much experience you have with traditional publication venues, but with many you have the following obstacles: (1) with some you have the problem that you have to wait years for the actual publication (I've been waiting for the publication of a simple review in one of the internationally most renowned journals for three years now! this is mostly okay with me as regards historical publications, but not as regards quite topical issues); (2) where should Eurolinguistic contributions be published that it reaches the right audience (I wanted to create a central venue of Eurolinguistic study with easy, fast and general access--that's why I've created EuroLinguistiX); (3) not infrequently traditional journals are not interested in innovative approaches before they have been accepted elsewhere. In sum, to reach a wider audience, the traditional linguistic journals do not seem to be the right place to me. So far, I have had the chance to publish over a dozen articles in internationally renowned journals, but my most innovative ones have appeared elsewhere....-Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The eurolinguists you cite may be prominent in the small community that operates under the label "Eurolinguistics", but I am not sure whether this makes your book relevant to the topic "European languages"/"Languages of Europe".

I don't understand the logic. So are you saying that eurolinguists are not relevant to the topic "European languages"? Would it help matters then if I said that I am also a scholar in "English linguistics" and "general linguistics"? Would it help if I said that the two reviewers are also experts in "Slavic linguistics"? Would it help if I told you that these two reviewers have carried out projects sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the central sponsor of academic projects? When is a review relevant then, when is a book relevant then in your view?

I do not say Eurolinguistics are not relevant. What I do say is that Eurolinguistics is not as relevant to the study of European languages as, let's say, Slavistics to the study of Slavic languages. Only a minority of researchers who work on European languages call themselves Eurolinguists. --zeno 10:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by Slavistics is relevant to the study of Slavic languages? Slavistics is the study of Slavic languages? If you say that not only few researches who work on EUropean languages call themselves Eurolinguists that's because not everybody working on European languages is a Eurolinguist, because just comparing two European languages, for instance, doesn't make somebody a Eurolinguist. But I see that this should be clarified in the article Eurolinguistics.--Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That there are linguists who are not familiar with certain subbranches of linguistics does not surprise me.

As I see the matter, it is disputable whether Eurolinguistics is to be considered a proper branch of linguistics. Maybe "Eurolinguistics" is better described as a small community of researchers.

I don't know whether you can describe -icses as communities, but that is probably not relevant to the topic. Viewing the number of entries in my Eurolinguistic bibliography I also think that the community is more than "small", but "small" is of course a relative description. - Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Best regards, --zeno 15:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The last passages have brought us a bit away from the actual issue here, namely the organization of this article. Let me repeat that I haven't seen any convincing argument yet, why an article that ignores that a word has several definitions is more encyclopedic than one which does. Also, I don't see that the article is left with the unreferenced statements instead of my completed version. Regards, Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I have not seen any convincing argument yet why defining "Europe" as "Western Europe" makes sense for this article.

Because European is understood in the sense of your Western European by some scholars (like the ones I have indicated).-Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I also don't see why citing your book should make the article complete.

mfg, --zeno 07:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying that citing my book makes the article complete, I'm saying that all the references that I had given (of course including my book, but not exclusively) had left the passages without unsourced statements. Now the passages include unsourced statements again. -Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm correct, you're from Freiburg University, and I know that colleagues there are familiar with Eurolinguistics, as they are working in this field themselves (and I also know that some of them use my book).

Who are they? Using Google, I could not find any. Please give me their names, either here, or via WP-E-Mail. With kind regards, --zeno 10:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the homepage of the study program [[1]]; Professor Bernd Kortmann is the coordinator. You will find out that the study program sees Europe in the sense of "Western Europe". --Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at their map, it does not seem so. And at least they do not exclude Russian: http://www.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/mel/semesterplan/semesterplan.html

--zeno 21:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right. There might have been a new development, because the first courses offered as you can see did not include any Slavic classes at all. They have had two courses on Russian, but the rest of the Slavic classes seem to be focussed on Western and Southern Slavic languages. So viewing the small amount of Russian classes in contrast to the other classes and viewing the homepage of the study program, it seems to me that nonetheless the basic view of Europe is a cultural one. By the way, the cultural definition is fortunately a flexible one. It is therefore not at all excluded that Russian becomes a part of this civilization one day. -- Sinatra 19:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about the 140,000 chinese speakers in Ireland alone? There are more people speaking Chinese than Gaelic in Ireland yet they are not even mentioned in this article. 83.70.219.91 00:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

-hardly, in the latest Irish census, 1,650,000 Irish people claimed to be fluent in Irish, and over 500,000 claimed to use the language daily. (I don't know how to do these things, but I'll put the date and my name if it helps. (10/9/2007 - Paul) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.176.93 (talk) 03:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It has been suggested that List of languages in Europe and Alphabetic list of living languages in Europe be merged into this article or section.

Reasoning: the other two lists make assertions that aren't supported, mainly in regards to numbers of people using them. Since this article is almost completely formatted as a list already, they seem redundant and easy targets to POV pushing. Since it's not very likely that they will be sourced, the best solution is to simply redirect them here and find citations for this article to support any claims about usage numbers. 24.4.253.249 20:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I recently cleaned up Category:Romance languages and List of Romance languages. I am going to move all correct information from this list to List of Romance languages and then i'll put back whatever is relevant for Europe. --Amir E. Aharoni 17:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the proper term should be "Romance" and not "Romanic." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Facial (talk • contribs) 07:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Section General issues - Issues in language politics Sorry, but that's laughable. Esperanto was and is never seriously debated as an official language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.46.30 (talk) 19:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After the war in Kosovo, a large number of primarily Serbian speaking people have left the region. I recommend someone look at Wikipedia's own web page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Kosovo so that a more accurate mapping of the region can be made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.149.235 (talk) 04:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The area for Catalan in the main map is wrong, as well as its merging with provençal. The map that represents only the romance languages is right and very good. I don't know how to change the main map, but someone who knows should do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.159.136.238 (talk) 07:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm back :) Here are some suggestions for improving the map, I'll be happy to discuss any of them.

• The Catalan area in France is missing. It's true that Catalan is not in a strong position everywhere in Roussillon, but that's true about some areas in Spain as well.
• In the map, the Sami language is found in large parts of Finland and Sweden. It is spoken in both countries but not in the areas coloured on the map. Especially in Finland, it's much further north. There are hardly Sami speakers in the area now coloured as the Sami language area. On the other hand, more than half the Sami speakers in the world live in Norway, yet they aren't found on the map.
• Staying in Scandinavia, the Swedish speaking areas in Finland are completely missing from the map. As the Swedish language area in Finland is relatively large and the percentage of native Swedish speakers is higher in parts of Finland than anywhere else in the world (including Sweden), it's strange that they are missing.
• The Irish Gaelic language is marker on the map, though in the wrong places. There aren't any Irish speaking communities at all in County Clare, yet all of the county is coloured for Irish on the map. On the other hand, the Irish speaking enclaves in Kerry, Cork and Donegal are missing.
• German in Alsace is missing. It's retreating, though not more than many other languages marked on the map
• The same goes for the French in Aoste.
• Corsica is coloured for Italian, with Corsican as a minority language. The main language of Corsica is French.
• If colouring Croatian and Serbian as different languages, bosnian should logically also be coloured as a language.

These are some of the points I noticed straight away. There could be others, but fixing these would make the map much more correct and representative. I hope this is helpful, cheers! JdeJ (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again! I've had a loog at the larger map now [2], and unfortunately there are even more errors on it than on the smaller. I can't go through, but the main error is that you seem to select which areas that are to be coloured as unilingual or bilingual rather arbitrary. To take but a few examples:

• Ireland is a complete mess. The major part of Ireland (in the middle) is coloured as bilingual. In fact, most of this area is as English in speech as England although there are also smaller parts in that colour that are unilingually Irish. Most of the area coloured as unilingually Irish is in fact unilingually English, although small parts of it are either bilingual or unilingually Irish.
• For some reason, Cornwall is coloured as bilingual. The number of people speaking Cornish daily is below 100, or 0.02%.
• All of Bretagne is colured for French and Breton. In the Eastern half of Bretagne, Breton hasn't been a spoken language for the last 800 years.
• In Spain, some Basque and Catalan areas are coloured bilingual, others unilingual. Some of the strongest unilingual Basque and Catalan areas are coded as bilingual, while areas that is very much bilingual or even with Spanish domination is coloured as unilingually Catalan/Basque.
• Corsica still gives the impression that Italian is spoken there instead of French.
• As I said earlier, the Sami area is in the wrong place altogether.
• Why are all of the Swedish speaking areas in Finland coded as bilingual, even those that are more unilingually Swedish than any community in Sweden?
• How come all of Galicia is unilingually Galician?

Well, these are some points from the areas I know best. I really appreciate the work you're putting into this, but I must ask what kind of sources you are using. Cheers JdeJ (talk) 12:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• If colouring Croatian and Serbian as different languages, bosnian should logically also be coloured as a language - Croatian and Serbian function both as collection of dialects and as standard languages, so-called Bosnian language that was invented in the 1990s only in a latter sense. Bosnian language is not language of the people of Bosnia: it's a codified language of Bosniaks, Bosnian Muslims. Bosnian Croats and Serbs use Croatian and Serbian, and these two are the official languages by the constitution, beside "Bosnian". There are no linguistic or political reasons to promote the anachronistic term Serbo-Croatian, like this map does right now. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The main map is false-in Poland the Upper Silesian region has minority languages and dialects, not the Lower Silesia one, also in both Ukraine and Poland Polish language areas are missing.--Molobo (talk) 14:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. The map needs a legend; I guess the author might have intended to show Silesian language, but currently it looks like German.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Image "Knowledge of French" makes French look more spread than it really is. The different percentages of French-speakers aren't distinguishable because even areas with about 10% French-knowers are coloured with a rather dark blue colour (compare this with the "Knowledge of German" image). The whole image seems a bit politically motivated to me, its creator might well be a part of the French-lobby. 'Knowledge' is a very broad term as well: I doubt that every 10th Swede, for instance, could read a French book. --Fennicus

First of all, the correct plural of "lingua franca" is "lingue franche". Second, why is this section even here? For that matter, what's the purpose of the "General Issues" section at all? I can understand the "treatment of minority languages" section, and maybe "language and identity", but the other two sections don't seem to be adding anything of value to the article. Sectori (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

76.104.198.129 (talk) 22:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC) I'd like to add that even if the proper plural of "lingua franca" is not going be used, in what circumstance does English ever have adjectives agree in the plural? Wouldn't "Linguas franca be more appropriate?[reply]

I would actually consider [lingua franca] to be a single unit, and would pluralize it in English as lingua francas. But yes, either way it's problematic, and I'm not sure what to do with this section. Sectori (talk) 13:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't we look things up in the dictionary any more or do we just get petulent on Wikepedia discussion? There are actually paper dictionaries out there and they actually are of some value and they are not going to be replaced by Wikipedia or any other Internet forum in the near future, probably not ever. Some pocket dictionaries avoid the question of the plural. Webster's Third International faces it squarely and probably so does the Oxford unabridged but I don't have one of those on my shelf. If necessary I can go to the library. Well sectori, what you would actually consider actually comes right out of the dictionary. Lingua franca is treated as a single word as though it had a hyphen. It does not (but should have) but the plural is lingua francas. Unless, you want to treat it as two Latin words. English uses Latin plurals in parallel with English plurals for Latin words depending on current usage. So, Webby gives us the alternative of linguae francae, two plural words. Linguas francas is unheard, unknown. Look it up in the dictionary; let that be your guide. If you give me any flak about it I will put in a ref to Webby. So, make sure you have your own ref handy as refed material take precedence over unrefed.

Now for the great six, justly someone wants to know, where did you get that? Not tatooed under your hairline I hope. I can't find any sign of it. Would it not be better to leave the matter open? So I changed the wording slightly. If you can find someone credible who is willing to state it was six, just six, no more, no less -six, precisely six - do change it back.Dave (talk) 14:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are basically two philosophic confusions in the lingua francas section. For one thing, it does not distinguish between a lingua franca and the rise of a national language. For example, Spanish came from Castilian and French from Paris and northward. Those languages expanded their ranges to become the extensive national languages they are. Until they did and while they were doing so they were lingua francas over those ranges. After they had a firm foothold the other languages were demoted in status to second languages or else disappeared. However there was always a range where the native language continued to be the first language. In cases like this, just when did the national language cease to be a lingua franca? If you go by the definition in our article every national language of earth is and always has been a lingua franca except in the phase before it expanded from the locality of its origin. If you go by political boundaries then lingua francas are only between sovereign nations and hence have a political definition. However, in many regions of Europe a language of another nation is used as a lingua franca. And what on earth do you do with Switzerland or Alsace? "Lingua franca" is a vague and analogous term and you have to define carefully what you mean by it. Is English in the states the lingua franca of the native american tribes, many of whom still speak a native language, or is it their national language, or just exactly what is it? We don't really address the philosophy of lingua franca on Wikipedia. So here we are blithely stating that this or that national language was a lingua franca between time x and time y and that Europe had 6 lingua francas, which leads to the second problem, the distinction between lingua francas and partial lingua francas in Europe. I don't know of any 3rd-party language used in all Europe at any time. I wouldn't even pick Latin as the general population of all Europe never communicated in Latin. Even the original lingua franca never had that range. So, Europe has had no lingua francas. Whoever put the tag on Spanish might just as well have put it on every single languge in the list. And if we are going to start listing national languages at some phase in their nation-building, then every language in Europe ought to be listed. I don't really know how to fix this section. It either says too little or too much. You have to start with the lingua franca article. So for the time being I am going to obliterate the blithe distinction between total and partial lingua francas. There aren't any total. Then I think they should be arranged by date and some comment made about whether this phase represents the formation of a national language. Now I can supply the requested ref on Spanish but the phase mentioned is actually the rise of Castilian in Spain and meso-America. It is still spoken there; moreover, many of the minority languages are still spoken there as well. Just when did it stop being a lingua franca? Let me ask you a question - what is Spanish to the Basques? National language? Lingua franca? First language? Second language? If it was ever a lingua franca, just when did it stop being so? Why isn't modern Spanish listed as a lingua franca for all of its history? Did the Poles or the Lithuanians ever communicate with the Russians in it? If not, why is it listed as a European lingua franca at all? If we are going to be shallow, let's keep it shallow and not make pretenses; if deep, then this section falls far short. I'm going to abolish some of the pretenses. Those of you with more of an interest in linguistics should definitely take the lingua franca concept in hand.Dave (talk) 08:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1867 is only the year of the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. They were stil debating whether to have Latin as the official language or Hungarian in the 19th century. This "officialdom" was strictly ornamental I am sure. The real issue was, German or Hungarian. So, the lingua franca would have been German. In general this item is unsat so I will have to rewrite it. If you want to check me see "Language planning and policy in Europe" By Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf, page 72.Dave (talk) 10:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Provençal (Occitan) (12th—14th century, due to Troubadour poetry)

I took this item out. The reason is that I could find no one at all to vouch for its use as a lingua franca. True, it is spread about in pockets through southern Europe in different countries. But, those are pockets of native language speakers. True, the original lingua franca contained elements of provencal. But, the lingua franca was lingua franca, not provencal. True, the songs and styles of the troubadors were spread about quite a bit. But, outside of the native range, song writers did not write in provencal or speak provencal to be understood, they imitated the genre in their own languages. No one in Valencia burst into Provencal to make himself understood by a visiting Sicilian. Dante wrote in Italian not Provencal. So, I took this item out. If you can find a ref for it, put in back in proper order. This gets us into the problem of defining a lingua franca. All the books I can find on it say it started as a pigin language. But, later it was expanded to mean any third-party language - not mine, not yours, but someone else's which we both understand, and not just for a few individuals but customarily. That is as far as it goes. It does not as far as I know apply to non-language items such as musical genres. Well, I can see why you might want to take this whole section out. But, isn't that not facing up to the task at hand, which is to fix a bad section? Modern languages do have heavy use as lingua francas, especially English.Dave (talk) 03:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The map showing Spanish should be removed at it is not accurate. Russian is more widely spoken than Spanish so I have no idea why Spanish was included next the three working languages of the E.U. (English, French, German). Including a map makes Spanish look more important than it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 (talk) 10:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And where's the problem? It would be ideal to have maps for more languages added, not to have existing maps removed. And as Spanish is, on most accounts, the second most spoken language in the world (native), I can see why people find it relevant. JdeJ (talk) 11:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It may be the second most spoken language in the world but this article is about Europe. Do you think we should include the number one language Chinese?

I've added Russian and Italian to make this article less bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 (talk) 12:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good. And I've reverted your repeated vandalism (that of deleting Spanish) in order to make it ever less biased. JdeJ (talk) 17:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The recently added map suffers from several problems. What's the idea behind coloring some areas in a single color and using stripes for other areas? I guess it's to give the idea of more than one language being spoken in some areas, but in that case I must call for major revisions. Let me give a few examples

• The Irish speaking areas of Ireland and colored in one color only, although few of them are only Irish speaking and some are in fact only English speaking.
• Some of the Swedish speaking areas of Finland are colored in stripes although more than 90% of the population there are native Swedish speakers. This is much higher than for any Irish speaking area and even higher than for most areas in Sweden.
• Similar concerns can be made about Catalan (Spanish spoken alongside it in many areas).
• Most of the areas coloured as unilingually Sámi are in fact no Sámi-speaking at all, even stripes would be a mistake for them.
• In some cases, even very small minorities (Sorbians, Gagauz) are marked on the map while many other minorities are missing.

I think the map is a foundation to build on, but the present version needs to be revised. The most important thing is to have proper definitions for when using one color, when using stripes and to define which languages should or should not be market. All of that is lacking at the moment, making the map a bit confusing. JdeJ (talk) 10:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No answer yet, so I take it nobody would oppose removing the map? I'll wait untill tomorrow to allow for further discussion. JdeJ (talk) 12:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If changes are being made to the map, I would request that Maltese be displayed as a distinct language (as befits its position as an official language within the European Union and national language of a sovereign state). Thanks ^_^ the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 09:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The current map Image:Languages of Europe no legend.png is unfortunately filled with errors. I must confess to not being an expert on the sociolinguistic situation in every country, but let me mention a few of those I know fairly well. I'll also point out that I started writing this assuming good faith of the creator, but by the time I got to Belgium I found it hard to do so. The driving force behind this map appears to be German nationalism.

• Spain. The Catalan area as indicated on this map has little to do with reality. The map claims that most of southern Aragon is Catalan-speaking, just as part of eastern Castille. Those parts of Spain have never been Catalan-speaking and most certainly aren't now. In contrast, Catalan is very strong all the way down to Elche, but the whole area between Elche and Gandia is marked as Spanish-speaking here.
• France. The map is rather accurate... if today is 1008. The eastern half of Bretagne has not been Breton-speaking for the last 800 years so the map is a bit dated, to say the least. It's not as bad in the north, the map is only about 200 years wrong when it comes to Dutch in France. As for Alsace-German, the map has little to do with any linguistic reality but more about showing the part of France that was last annexed to Germany by Hitler during WWII. These areas are thoroughly French-speaking today and have been so for quite some time. It would be news to the Corsicans that they speak Italian and not French.
• Italy. Seems like Sardinian has ceased to be a language. The French-speaking area of Italy isn't even a third of the area shown on the map, it's restricted to [Val d'Aosta] and retreating even there. Just as in France, the German speech-area takes on ridiculous proportions. While Südtirol definitely is German-speaking, Trentino is just as Italian-speaking despite being marked as German on the map. And the relatively large German area in Val d'Aosta is pure fantasy.
• Switzerland. The trend of extending German as far as possible continues. While only a small part of French-speaking Switerland is coloured as German-speaking, it's funny to see that Bosco Gurin occupies about a fourth of Ticino. If I may recall those German nationalists to reality, the population of Bosco Guring is 79 and the majority of them speak Italian.
• Belgium. No surprise there, German is extending far beyond Eupen-Malmedy.
• Scotland. 90% of the areas marked as Gaelic-speaking were still Gaelic-speaking 100 years ago, but are more than 98% English-speaking today. In many of the parts marked as Gaelic-speaking here, there isn't a single Gaelic-speaker left. Gaelic isn't a majority language anywhere on the mainland, only in the Outer Hebrides.
• Ireland. Give us a break. The Irish dialects of Clare, Limerick, Sligo, Tipperary and Eastern Cork have been extinct for more than 50 years now. About 10% of the area coloured on the map here is Irish-speaking. Check the article Gaeltacht to get an idea about where they are.
• Poland and Lithuania. What language is the brown colour meant to represent. Turkish? Last time I checked, people in the Lithuanian capital were speaking Lithuanian and not Turkish.
• Latvia. So there are Estonian speaking areas of Latvia? No, not for the last 600 years.
• Sweden. There are only four municipalities where Sami is official and it's not the majority language anywhere in Sweden, yet one third of the country is claimed as Sami-speaking here.

Ok, I'm tired and I don't think I have to go on much longer. The point is that this map is just a bad joke combined with German irredentism, it's a complete disgrace for Wikipedia and should be deleted. Sorry if I sound a bit bitter but this map is regularely removed from various articles, only to appear at another article in a while, and I've getting tired of argumenting against all the stupidities in it. While I normally encourage all contributions to Wikipedia, I can't help thinking that it would have bettn better if the creator of this map would have bothered to check the facts before making the whole thing up. JdeJ (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What we need is someone good with images to make these edits, and preferably create an svg version. BalkanFever 03:20, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to apologise for the tone in my message sounding a bit harsh, I was dead-tired yesterday when I wrote it and it would have been better to have kept it waitin untill today. Having said that, I stand by all the points raised, the map is wrong on almost every language in Europe, sometimes just a little bit wrong, sometimes a lot. I'm not good at editing images myself so I'm afraid I cannot contribute much in that regard. I would also like to suggest that the map be removed for now. While I fully support having such a map on this page, the current map in its present form provides no useful knowledge whatsoever, the only thing it can do is to give people the wrong idea about where different European languages are spoken.JdeJ (talk) 08:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the map pending correction. BalkanFever 13:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To B.F.: Just fyi, there is Image:Simplified Languages of Europe map.svg, which is an SVG map, though with very poor internal svg coding and therefore not too easy to work with. I have Image:Languages of Europe (BW).svg, with somewhat cleaned-up SVG and translated into black/white, that would probably be easier to work with as a basis for a modified version; the black/white patterns can easily be exchanged for colours again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you willing/able to give it a shot? :) BalkanFever 13:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! Minor points could be made about those maps, as about any map, but they are by a very far margin better than the map BalkanFever wisely removed. JdeJ (talk) 13:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't promise I'll have much time for extensive map work in the near future. If people want anything special, I'd like details of proposed changes to be discussed in advance, so I don't end up again like with my Balkan language maps ... ;-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, but JdeJ has been making many of these points for quite some time now (just scroll up), and nobody has argued yet. A few points of my own: Macedonian and Bulgarian should be differentiated (probably Serbian and Croatian too), and so should Romanian and Aromanian (and Megleno-Romanian I guess). BalkanFever 10:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the current map respects some natural borders and ignore the others? It separates European and Asian territories of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, but includes all of Georgia, Azerbaijan which are only transcontinental like the other three and all of Armenia, Cyprus which have no territory in Europe.

The map should either;

1. use natural borders (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Map_of_Europe_%28political%29.png)

2. include all transcontinental countries totally (possibly along with Cyprus and Armenia)

I'll try to edit and do it 2nd way. --Mttll (talk) 23:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to delete for example the historicaly Alsatian German regions of France than you should also delete the Sorbian area in Eastern Germany - because in Lusatia 95% of the populatian have German as native language and mostly don't know any Sorbian and only 5% are native Sorbian speakers, who all know German on native-level. 195.243.51.34 (talk) 14:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This map is a master disaster- German is not spoken in all of Trentino-South Tirol nor all of Alsace-Lorraine but in the northern province of Bozen and most of Alsace along with French and a small part of Lorraine along with French. There is no way the Fruali is spoken by that many people and what about Ladin.. The map is a real disaster... not like this has not been mentioned but nothing has been changed!

I have to agree with the anonymous user. I see that already a year ago, it was commented here that the map gives extreme predominance to German, and despite a discussion on the subject, nothing seems to have changed, just like the user above says. I suggest a thorough review on the map based on all the points made last year. In the meantime, I suggest removing the map as it really isn't very helpful in its present format.Jeppiz (talk) 17:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I agree too, it's a disaster... Shall we remove it until someone makes changes ? --K'm ^{bla bla} 20:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by K'm (talk • contribs)

I removed it, as everyone seems to agree that the map is is disastrous.Jeppiz (talk) 20:32, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dear linguists, you are the politest bunch of bickerers I have yet seen on Wikipedia. Too bad I have not seen more of it. I've seen some of you in other contexts. Maybe the vicious treatment I received then made you feel guilty. My goodness I am impressed by the high quality of the bickerers. Now the task is to get the article to match the quality of their credentials. The first thing I notice is what someone else above spotted immediately, very few references. Wikipedia is different from your usual publications, my friends. Speaking as linguists your offhand opinions are treasured by crowds of language enthusiasts who can't wait to shower money on you for it. Speaking as Wikipedia editors no one gives a rat's tail just what you may think and you must do it for free. But, here you are, so thank you for being here. You cannot quote yourselves but maybe you can quote each other. If you expect this to be a good article by Wikipedia standards you better start quoting someone. I just happened to drop by here on my way through some Latin articles hoping to correct any obvious weaknesses. That means I basically started with the templates. Now in investigating a dubious-discuss tag I find no discussion. No discussion? What, you can call for a discussion and then forget about it? Oh no. We are going to discuss, at least I am. I see here that some minority languages are strong (not named) and some are weak! But, the section doesn't use any definitions (in addition to the English being bad). I see we are using some German concepts in German. I'm dazzled by their brilliance; if you intended to impress I'm impressed, but I don't understand their use here and I dare say no one else will either. We need to lose our committment to bad language articles, if it would not cut in on your profits too much. But what is THIS I read? The Turks and the Scots are weak? You singled out the two toughest warrior peoples in all of Europe and called them weak? What's the matter with you! You'll be trying to dodge a Turk on the one hand and a Scot on the other. First of all it is very unclear what you mean and why you brought it up. Second, why do you use strong and weak? Are those professional terms? How are they strong, how are they weak? We need some better writing in this section without the dubious implications. Strong and weak verbs I understand, strong and weak minorities I do not at all. I will try to clarify a little but only as a quick fix. That's the problem with Wikipedia, everything you try to quick fix turns into a major project. If you want to be linguist contributors and not linguist cover models you might take a hand here.Dave (talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC) PS - I just received a message. I did it this way so you wouldn't be overwriting me even as I typed - but you found a way around that, didn't you? I suggest you swiftly take this article in hand to improve it.Dave (talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A minority language can be defined as a language used by a group that defines itself as an ethnic minority group, whereby the language of this group is typologically different and not a dialect of the standard language. In Europe some languages are in quite a strong position, in the sense that they are given special status, (e.g. Basque, Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Rhaeto-Romance/Romansh), whereas others are in a rather weak position (e.g. Frisian, Scottish Gaelic, Turkish)^{[dubious – discuss]}—especially allochthonous minority languages are not given official status in the EU (in part because they are not part of the cultural heritage of a civilization). Some minor languages don’t even have a standard yet, i.e. they have not even reached the level of an ausbausprache yet, which could be changed, e.g., if these languages were given official status. (cf. also next section).

This unsourced paragraph attempts to redefine the council of Europe's document, adding some quasi-linguistic definitions that are not in the document and some personal interpretations such as the strong and the weak minorities and giving personal opinions such as whether some lingustic classification would change if the language were given official status etc. etc. Also I find it a strange mix of conversational and encyclopedic English as though some student were having a linguistic conversation with his buddies while sitting in the cafeteria. I think we should follow the document so I am adding a proper intro to the document, the organization and the minority language issue raised by this subsection. I suppose it is legitimate to raise this issue in this article. It goes a little further than merely listing languages but then the title and intro never said this was a list of European languages. If you can reach a consensus about removing it, fine; meanwhile it is here and should be made acceptable.Dave (talk) 10:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Early promotion of linguistic diversity is attested at the translation school in Toledo, founded in the 12th century (in medieval Toledo the Christian, the Jewish and the Arab civilizations lived together remarkably peacefully).

I removed this paragraph. For one thing, there was no school, according to some major sources. The whole thing was a myth. See "Charting the future of translation history" By Georges L. Bastin, Paul F. Bandia pp 32-33. The authors chart the growth of this myth. That which was taken to be a school consists of some translations from Arabic into Latin performed in different parts of Spain. So, there was something. One might state a few points of view for and against the school concept at the proper location, but what is that? I don't see how the translation of works from the Arabic promoted linguistic diversity and I can't find anyone who says it does except the editor of this section. These translations promoted knowledge, certainly, but because of them no one had to read the Arabic, no Arabic speakers were being tolerated and encouraged; the Arabs were being thrown out of Spain in large numbers just as the Jews would be. Just because a few Arabs were asked or allowed to do some translations does not mean the society was diversity tolerant. It was not and was growing worse every day. Before long they would be torturing and burning people because they didn't quite fit the mold demanded by the closely knit Christian communities. Already the bishops were railing against the supposed school which clearly indulged in toad-kissing and sexual orgies along with the translating from the Arabic, a devilish activity. I do believe this opinion is Wikipedian opinion not general opinion and not supported by anyone I can find. I don't want to argue the subject matter. I only want to point out that this would need sourcing and development, whch I do not see.Dave (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Despite previous attempts to achieve national linguistic homogenization, like in France during the Revolution, Franco's Spain and Metaxas's Greece, the “one nation = one language” concept is hard on its way to become obsolete."

Unreferenced and undeveloped mud-slinging. All opinion, no hard facts.Dave (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A more tolerant linguistic attitude is the reason why the EU’s general rule is that every official national language is also an official EU language. However Luxembourgish for instance is not an official EU language, because there are also other (stronger) official languages with “EU status” in the respective nation.^{[dubious – discuss]} Several concepts for an EU language policy are being debated:

• one official language (e.g. English, French, German)
• several official languages (e.g. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish + another topic-dependent language)
• all national languages as official languages, but with a number of relais languages for translations (e.g. English, French, German as relais languages).

New immigrants in European countries are expected to learn the host nation's language, but are still speaking and reading their native languages (i.e. Arabic, Hindustani/Urdu, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili and Tahitian) in Europe's increasingly multiethnic/multicultural profile. But, those languages aren't native or indigenous to Europe, therefore aren't considered important in the issue of allowing them printed in European countries' official documents.

I'm sorry I know you won't like the removal of this unreferenced material - references, references, you must have seen that caution everywhere on Wikipedia! I will try to do you justice here. This is all your opinion, is it not? You are in essence putting yourself in place of the EU and guessing at its motives. That they are more "tolerant" etc. is your idea alone. And then there is the part about expecting new immigrants to learn official languages. I doubt if the EU officially cares in the slightest whether anyone does that. And then there is whether they are considered important. Looking at the EU documents I see no such value judgements, that is an inference you have made. So, as a serious assessment of your writing here (so that you may get something out of this educationally), I would say, you have to learn to distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion and not present your opinion as fact. Second, you like to make hasty generalizations - unwarranted conclusions from the detail. But then, you don't give any detail, and you don't give any definitions. I know it is satisfying to express yourself but the other half of the equation is the people who have to listen to you. To say something objectively significant in words that are understandable is really hard work. You have to keep critiquing and revising your own material. But, there is one thing about your writing that is correct. You can't write or learn to write without writing, for better or for worse. You have to persist. Eventually you might be able to write the Gettysburg address by inspiration from your first thoughts. Good luck. I'm putting something based on the EU sites in place of the above excised. I don't care at all if goes or stays. Now, if you were thinking of putting what you had back, please support everything you say with references. We might be interested in what the EU says but we are not interested in your personal opinions or in having you put words in their mouths. Whew. This is tough work.Dave (talk) 09:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The proficiency of languages is increasingly related to second or third language learning and has been subject to recent shifts caused by changing popularity and government policy."

This is just about the best example of slick English I ever saw. You have some real talent there. Have you considered going into sales? It is flawlessly correct and in the style of formal English. You read it with the expectation of being able to understand it and of learning something from it. At last, you think, here is some some real information. You reach the end of the sentence as though a blank wall realizing you have understood nothing, nothing at all. After 3 or 4 readings you realize you understood nothing because it says nothing neither by direct statement nor by implication. The goal of Wikipedia is not to say nothing in slick language, although many of the early editors wrote that way. What's the point? You aren't getting paid for this and you remain anonymous, so why do it? You should have an objective reason for writing something on Wikipedia, such as the transmission of certain encyclopedic information for the benefit of the public. We want to steer away from the strange world of creative subjectivity. This is unreferenced so I can take it out. If you want it back make it say something also said by an author you can reference.Dave (talk) 14:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well I just dropped in to fix the things that were marked as needing fixing and standardize the format where it wasn't standard. It seems to me problems have been being fixed regularly. I didn't see any noted in the discussion that were not addressed, some of them quite major. That is what worries me. Despite all this loving care, some by linguists in the field, it hauled down a grade of C! Well really! Can't you do better than that? The things that were left wrong are the major reasons why articles get poor grades: no references, too much editorial opinion, unsubstantiated generalization, overbrief curtailment, inadequate explanation of meaning, just plain gobbledeygook. We aren't trying to look smart, we are trying to inform. I'm going on, but if something was not marked I didn't fix it. And, I didn't touch the graphics. I must say despite its faults I consider this article really quite useful. To be able to see what all the languages of Europe are is quite a valuable intellectual asset. Critical to being able to visualize are the maps. We need those and we need to continue to correct those or get better ones. On Wikipedia I have not yet turned into a graphics person so I'm not doing it. Those sections of writing that still have no references need tham. They are unchecked by me. I have no doubt they will be mainly seen to be wrong once you dig into it. So, we still may have a C article. Feel quite free to bring the level of the article up, Wikipedia certainly encourages you to do that. The more work is required the freer you are to do it. This is quite a place of freedom.Dave (talk) 00:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]