Talk:Anglic languages

Untitled

this is rather confusing...

Gringo300 21:39, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about what's confusing? "Anglic languages" is a term used (rarely, admittedly) for English and its closest relatives, especially when one wants to imply that linguistic entities like Scots are separate languages, rather than dialects of English. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 22:48, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

AAVE is not a language

Making aave classifed as a sub english of english would mean you should also include american english,and australian english as a sub of english.

Does AAVE not have its origin in a kind of pigin or creole, e.g. Gullah. Though modern day varieties have converged more to the standard. That would differentiate it significantly from American and Australian English. BTW I'm no expert on that.

84.135.251.67 21:49, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

There is no proof that its even a language.

AAVE is a dialect of English and is thus covered under "English"

If you're listing AAVE as a dialect of English, you should really include other dialects. Otherwise you shouldn't list it at all. EDIT: I see that British v. American English have been deleted by the same person who seems to be defending AAVE being listed. Also, the different dialects are covered in the English article and so there is no need for AAVE -- Crushti e. 00:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps Doric and Ulster Scots should be removed too?

If we're going to delete everything that's considered a dialect rather than a separate language, then the list should contain only Old English language, Middle English language, and English language. Everything else is usually regarded as a dialect of one of these three. Angr (talk) 13:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. This page is among the more spurious on wikipedia. Ultimately, what dialects are languages and what are merely dialects will be determined by the number of wikipedians supporting a particular dialect. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 13:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

According to the Oxford Companion to the English Language scholars of Scots use the chronology

Anglo-Saxon to 1100

Pre-literary Scots to 1375

Early Scots to 1450

Middle Scots to 1700

Modern Scots 1700 onwards

The University of Glasgow seem to have no problem following it [1]

Of course none of that necesarily makes it a language other than English but being academics they have no doubt lost the plot.

Perhaps the article Scots language should be merged with Scottish English, History of the Scots language with History of the English language, Older Scots with Middle English, Middle Scots with Early Modern English , Phonological history of the Scots language with Phonological history of the English language and Ulster Scots language with Hiberno English or Mid Ulster English though perhaps that should be merged with Hiberno English anyway.

Yeah, the problem is that "Anglo-Saxon to 1100" has little to do with contemporary Scotland, "Pre-literary Scots to 1375" is a historical invention, and "Early Scots to 1450" is never called Scots except by moderns Scots enthusiasts; speakers of the time only ever called it English, and there is no hint that contemporary speakers thought it any different; and indeed, these texts (of which there are quite a few), are closer to modern English that, for instance, Chaucer, who is able to write in long established dialect forms. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 22:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Is this a good place to point out that in the Iberian peninsula up until the Reconquest of Moorish lands, the language spoken there was often just called "Latin" even though today we'd call it Spanish or Castilian?

So Middle English was the contemporary term used by Middle English speakers when they were speaking Middle English!?! The only spurious definitions I've read recently are from yourself (Gaelic and Gaelic seperate languages, but uniquely amongst all linguistic sub-groups; English being untouchable and unable to develop into seperate languages.) Either you define language one way or the other but stop the dishonesty and demonstrate an equal critique on all languages (including Gaelic)82.41.4.66 16:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

AAVE is nothing more than slang and colloquialisms within the American dialect of the English language. I'm an Appalachian American linguist who specifically studies English language history, and I'm surrounded by AAVE at all times. Therefore I feel that I have the right to make the call on it.

Ƿōdenhelm (talk) 17:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The obvious variation in prosody and phonology, the multitude of unique lexical items, and the significantly different verbal paradigms are just slang Gryphon Avocatio (talk) 06:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Why are you listing "Angloromani"

Doesn't seem written, its just a combination of two languages thats a creole not a dialect,If i made a creole of german and english would that be a language or a creole?

The family tree

Just passing through and couldn't fail to notice that the family tree seems to give the impression that Early Scots (was contemporanious with Early Modern English. Is this the case? 81.79.229.119 21:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It just means that they both, as well as Yola, come from a common Middle English, if indeed it can be at all regarded as separate. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yola

Shouldn't we discuss the position of the Yola language in all this?--Pharos 08:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It'd be nice if the article acknowledged anything spoken outside the island of Great Britain as Anglic. :) PubliusFL 21:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

It used to be here. It got lost in this edit where someone decided to replace the list format with a table. —Angr 22:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I tried to add the dialects in Ireland derived from Middle English; the table thing makes it a bit complicated. Is there anything else we should add — any other dialects not directly descended from Modern English?--Pharos 01:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I seem to remember reading that Pembrokeshire English is – like Yola, Fingalian and the West Country dialects – also derived from Southwestern Middle English, but can't find confirmation right now. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Northern English?

Is it really true that traditional Northern English is closer to Scots than to Standard English? saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 07:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Historically they were the same language variety until roughly the end of the 13th century [2], while Northubrian (the Anglo-Saxon ancestral to Scots and Northern English) had split from Mercian (the Anglo-Saxon dialect ancestral to Standard and Midland English) sometime between the arrival of the Angles and the arrival of the Normans to Great Britan (so anywhere between the 6th and 11th centuries). Thus, Northern Middle English and Early Scots are essentially synonymous in a purely linguistic sense (much like Old Cornish and Old Breton). In a more contemporary context however, the distance between broad Northern English and Scots is somewhat greater than that between Dutch Low Saxon and Low German[3]. By extension, Standard English may be considered as different from Broad Scots as High Dutch is from Low Saxon.99.253.55.20 (talk) 06:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I speak English as a second language and I don't find Scots hard to understand, written or spoken. I doubt Low German speaker from Saxony can say the same about broad High German dialects like Austro-Bavarian, High Alemannic or Yiddish.202.171.163.7 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:52, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Not sure why you're bringing High German into the discussion. The user above you only compared Dutch vs. Low Saxon to English vs. Scots. Also, experience shows that people consistently overestimate their ability to understand foreign languages – which can, after all, be tested objectively. (Not to mention the complication that there are great differences between varieties of Scots, varying widely in their divergence from English, depending on how strongly influenced by English they are.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:34, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Modern Northern English is closer to Standard Modern English then Scots, I'm not sure how this could be shown on the table but basically Modern Northern English is a mix between Northern Early Modern English and Standard Modern English. Regards, Rob (talk) 13:26, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Incomplete

This article completely ignores that other, rather large place on Earth where most people speak English... Seems rather peculiar that it would be completely absent. Jersey John (talk) 05:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not absent. All varieties of English outside the British Isles are included in Modern English. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Move to 'Anglic languages'

To avoid confusion with English language, perhaps this article could be moved? --jftsang 13:52, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

No way! "Anglic" is a recent creation invented to avoid admitting there is anything English about Lowland Scots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.41.1.248 (talk) 06:46, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

The article has two citations that disprove your claim. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 15 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. There are strong arguments that, in the context of this topic, "Anglic languages" is a more common term than "English languages". The main argument for using "English languages", that it is the term McArthur uses, has been debunked. Additionally, the concerns that "English languages" is ambiguous and confusing are also valid rationales. There were also some good arguments in favour of a merge, but because mergers are outside the scope of RM I hesitate to close any RM as merge unless there is an overwhelming majority in favour of one, which is not the case here. I would suggest that anyone in favour of merge either start a discussion on that or simply be bold. In the interim though, it is best for the article to use the title favoured by our articles titles policy, "Anglic languages". Jenks24 (talk) 07:56, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

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English languages → Anglic languages – "English languages" is an unclear and confusing title. "Anglic languages" is the only halfway decent alternative. Counter to previously aired claims, two cites in the article now prove the currency of the term, even though it is rarely used – but so is the concept. (I don't think any of the terms is anywhere close to ideal, but elimination leaves only "Anglic", as "Insular Germanic" is even rarer and hardly clearer. It's essentially a choice between bad, poor, and meh.) Note that Glottolog uses the minimal variant "Anglian". Also, other articles linking here from infoboxes keep "Anglic" for clarity. Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:24, 15 November 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 12:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose as proposed the proposed term only registers one hit in Google Books Scottish Literary Journal: Supplement - Issues 1-8 - Page 4 1975 "Pictish, Celtic and Anglic languages", While a lot of Google Book refs for the current title are to the book title The English Languages 1998 by Tom McArthur (linguist) editor of the journal English Today, there are also hits predating McArthur. But are these hits hitting what is actually in the article? I personally grew up with the term Old English language group as being the next term down the tree under the Anglo bit of Anglo-Frisian languages, but I see only John Hines A North-West Germanic Model 1995 for that name. In this case where technical names are thinly evidenced and opaque to the general reader I'd be interested to see what other generalist encyclopaedias do. Except they won't have this article. http://www.britannica.com/topic/Old-English-language. Old English language group would at least not be messing up readers looking for Australian English American English and so on. John Hines' name for this group looks more WP:RECOGNIZABLE than either current or proposed. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:31, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Rarely used" does not constitute a good foundation for a page title. More to the point, this is a generally politicized distinction ("dialect with an army" and all that), and so the page title must use the most common term; doing otherwise violates WP:NPOV 209.211.131.181 (talk) 20:01, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I repeat: Neither of the terms is commonly used, nor is even the concept itself, so the objections ("only one hit" – note that there are already TWO refs for "Anglic" in the article, proving that counting hits on Google Books is a poor method and its results of little import) are irrelevant. "English languages" might be more used, I don't know and I don't care, because it is a bad title, so of the remaining alternatives, the one that is most used should be employed instead. If this means that there are no more than, say, 3 cites for "English languages", 2 cites for "Anglic languages" (plus one for "Anglian languages") and 1 cite for "Insular Germanic languages", Anglic still wins, despite only 2 cites. I'm not claiming it's a glorious victory; in fact, I'm perfectly aware that it is an absolutely pathetic victory by the smallest possible margin, but a victory it is. (Maybe this means that the article should not exist in the first place, but that's not what we're discussing here.) An additional slight reason tipping the scales in Anglic's favour is the terminological link to Anglo-Frisian, the immediately higher up node. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:00, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment are you expanding the scope of the article to cover the languages prior to the Saxon invasion of Britannia? -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:36, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

• Support. The fact of the matter is that while the concept is obscure, the term "English languages" is even more obscure than "Anglic languages". "Anglian" is used by Glottolog, but "English languages" seems to be the least common option. Tom McArthur's book The English Languages actually uses the term for a different (but related) topic: "the 'pluralism' of English, the 'Englishes', that have arisen in the last twenty years or so." In the chapter "The Latin Analogy", he does not appear to think that there currently is or formerly was a branch of "English languages", but that it's something that might happen in the future from looking at varieties of Standard English across the globe. I can't verify the page myself, but this article cites McArthur as using the term "Anglic languages" for what this article is discussing.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:22, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Alternately, merge to History of the English language per the below comments.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:40, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose and maybe redraft per In ictu oculi. Randy Kryn 12:54, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Randy Kryn, In ictu oculi, I repeat that the major source for "English languages", McArthur's book The English Languages, does not use the term for the subject described in this article. He's not talking about the historic language group, he's discussing modern varieties and potential future developments. In fact, if the citation in the article is correct, McArthur uses "Anglic languages" for what this article covers. Do you have any other suggestions as to what to do with this article?--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:34, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd be happy with Anglic languages if at least Old English languages redirected there. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

'Old English language' redirects to 'Old English'. 'Anglic' doesn't seem like a common enough name. The book The English Languages uses 'English languages' in the title itself, so the publishers at least saw it as the common name. Between a rock and a hardrock café. So maybe you're right, if 'Old English languages' directs here, with a headcap at 'Old English', and if 'English languages' stays directed here. 'Anglic' continues to seem odd to me, but that's just personal opinion and/or feeling. So why not just use the simple 'Old English languages' with the redirects and headcaps? Randy Kryn 18:59, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Randy Kryn: the problem with the McArthur book is that he's using English Languages to refer to a different concept than what we're discussing here. According to the citation, he uses "Anglic languages" for what this article discusses. I don't know a better title. Honestly, it probably should be merged into English language or History of the English language considering there are so few sources that even mention the concept.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:44, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• Merge to another article, probably English language or History of the English language, per User:Cuchullain's suggestion. Having so few sources to support the use of the concept, by whatever term used, this suggests that the article probably fails GNG. In addition, the article has little substantial content beyond the navboxes in the middle of it. - BilCat (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support or merge; this name is confusing (in at least two ways) and misleading, so it fails WP:RECOGNIZABLE and WP:PRECISE, while we have a reliably-sourced alternative that does not, and which is equally WP:CONCISE. I also note that it's been shown that "English languages" as used in source can even have conflicting meanings, so this fails PRECISE twice over.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:13, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - this really does seem like a new creation by those who don't want the word "English" in the name - "Anglic languages" -wikipedia has fewer than 500 hits total and most of those still seem to come from Wikipedia —Мандичка^YO 😜 13:32, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

As said above, the same is true of "English languages".--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Then there needs to be a separate RM for a different name. Searching "English languages" includes singular "English language" and The Idioms of the French and English Languages so it is very difficult to gauge. Changing it to Anglic is not an improvement. —Мандичка^YO 😜 02:14, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

It's entirely routine to consider alternative names than the one proposed, in the same RM.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:52, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Merge to History of the English language

Anyone object to the idea suggested in the move request above to merge this (obscure, confusing) article into History of the English language? If not, I'll take it up soon.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:07, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Oppose, of course. The article was badly done and the table unsourced but this namespace has nothing whatsoever to do with a history article for a particular dialect. It's talking about a language family qua language family. It should redirect to its parent article (Anglo-Frisian languages) until there's appropriate content here if you like, but its entire point is that it's not about a single English language that has a unitary history.

You also "merged" exactly zero of the content of this page. That's not a merge. That's an article deletion and should be treated and processed as such. — LlywelynII 03:08, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

History of the English language and English language were the two locations discussed above, and the ones that cover the content the few editors looking for "Anglic languages" are likely seeking. Anglo-Frisian languages wasn't discussed for merging, and frankly doesn't make much sense. It's just a (fairly esoteric) conventional term that's farther back in the chain than English. As for the merge, upon looking at it, there really wasn't much to merge. The table is unsourced and methinks unsourceable. The sources that *are* included are used for the names only, which are all obscure as noted in the RM. Perhaps a better redirect target exists, but Anglo-Frisian languages is unlikely to be it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 04:13, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

History of English does not even mention the term "Anglic"! It's exclusively about the history of a particular Anglic language, namely English in the narrow sense. The history of Scots is treated in a separate article, History of the Scots language, and neither Yola (aka Forth and Bargy dialect) nor Fingallian are mentioned in History of English, either. (From a genetic point of view, "English" encompasses all Anglic languages, only sociolinguistically, Scots, Yola, Fingallian are separate because they are not oriented towards Standard English as a written language: Scots has its own standard and the others never had one at all and instead Irish as written language. English in the narrow sense is equivalent to a paraphyletic taxon in biology]].) I must agree with LlywelynII: History of English is a terrible redirect goal. Anglo-Frisian languages at least does give the reader a hint what "Anglic" might mean. (Moreover, English languages should not redirect to a different goal than Anglic languages because it is essentially synonymous.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:13, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

They certainly shouldn't point to different locations, that happened when Llywelyn changed the redirects around the last time. I still don't see that the esoteric article Anglo-Frisian languages is a better redirect than one that discusses the actual history of English. Anglo-Frisian languages doesn't mention "Anglic" either except in a link to the redirect in the uncited "family tree". That's also the only place that Fingallian and Yola are mentioned. It seems likely that this uncited (and frankly dubious) info was added based on this deprecated article, or vice versa. Again, perhaps a better target exists, but this doesn't look like it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 04:41, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

A better alternative simply does not seem to exist, unfortunately. IMHO, we should really keep the reader in mind. List of dialects of the English language does mention Scots, Yola and Fingallian, but they're so buried in the huge list that it's not really helpful for readers to redirect them there. For much the same practical consideration, Old English is unhelpful (it does mention Scots, though not the rest), although there is essentially unanimous agreement, not only among scholars but even among the most fervent Scottish nationalists, who at least do not seem to dispute the consensus, as far as I am aware, that all Anglic languages descend from Old English. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:08, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Florian Blaschke: This is part of the problem. The few readers looking for "Anglic languages" (or happening to click on it out of curiosity) are unlikely to actually want the esoteric topic Anglo-Frisian languages. They certainly wouldn't be after consulting sources outside Wikipedia - we've found very few sources using the constructions "Anglian/English languages" at all, and I'd be surprised if any of them actually include things like Fingallian and Yola. Similarly, I doubt there are any sources for the similarly obscure topic Anglo-Frisian languages that actually discuss them either. None appear forthcoming on JSTOR, Google Books, or Google Scholar.

The same uncited material was added at the same time to both articles.[4][5] The fact that it happens to appear at the Anglo-Frisian article (still uncited, 11 years later) is not a good reason to direct this phrase there. There's even less reason to redirect English languages there, as that phrase has been used for a different topic entirely.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:29, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

The material was uncited back then, but the last version of this article prior to being turned into a redirect does have citations. Nobody is denying that the term Anglic is obscure. But some reliable sources do use it. If Yola and Fingallian are never mentioned in the context, we can drop them. That Anglic, unlike English, includes Scots is demonstrated by the cites, though. As for Anglo-Frisian, among historical linguists, it is a well-known term. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:40, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

There were citations for the general concept of a branch including Scots and English, and names for said branch. The coverage of sub-dialects from "Anglic" have never been cited at either article. And while Anglo-Frisian is an established if esoteric concept, it's usually discussed as a Germanic group including Frisian and English, not Anglish as a branch including English, Scots, etc. Other than Glottolog (which has an entirely different setup than what we're giving), none of the ones I've seen get into that issue at all, and I can't imagine that the few readers actually looking for "Anglic/English languages" area really looking for that.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:17, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Again: Merge or move

I think it's time to again address the question of merge or move with this article. WP:TITLE's criteria of recognizability and naturalness certainly outweigh the common-name criterion given by the previous mover (a criterion which in fact is nonsensical in this case), since, as all previous users have already agreed, absolutely no common name exists. The mover settled on a name which appeared in two books (one from over 20 years ago and another from over 40 years ago), both in fact sharing an author. In other words, as far as we know, in all the academic scholarship, it's a term linked to one scholar. Other than a move to something clearer for readers, like "English language group" (direct and obvious, if admittedly a nonce usage), if we consider this simple concession still too outrageous, another straightforward option is to merely create a section under an already-existing page. I think a section under Anglo-Frisian, for instance, would be perfectly appropriate, given the limited information we have on this page anyway; at the same time, a section still affords a certain unity and distinctness to the information. Why are we having such battles over a tiny stub? Again, though I'm all game for a rename, the benefit of a merger is it ends the whole naming controversy altogether! Wolfdog (talk) 00:48, 27 March 2020 (UTC)