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I have proposed that this article be deleted, as it gives the erroneous impression that a term such as "Castilian languages" exists. As I noted in the body of the article, the term appears in only one place: the online Ethnologue. Print versions of Ethnologue do not use the term. I have examined the 10th, 11th, and 12th editions (1984, 1988, 1992), as well as the 1993 Ethnologue Language Family Index. All these publications show the smallest group to which Spanish belongs as "North Central Ibero-Romance", with Castilian being one of its five to nine dialects. Spanish is not a "Castilian language"; Castilian is a Spanish dialect. (The dog is not a variety of boxer; the boxer is a variety of dog.)

"Extremaduran" is mentioned, as a dialect of Spanish, in only one of these four publications. See Talk:Extremaduran_language for a taste of the controversy over whether Extremaduran is a language or not.

As I mentioned in my footnote to the article, the phrase "the Castilian languages", referring to a group of languages, does not appear in the 15 million books of the Google Books project.

"Castilian languages" as the name of a group of languages is a spurious term, used virtually nowhere in the literature, and Wikipedia should not continue to mislead readers into thinking it is a recognized category. Kotabatubara (talk) 22:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you disagree with the title of an article, the solution is to move it, not to delete it.

I think Ethnologue counts as "the literature", but if we agree that Extremaduran is a dialect of Spanish, then this would be merged into Spanish anyway. Are we okay to move it to Extremaduran dialect, and to add the ISO code [ext] to Spanish language? If not, what should we call Spanish+Extremaduran, or should we merge this into West Iberian languages?

This ties in to whether we considere Mirandese a dialect of Asturian and merge Asturian with Astur-Leonese. — kwami (talk) 22:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have no vested interest in deciding what is a language and what is a dialect. What does concern me is the prospect of misleading Wikipedia readers with the notion that the phrase "Castilian languages" has any currency in writing about speech in Spain. Where is the evidence that any linguist other than the editor of Ethnologue has accepted the term "Castilian languages" to name a category of languages or dialects? Kotabatubara (talk) 03:57, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Propose a better name and we can move there. — kwami (talk) 04:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am unable to suggest a better name for the "group" of languages because I frankly don't understand what criteria for inclusion were used by the editors of Ethnologue. According to Ethnologue (17th ed.), the set includes four members: (1) Extremaduran (with a "language"-vs.-"dialect" controversy raging on its Wiki "Talk" page); (2) Ladino; (3) Spanish (which I assume would be considered the superset that includes the Extramaduran "dialect" by those who accept the latter term, as well as the superset that includes Loreto-Ucayali Spanish, if the latter is classified as a dialect rather than a language); and (4) Loreto-Ucayali Spanish (which, according to Amazonic Spanish, is "sometimes" classified as a language separate from "standard Spanish", with "sometimes" supported by nothing more than, again, Ethnologue. The Amazonic Spanish article thoughtfully adds that Ethnologue's reasons for the classification are "poorly documented". The selection of these four disparate language varieties seems to have been cobbled together by someone unfamiliar with Spain's many patrias chicas and the amount of dialectal variation in the Spanish of the Americas. I see Ethnologue making assertions that are not supported by any other source. Renaming this "group" seems as impossible as finding the appropriate title for an article on dogs, boxers, and bears. Kotabatubara (talk) 17:21, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]