Template talk:Lang-en

Italics

I don't see the point in italicizing the text here. Usually the item it is translating is italicized. Aren't only foreign words italicized? Bob Burkhardt (talk) 15:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This seems to have precedence. The Wikisource 1911 Britannica article Sordino has an English translation of a foreign word, and the English is italicized. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 03:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. (UTC)

Javanese

For the one who have an access, please add another interwiki in Javanese Language of this template. It's on jv:Cithakan:Lang-en. Big thanks for that help and I really appreciated it.NaidNdeso (talk) 02:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh ya, there is also another one in Wiki Indonesian at the following address id:Templat:Lang-en. Please do add this interwiki into this template. Thanks again.NaidNdeso (talk) 02:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

+cy

cy:Nodyn:Iaith-en. -- Xxglennxx ^★talk_{contributions★} 23:49, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Սահակ, 16 June 2010

please add Armenian interwiki:

hy:Կաղապար:Lang-en

Սահակ/Sahak (talk) 02:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Overlinking

Please remove the link to English. This is an English WP, people know what English is. Sandman888 (talk) 12:22, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha 20:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the English language link should be removed at it eases the navigation to the page. If users don't want the link to appear, they need not use the template, so I suggest that the link should be restored. Thanks! Signed, kotakkasut 01:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I've made this change as I agree that removal was hasty; the link provides context, as "English" can still have several different meanings, and consistency throughout the various language def templates is a bit more important than overlinking. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Why was it "hasty"? In the context of this template, I don't see how "English" can have more than this one meaning, or why this particular consistency should be important. Ucucha 11:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry: didn't check the timestamp on the post. I certainly didn't mean anything personal by it. "English" could quite easily mean "in England" in some contexts. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course, but could it mean that in this template? Ucucha 11:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I think there's at least some potential for confusion, yes. We could add an option to allow for the link to be disabled easily enough (just add |links={{{links|}}}), but is it really worth the additional complexity? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

In what context? Can you give examples? Also, if there is such confusion, we should remedy it by outputting unambiguous text ("English language"), not by an easter egg link. Ucucha 19:56, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

That's certainly a thought: it would require {{language with name}} to be edited, but that would benefit all of these templates and not just this one. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a language template, so the word English in it obviously refers to the English language. The usage of this template predominates in Wikipedia articles with non-English titles. Eg. Azhagiya Tamil Magan. I hope this explanation helps. Signed, kotakkasut 14:36, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It might well be an English language template, but the reader does not know that. All they see is "English". It could be an English version, an English type etc. It cannot be that much of a problem to change it. It is also not for translating into English, as has become apparent to me. This is the only one which needs to be changed though as the rest are ok.

• At present it links to [[English language]] - presumably this means that the template actually has [[English language|English]]
• Removing the |English will make it into [[English Language]] which is what it sound like people are suggesting? Trop tard (English Language: Too late)

• Alternative is |in English: to give: Trop tard (in English: Too late)

Though it may have been standard in 1901 or 1911 it is not now. More importantly MoS uses italics only under specific circumstances Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italic face so this template is not really following MoS when used in this way. An arse-about-face translation is incorrect. Editors should not be using the template but rather it should be accepted that the template series Lang- works for not English but for other language translations from English:

• His book, Too Slow French: Trop Tard German: zu spät

Chaosdruid (talk) 11:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• Whether 'English' refers to England or English language is rather moot, as both are common enough in the context of English Wikipedia as not to require linking. For sure, there's always the option of not using the template, but people being what they are will tend to follow examples in similar articles. There are a number of editors who go around [over]zealously inserting pretty templates in place of plain vanilla "Trop tard (in English: Too late)". The linking really ought to be removed. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Oh, I read that 'consistency' has been advanced as a justification to trump WP:OVERLINK. We already have many examples where this makes way for sensible linking (i.e. first appearance). In rare instances where articles refer to terms in English and 'AnotherLanguage', I fail to see what would be so wrong for one to be linked and not the other. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

    Other language templates that transclude {{language with name}}, such as {{lang-fr}} (view source) and {{lang-ru}} (view source), allow links to be disabled by passing an additional parameter |links=no. To unlink yet allow for option for {{lang-en}} to be linked should the editor choose, I request the first line be changed from

{{Language with name|en|English|''{{{1}}}''}}<noinclude>

to

{{Language with name|en|English|''{{{1}}}''|links={{{links|no}}}}}<noinclude>

By default, if the |links= parameter is omitted, the language name will not be linked. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Ohconfucius. Think about it: On the English-language Wikipedia, either the reader speaks English as his first language (in which case, it’s been there – done that as regards what “English-language” means), or the reader is not a native speaker of English and has come to en.Wikipedia for who-knows-what reason. In the latter case, the reader again is fully familiar with what “English language” means because that’s one of the very reasons they’re reading any of the articles here. We aren’t writing for space aliens who are stopping by Earth to see if it would be a good ranch for one of their human jerky franchises. As is made quite clear at “Sewer cover in front of Greg L’s house,” links within Wikipedia articles should always be topical and germane. Properly chosen links anticipate what the readership of any given article would likely be interested in further reading. Linking “English language” must be the most unnecessary link possible on en.Wikipedia. A notable exception would be on articles about the world’s languages; but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here. Greg L (talk) 03:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Please, this has been going on for nearly a year, but the matter was settled ages ago. "English" in this context unambiguously means "English language" (and links should not really be used like a dictionary, anyway—see the site Pillars). Can this be fixed soon? Tony (talk) 03:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Greg L perfectly expresses the reasons for delinking here. This template is almost entirely superfluous in any case. It's mostly - and unnecessarily - used to indicate an English translation of a location name or a motto or book or film title. Normal convention is that English words in parentheses following foreign-language words are a translation of them - we don't need this template, or even the word 'English', to establish that. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done I have added the link parameter and defaulted to 'no', per the request by Ohconfucius above. Anyone who wants to activate the link can simply add '|link=yes' to any specific instances of the template that they want to show a link. I will add documentation for the parameter to the documentation subpage. --RL0919 (talk) 06:08, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Elitearuba, 27 July 2011

Hi, I would like to submit a change (can be also considered as an addition) to the template section. I've noticed that Papiamento is not in the list. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Papiamento Would it be possible to add this? If not, how can I do it? Regards, Elitearuba

 Not done Seeing no update for several days following the reply above, I'm marking this one as not done. Please submit a new edit request if there is still something that you believe needs to be done, preferably including the details needed to respond to Ucucha's follow-up. Thanks. --RL0919 (talk) 05:06, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Remove italicization from Template:Lang-en

The Manual of Style (specifically MOS:ITALICS) is very clear that non-English words and phrases are italicized as such, not English ones. Someone in 2009 on this page cited the 1911 Britannica as "precedent". But a) Wikipedia is not a legal system, b) Wikipedia is not someone else's 100+ year old paper encyclopedia, and c) Britannica wasn't italicizing those words because they're English and translations, but because they were being used as "words as words", and the only two conventional ways to indicate this are italics and quotation marks. I.e., what the old Britannica was doing has absolutely nothing to do with this general-purpose template, which is sometimes being used that way, sometimes not. If someone is using it for glosses, they're misusing it; we already know that any translation we provide from French or whatever into English is in English. Our readers generally have brains larger than those of frogs. Italicization is not current standard style for glosses anyway, which is single quotes, e.g. {{lang-es|casa}}, 'house', which gives: Spanish: casa, 'house'. (WP:MOS does not yet mention this; this was brought up at WT:MOS two weeks or so back, and just needs some more discussion). There are very, very few legitimate use cases for this template (most of them should be removed as redundant noise); of the few that are valid, only some of them are cases of words-as-words. WP:MOS is clear that in those particular cases, editors have a choice within the context of the specific article in question whether to use quotation marks or italicization, and which is best to use depends on various factors. Forcing italics in this template is not only against MOS on its face, it further undermines MOS's intent to permit as much editorial choice as possible in formatting that sort of content. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Support Like SMcCandlish I find it difficult to see when this template should legitimately be used in the English Wikipedia. A major use seems to be to provide glosses of terms which have been marked by a template as being in another language. However, such glosses should surely not be marked with a language template; they are explanations of foreign terms in the language of the encyclopedia, namely English. There's no more reason to put these explanations in a language template than to put any other explanation of an unfamiliar word into an English language template. Italicization is certainly unhelpful if the template is used for glosses. As an example, consider Azhagiya_Tamil_Magan. The title is glossed as "English: Handsome Tamil Son" – but is this a gloss, or was the film distributed under this English title? The italics could reasonably be taken to mark a film title.

The real solution would be not to use this template in the English Wikipedia, and then it could remain consistent in its use of italics with the other language templates. Given that this solution is probably impossible, removing italics seems a sensible compromise. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support – there is no good reason to force italics in this template. It must be left to the editor to determine whether italics are needed or not. Some incorrect uses can be seen in Absalon where "Havn" is rendered as "English: Harbour", or in Altair where an Arabic phrase is shown as "English: The flying eagle". However, to complicate matters, the italics are correct in some instances. The first entry in WhatLinksHere is Anarchism where the Argentinian newspaper La Voz de la Mujer is by accident correctly rendered as "English: The Woman's Voice". Simply removing the forced italics from the template will correct some of its uses, but it will also change some for worse. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Why exactly is La Voz de la Mujer correctly rendered as The Woman's Voice? Is it because this newspaper is also published under this title? If not, I don't see why it should be italicized. It would be helpful if you could make this clear. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

(squeeze) Following WP:ITALICS, I was under the impression newspaper and similar titles were always in italics, regardless whether they're in the the original language or translated; apparently that's wrong. I learned something. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• I can't understand what the template is supposed to be for. I've looked at a few transclusions at random:
  • 1) the newspaper called La Voz de la Mujer (English: The Woman's Voice)

  If it's the actual title of an English version of that newspaper, then that's correct, including the italics; if it's just a translation of the Spanish title in order for non-Spanish speakers to know what it means, it should be “called La Voz de la Mujer ("The Woman's Voice")” (quotation marks – ideally single ones, if they weren't forbidden by the MOS, no italics, no “English:”, and maybe even no capitals).

  • 2) The name Île de la Passion (English: Passion Island) was officially given to Clipperton in 1711

  Here too, unless the English translation was also officially given by Clipperton in 1711, it should be “The name Île de la Passion ("Passion Island") was”, or maybe even the same without capital P and I.

  • 3) Consequently, α Centauri itself is known as 南門二 (Nán Mén Èr, English: the Second Star of Southern Gate.)

  I'd go for “known as 南門二 Nán Mén Èr "second [star] of the Southern Gate"” (maybe with parentheses around the quotation marks). (And today I'm in a good mood, otherwise I'd go for the fully verbatim “South Gate 2”.)

  Hence, I think most of the times the template shouldn't be used at all, and these few correct uses of it will likely be titles or words-as-words and hence need italicizing anyway. ― A. di M.​  16:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• How about taking this to TfD? The legitimate uses are likely such a small fraction that they could just be done by hand. ― A. di M.​  16:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's take all these cases in order. I've taken the liberty of refactoring in numbering in A. di M.'s post.<

1. Clearly not a legit usage. This is en.wiki, so we know any translation/gloss will be in English. The italicization, as a title, should be done explicitly, and only if it is a title actually used by the publication in English, per Peter coxhead. It should not be italicized by accident of this template italicizing everything (a condition that cannot be relied upon; in fact, I'm going to go remove it from that text in that article never mind – it was CSD'd.).
2. Clearly not a legit usage, for the same reason, and in this case italics should not be used at all.
3. Ditto #2, and clearly that's more useful metadata the way A. di M. did it.

I agree with A. di M. that this should be TfD'd. It certainly can be done by hand in the very rare cases this could be needed, and there's no reason to use a template like this to insert HTML lang="en-US" xml-lang="en-US" metadata, since every page on en.wiki already includes this by default, and it covers all content except that which is overridden by something like {{lang-de}}. In the interim, however, it immediately needs the italicization removed, because it's simply wrong and it's against MOS in at least two ways. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 07:24, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Support TfD The only possibly legitimate use I can think of for a template marking text as English would be to note an occurrence of English in a longish quotation which is in another language. Consider this quotation (used in a footnote at International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants), which I have here embedded in a {{lang-fr}} template:

[Dans les plantes cultivées, les semis, les métis d'origin obscure et les sports, reçoivent des noms de fantaisie, en langue vulgaire, aussi différents que possible des noms latins d'espèces ou de variétés.] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)

If this is read to a visually disabled person by a screen reader (one of the reasons to have {{lang}} templates), it won't know that "sports" is actually an English word (as shown by the italics in the original source reproduced inversely here). Now you could set this up as {{lang-fr|Dans les plantes ... et les}} sports {{lang-fr|, reçoivent ... de variétés.}} But it would be easier to set up as {{lang-fr|Dans les plantes ... et les {{lang-en|sports}}, reçoivent ... de variétés.}} However, this doesn't actually do what you want anyway because you don't want "English: " here and you want the English word in the inverse italicization which doesn't happen. So I really can't see any legitimate use for the {{lang-en}} template in the English Wikipedia, and a TfD seems entirely appropriate. (The "silent" effect of {{lang|en|...}} is what is needed in my example I think.) Peter coxhead (talk) 14:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, {{lang|en}} is what you want for that English-within-French-quote example. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:51, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it should be kept but its active template code blanked out or, better yet, replaced with a warning not to use it in en.wiki. Something needs to be kept here, because it's /doc page is a clearinghouse of interwiki links to the actually necessary non-en.wiki variants of the template everywhere else. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 14:27, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Another solution is to let it behave exactly as {{lang|en|...}}, i.e. just produce <span lang="en" xml:lang="en">...</span>. No harm is done by marking text redundantly as English in the resulting XHTML, and it could be useful in the very unusual situation I outlined above (an odd English word in a long foreign language quotation). The key requirement is to remove both the addition of "English: " and the italics. On reflection I think this is the best solution. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:34, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Just adding a bunch of redundant code is bad enough. It's a useless template, as a temlate. As noted, it needs to be kept as a placeholder page. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:51, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, italics are gone. I'm not so sure about removing 'English:' because the template may be used in articles in a way that assumes 'English:' is present. For example, British Isles uses this in the infobox and it would look a bit odd having the other languages' names listed but not English. Maybe it would be better to just remove the template there or there might be a reason for including it (the name being controversial and all). Either way, there may well be other articles that would have to be handled like this. And if one of you wants to TfD this, feel free. Tra (Talk) 23:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's a TfD thing. Cleanup is going to be non-fun. It needs to be "English: {{{1}}}" anywhere it's used in tables and stuff to be consistent with the "French: Y", etc. output of the related templates, but be simply "{{{1}}}" in running prose. In the interim, it would be good remove the language code from this, and just strip it down to [[English language|English]]: {{{1}}} — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:51, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Another thing I was worried about (I don't know if this sort of usage exists and I don't really want to check) is something along the lines of "bonjour (in English: hello)" where to remove 'English:' would look wrong. But why would you want to remove the metadata saying that the word is in English? Because looking through the discussion above, if it's used inside a quote from another language then you'd need that. Perhaps one solution is to get a bot to go through every page using the template, find the part of the source code where that template is used, extract a few characters either side (for context) and output the results to a table. Then from there a human could scan through and see how it's being used and what needs to be changed. Tra (Talk) 14:14, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, here's that data: [1]. Some disclaimers; that page is big so be careful not to crash your browser. Much of the comments are made by scanning through by eye (after sorting) so some may be inaccurate. I've excluded any pages using the template twice or where I couldn't easily find the template in the source code (there's about 1200 like this). They're just a pain to handle in Excel.

Basically from looking through it all, whilst some usages are quite common, there are loads and loads of different ways of using the template so it's not easy to just remove 'English:'. Tra (Talk) 23:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Whilst I can be convinced that the italics were necessary and I can completely see why the language name should not be linked, the English: marker should surely not be removed. If there are instances where we don't want it present, surely {{lang|en}} should be used instead? —OwenBlacker (Talk) 19:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Places such as the infobox of British Isles are pretty much the only places where it actually makes sense to use [undefined] <span style="color:#d33">Error: {{Lang-xx}}: no text ([[:Category:Lang and lang-xx template errors|help]])</span>, and in these I'd keep both the link and the italics for consistency with the other languages. ― A. di M.​  18:33, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

When I looked through how it was used (a couple of posts above), I found that the most common usage was at the start of an article, translating the article's name. You mentioned previously that you would prefer to remove 'English:' and add quotes, but what about the articles where the title is translated into english and other languages as well - would it be better to keep the consistency with other languages, or to do something else instead? Tra (Talk) 18:58, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Resolution

Okay, we know that {{lang|en}} is what to use for English phrases inside non-English quotations. All that seems to be left are cases where:

1. This template is used as a stand-in for English: something in English here, e.g. in a list/table of translations of something into various languages; this should be the entire functional output of the template, and its actual use in articles should be discouraged. The template only needs to exist for interwiki reasons as basically a placeholder. Because the character string {{lang-en|foo}} is actually three characters longer than English: foo, its actual use as a functional template is utterly pointless.
2. This template is misused as a stand-in for "{{{1}}}", e.g. after a non-English term/phrase. These instances all need to be replaced with the content of {{{1}}}, because things like {{lang-es|queso}} ({{lang-en|cheese}}) are pointless and reader-insulting; we already know this is English and don't need to be told that translations from a foreign language are into English by default. FYI: At least in linguistics circles, the proper formatting is {{lang-es|queso}}, 'cheese' with single-quote marks (and yes, MOS does need to be updated about that being a proper usage of single-quotes), though in more pedestrian style {{lang-es|queso}}, "cheese" is common, as is {{lang-es|queso}} (cheese). Even readers of simple.wiki don't need to be told that "cheese" is English, much less have "English" be a link.

I therefore propose:

• Stripping this template down to English: {{{1}}} and an #if to turn on a link to English.
• Stripping the documentation down to a statement that this template is a placeholder for interwiki purposes and should not actually be used – subst on sight.
• Repairing all the #2 (above) cases, at our collective leisure (they're all already misuses that improperly insert "English: " where it's not needed, and won't really look any different, so this proposal doesn't actually break anything).

We could retain an option for linking, so that the output can be forced to be [[English language|English]]: something in English here. There are unusual cases where this would be useful. The point is: No redundant lang/xml-lang code, no italics, no linking-by-default, and strong deprecation of actual usage of the template. The fact that it would even have any actual code in it is simply a "fail gracefully" exit. Heck, I could probably even live with [[English language|English]]: {{{1}}} being the code with a #if addition to turn the linking off manually, as long as the rest is done. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 16:59, 19 May 2012 (UTC) Clarified. 07:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Similar to users OwenBlacker and Tra, I disagree with your assertion that "English: " should be removed. Your (2) fails to contemplate entities with multiple official names in different languages; in such cases, maintaining uniformity among the translations is necessary or else the sentence introducing the translations looks/becomes somewhat weird/irregular. Thirdly, this template is convenient for purposes of regularity among the lang-* templates, so I disagree with your deprecation suggestion; mentally, one need not carry the burden of having to remember to special-case English translations. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:21, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

You did not seem to have properly parsed what I wrote (I have clarified some wording in case this was my fault). Your use cases are examples of #1, not #2 as you suggested. Intentional uses of "English: translation here" are by definition instances of English: {{{1}}} (case #1) not just {{{1}}} (case #2). Anyone who is incapable of understanding and remembering that except in weird cases you don't need to tell English speakers that something is in English, probably cannot meaningfully contribute to en.wiki. The fact that there are a few unusual cases (e.g., A. where "en" is one of many values plugged into a language variable by an automated tool; B. where actually linking English is important in context), is why to not TfD the template out of existence, and simply deprecate its misuse in routine cases, because using it when it is not genuinely needed actually wastes more keystrokes (and cycles) than it saves. We don't have a {{boldface|1=x}} template for the exact same reason: It's pointless to waste processing power parsing a template, and waste editor time typing out something longer than needed, when x works fine, just as English: x is more efficient in both ways that {{Lang-en|x}}. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 07:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Suggested edit to use quotes and label suppression

Resolved

 –  Declined

The previous discussion seems to me have suggested that people would like a way to suppress the English: label and to use quotes.

I've created a sandbox, containing a version that introduces two new parameters:

• |nolabel=yes will suppress display of the label English:
• |quotes=yes will surround the text with quotemarks

For example:

Code	Result
{{lang-en/sandbox|Sample text}}	English: Sample text
{{lang-en/sandbox|Sample text|nolabel=yes}}	English: Sample text
{{lang-en/sandbox|Sample text|quotes=yes}}	English: Sample text
{{lang-en/sandbox|Sample text|nolabel=yes|quotes=yes}}	English: Sample text

Could someone please replace the template source with the current version of the sandbox. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 21:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your effort here, but I'm going to say no to this one, on the grounds that it overcomplicates the template unnecessarily. I think it would be better to perhaps update the documentation to refer people to {{lang}} if they don't want a label, and it would also be easier for people to add quotes manually around it rather than remembering which parameter to use. Tra (Talk) 21:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the last thing we need to do is add features to a template that needs to be stripped down to bare bones and virtually never actually used. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:07, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

PS: The proper style actually varies anyway. For simply giving a passage in English, no special punctuation or styling is ever needed, since this is en.wiki. For giving a gloss of a foreign language term or phrase, the style is {{lang-es|casa}}, English: 'house', in the incredibly rare cases where "English: " is ever needed; glosses use single quotation marks. MOS:ITALICS needs to be updated on this point, but that convention is used universally in linguistics and related fields. For providing translations of titles of works, it would be She released "{{lang|es|Mi Casa Es Su Casa}}" (English: "My House Is Your House") in 2013 for a song, or <nowiki>she released ''{{lang|es|Mi Casa Es Su Casa}}'' (English: ''My House Is Your House'') in 2013 for an album or book, again almost always without "English: ", since we already know this is en.wiki. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

PPS: A |nolabel= parameter would be pointless. For any {{lang-xx|nolabel=yes}}, as you propose, that would just redundantly do what {{lang|xx}} already does. Just use the regular template. And there is no need to use a template to "silently" flag any content as English on en.wiki except under very unusual circumstances; {{lang|en}} works, but there are very, very few legitimate uses for it. And if there were somehow, some way a need for {{lang-xx}}} templates to have a |nolabel=, that would need to be implemented in the parent meta-template of this one, {{Language with name}}, not just added randomly to the English one. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Remove dead code

The /sandbox page has new code (tested as /testcases). Because this template will never be used inside a non-English passage, it already has lang="en" xml:lang="en" applied to its content (inherited from higher up). Therefore, there is no purpose whatsoever in the wasteful call to {{tlx|language with name}which makes no sense, since there can never be more than one of them); it is best redocumented as "|link=yes or -family:Trebuchet MS;">SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:55, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain this further please? In particular,

• From the discussion higher up this page, it seems this template is designed to be used for English text inside a foreign quotation. How does lang="en" xml:lang="en" apply in these cases?
• Are there any uses of |links=yes in current use? If so, would this change break them?

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You're thinking of {{lang|en}}. Template:Lang-en "will never be used inside a non-English passage", as I noted above. Also as I mentioned, |links=yes would still work and be improved, by having the more grammatically sensible and shorter |link=yes work, too. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:58, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay you seem to know what you are talking about, and no one else has expressed an opinion. So  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:05, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Please fix fr: interwiki

The interwiki for French should be fr:Modèle:lang-en. Marc Mongenet (talk) 20:16, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

This template could supply sorely missed language support functionality on Wikipedia

Only when the syntax in article prose is English translation (English: foreign language phrase) we currently get categorization into the Category:Articles containing non-English language text hierarchy. There is no function or workaround that I have encountered that effects the same categorization of the ordering is reversed, i.e. foreign language phrase (English: English translation). I propose therefore that an optional parameter be added to this template, from= where the language code of the foreign language could be specified. Thus, in the article NSB Class 49 we would have

'''Dovregubben''' ({{lang-en|''"the Dovre Giant"''|from=no}})

and this article would be added to Category:Articles containing Norwegian language text. __meco (talk) 11:25, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier (and more logical) to use '''{{lang|no|Dovregubben}}''' (the Dovre Giant)? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:32, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Particularly since then "Dovregubben" would be correctly tagged as Norwegian text. Anomie⚔ 13:16, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems I have missed out on this possibility. Yes, that seems to do the job. __meco (talk) 13:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Markup of text within the template no longer works

The edits of December 2017 appear to have broken the formatting, such that {{lang-en|''text which should be italicized''}} throws an error. Enclosing the entire template call with the markup causes the word "English" to also be affected by the markup so that is not a workaround. This appears to affect other "lang-xx" templates. Herostratus (talk) 03:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Have you tried a) removing the template because it's unnecessary; b) {{lang-en|text which should be italicized|italic=yes}} which emits "English: text which should be italicized"? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:20, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh OK thanks. Yes I get the unnecessary part, but template are preferred if they exist. It makes it easier to group these translations if you ever need to; and you can count them, if for some reason this is desireble (it might be, for some study or whatever). It makes it possible to globally upgrade or otherwise change all the translations. And I believe that you can click on the name of the language generated and go to that language's article, which could be useful for unusual languages mainly.

If using the templates are really not an improvement, they should be sent to TfD.

OK I get the italic=yes, but I mean this breaks all my instances of the template that used italics. Is a bot going to fix this, or what?

But OK, mark as solved. Herostratus (talk) 08:13, 18 December 2017 (UTC)