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The total English Speakers and Learners combined population could be????

English has 1.5 billion speakers, the learners around the world could be???? For example in China, 300 million learners are currently studying English as a secondary language... The total English speakers and learners could be around 2.5 billion people...

Compare to Chinese, China economy grow stronger, but its market is not open, and the sole simplified Chinese speaking country in the world is only China, Singapore only consider it as a minor language, Lee Guan Yaw studied Mandarin, but does not has the same root as English, eventually forget... The total Chinese speakers and learners could be reached only to 1.5 billion people... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.82.248.88 (talk) 10:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Guyana, Jamaica and Belize

As far as I can tell from sources provided elsewhere on wikipedia, the first language of most people in these countries are English-based creole languages, not English. I have tried to edit the map to reflect this but I can't manage to save as an svg. Can someone help please? Munci (talk) 13:19, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

English is the official languge in Jamaica and Guyana, and it is the primary language taught in schools there. The creoles aren't written languages or taught in schools, so most of the population is effectively English-speaking. Sources do exist for that, so I wouldn't recommend changing the maps for them. I don't know about Belize. - BilCat (talk) 15:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The legend of the map says

Countries where English is an official or de facto official language, or national language, and is spoken natively by the majority of the population

Note the part that says "AND is spoken natively by the majority of the population". The article on Jamaican English#Language use: Standard versus Patois says

Standard [Jamaican English], on the other hand, ... is also the native language of a small minority of Jamaicans (typically upper class and upper/traditional middle class).

So it would be incorrect to leave both the map and its legend as they are. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:18, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Both Jamaica and Guyana are considered English speaking countries by most official sources. The media in Jamaica all use English. So, no, the map and legend are correct. - BilCat (talk) 16:25, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

You missed my point. Of course Jamaica is an English-speaking country. If that's all the legend said, the legend would be correct. But the legend says, falsely, that the majority of Jamaicans are native speakers of English.

Or do you have a source that says that the majority of Jamaicans are native speakers of English? If so, we would need to correct the statement to the contrary in the Jamaican English article.

Maybe the legend would correspond correctly to the map if we just change and is spoken natively by the majority to or is spoken natively by the majority. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Perhaps the legend can be tweaked a bit to be "hyper-accurate", but I do think it is fine as-is. The situation in Jamaica and Guyana is totally different from that regarding NPE as discussed above, as most speakers of NPE speak other native African languages as their first language, not NPE. In contrast, English and Creole are spoken in a Post-creole continuum in Guyana and Jamaica, and in general, no one speaks the pure basilect with no comprehension of Standard English. (Complete) Fluency (in Standard English) is a different matter, but the same could be said of rural SAE or urban AAVE speakers in the US! - BilCat (talk) 16:46, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The situation is certainly different from Nigeria where there are many other languages to consider as well. The prescence of a continuum does not take away from the fact that most people in these people have creole languages as their first language. Munci (talk) 20:54, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The presence of the continuum means that the majority population is effectively bi-lingual natively, or else fall somewhere in between. It's not a simple either/or situation, as most of the poulation is exposed to both Standard English and Creole from birth, and thus learn both to varying degrees of fluency. - BilCat (talk) 07:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

No that's not how it works. I mean here in Réunion kids don't necessarily understand what the teacher says in the first few years of school for example. Most people learn French later but it's still not the native language for most people. Creole languages really are simply separate languages from the languages they are derived from and you need to learn both to understand and speak both. Munci (talk) 08:53, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I am not talking about all countries or territories where there are creole languages, only Jamaica and Guyana. What I described in the previous post is the situation in Jamaica, where I lived as a child and went to a local school there, and in Guyana, which I have visited. In both countries, English is generally understood by young children well before they begin attending school, which is usually age 3 in Jamaica. - BilCat (talk) 15:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

OK but what you're saying contradicts this article: "The vast majority of children arrive at school speaking little apart from the creole of their ancestors" [1]. What do you think about that? Munci (talk) 20:28, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, how about if we change the legend to Countries where English is an official or de facto official language, or national language, and is spoken natively or near-natively by the majority of the population. I.e., we would change natively to natively or near-natively. Any objection? Duoduoduo (talk) 18:46, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Well it's an improvement. If you do change the legend, you would need to change it in all the languages. Munci (talk) 20:54, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I can live with that change for the primarily English-speaking countries such as Jamaica and Guyana, barring further discussion which might lead to other questions. I'm not sure about Belize, where IIRC Spanish also has a presence. - BilCat (talk) 07:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It's still not correct. We don't know that the majority of Guyanese are "near native" in their ability. But per Ethnologue 90% are literate, and I suspect that the majority of that is English. So it would seem that they're at least fluent. As for Belize, my impression is that the majority are fluent in English, though I wouldn't want to claim that they're 'nearly native' w/o a ref. — kwami (talk) 10:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

If by "literate" you mean that they can read and write their "native" language, then no one in Jamaica or Guyana is literate in their Creole languages without first being literate in English, simply bacuase the Creoles aren't fully written languages. English is taught as the primary literate language in almost all schools in both countries, nad I unaware of either creole being taught to children before English. It should be fairly simple to find several relable sources for English being the literate language for the majority in Jamaica and Guyana, if that is needed here. - BilCat (talk) 21:34, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Describing someone's fluency as "near native" means that they necessarily have a different native language. Is that in fact the case in the countries being discussed here? Roger (talk) 10:38, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

It's more complicated than an either/or situation. In the case of Jamaica and Guyana, English and the respective Creoles aren't learned in vacuums. Children are routinely exposed to both languages from birth. Though they probably have better fluency in the Creole, which is generally spoken at home. They aren't in any way ignorant of standard English even before they start school, due to media exposure and other sources, though of course the majority can't write English, or the Creoles either! It's usually that way with most 3-year-olds. :) - BilCat (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Sentence not terribly clear

"The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 250,000 distinct words, not including many technical, scientific, or slang terms, or words that belong to multiple word classes."

The only sense I can make of the last part is that it's supposed to mean that words that can, for example, be both nouns and verbs are counted only once. Actually, though, it doesn't really say this. If anything, it says that they are not counted at all. I feel this wording would benefit from clarification. 86.181.201.103 (talk) 13:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I tried to find this sentence, to change "or words that belong to multiple..." to "and not counting multiply words that belong to multiple...", but I can't find the sentence in the article. Can you say what section and subsection it's in, and how many paragraphs from the beginning of the sub-section? Thanks. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Duoduoduo, thanks for your reply. The part about "multiple word classes" was deleted earlier today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_language&action=historysubmit&diff=463187451&oldid=463184576

86.179.4.77 (talk) 00:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Dyslexia

"[dyslexia] is twice as prevalent among dyslexics in the United States (and France) as it is among Italian dyslexics."

This makes no more sense now than it did last time I passed by this article and commented on it, which must have been many months ago. If no one is able to clarify it, I think it is high time that this text was deleted. 86.179.4.77 (talk) 20:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

And I feel compelled to make the same comment I did back in December:

The cite is horribly written. The cite, *ahem*, cites the following article:

http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/speech/booth/james/neuropsychology/ReadingArticles/PaulesuDemonet.2001.pdf

And their conclusion is that (poor) word recognition accuracy, the common diagnostic basis for dyslexia, is in fact, twice as common in English and French speakers as in Italian speakers, *but* assuming a biological cause for dyslexia (for which there is considerable evidence), biological dyslexics (who score consistently poorly on control tests no matter the their language), are better able to compensate in languages with "shallow orthographies" (Italian) and in languages with "deep orthographies" (English, French), and thus are more hidden. IOW, the proportion of dyslexics is the same, but the word recognition accuracy standard misses many more of the Italian speakers. Now, how to make that point with a semblance of clarity and concision...?

I think the original source makes an important point. Rwessel (talk) 10:17, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Say Again?

The spelling system, or orthography, [...] has grown to vary significantly from the phonology of the language. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken.

Aren't the above two sentences repetatively redundant? Should we just remove and delete that last sentence? Or, if the last sentence is clearer and easier to understand (and for many readers it may be) then should we remove and delete the first bit which precedes the last quoted sentence? Thank you, gracias .... Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 20:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:15, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

"most widely spoken language"

Estimates for how many English speakers there are vary enormously, with numbers as low as half a billion, so why does the lead say "It is the most widely spoken language across the world.", as though this were undisputed? --Yair rand (talk) 02:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Depends on whether you are talking about native speakers, or second language users. And how competent a speaker has to be before you count them as an English speaker. The number of native speakers is about 400 million. Depending on where the line is drawn as far as competence is concerned, the number of second language speakers varies enormously, from 200 million to about a billion and a half. The nearest contender is Mandarin Chinese, with about 850 million native speakers and about 200 million second language speakers. Unlike Mandarin, which is spoken mainly in China, English is an international language and has a great deal of second language speakers of varying levels of competence. Different sources use different criteria, hence the wide range you see. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

How many of these sources say that English has more speakers than Mandarin? I'm guessing many don't. --Yair rand (talk) 03:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The number of people that have SOME working knowledge of English easily exceeds that of people who have SOME working knowledge of Mandarin. No one disputes that. It's just a question of which level of knowledge qualifies someone to be called an "English speaker", and that depends on who is reporting the figure. The low figure, about 600 million, is for native and rather fluent speakers. The higher numbers include moderately and slightly fluent speakers. The highest figures take into account people who can understand the language to some degree, but probably cannot speak it with any degree of fluency.

That doesn't really answer your question, though, about English being the most widely spoken language. There's no doubt about that. English is the major international language, and is spoken in many countries around the world. Mandarin Chinese is spoken primarily in China. Put it this way: wherever you go in the world, you'll have a much easier time finding an English speaker than a Mandarin Chinese speaker, unless you're in China, of course. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Both the Mandarin and Spanish Wikipedias say that English is the third most-spoken language by number of native speakers, and second most-spoken if you include second language speakers (with no mention of disputed/different statistics). Russian Wikipedia says the same, except also mentioning that it might be fourth in number of native speakers. Saying "most widely spoken", if simply referring to total number of speakers, isn't exactly correct, but there's a reasonable possibility this wasn't the intended meaning of the statement in the first place, so it should probably be cleaned up/clarified. You are certainly correct that if one is around the 80% of the world that lives outside China, one is much more likely to be able to find an English speaker than a Mandarin speaker, and I think that a clear explanation of that fact should replace the current ambiguous statement that English is "most widely spoken". --Yair rand (talk) 04:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Official Status list

I am not sure it makes sense that treaties such as NAFTA and UKUSA are included in that list. The other non-national additions are organisations with presences, headquarters and the like, rather than simply being cooperative agreements. I'm not aware of a "NAFTA" headquarters, or any documents published by "NAFTA". NAFTA is handled by its respective nations and their bodies. (As I assume UKUSA is, from browsing the article.) I also suspect that if "business will be done in English" gets treaties (or other things) on the list, there'd be an awful lot more to add. - BalthCat (talk) 20:06, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I doubt that the NAFTA treaty mentions an official language. Duoduoduo (talk) 20:18, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, I disagree with myself and Balthcat. The article NAFTA lists English, French, and Spanish as its three languages; the article French language links to a list of organizations having French as official, including NAFTA; and the article Spanish language includes NAFTA is its list of organizations in which Spanish is official. So even if attempting to list all such treaties, etc. would lead to overkill, for consistency with the other articles I think we should leave it the way it is. Duoduoduo (talk) 21:13, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, they could have been added at the same time, making them part of one larger mistake :) For example, NAFTA is not an international organisation, it's a treaty. It looks like someone tried to cram NAFTA into an international treaty organisation mould, like CETA has. - BalthCat (talk) 12:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)- BalthCat (talk) 11:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with the nay-sayers. It should not be listed because then we would have to list a whole lotta other stuff. Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 18:04, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Number of US native English speakers is inconsitant and misleading

The number of American English speakers is misleading. It states there are 215 million native English speakers in the US out of a population of 260 million. But our actual population is 307 million. Oh, but the count only includes people older than 5 years old for the US even though I know kids that age who speak English. But for the UK they include include infants as English speakers and therefore 98% of Britts are native English speakers.

Either way of counting might make sense by itself but makes no sense when comparing one country with anouther. Either all countries shoud only count people older than five years old or all countries should assume that babies and todlers speak (or will speak) the same langage as their parents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.239.133.132 (talk) 21:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but Wikipedia does not collect the data; it only publishes them. We need a source that uses the same standard in order to publish that way; otherwise, we have to make imperfect comparisons and note their deficiencies. Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 23:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I understand that Wikipedia does not collect data but the undercount of native English speakers relative to native Spanish speakers combined with the Spanish page's counting every Hispanic that speaks ANY Spanish as a native speaker makes the conclusion that there are more native Spanish speakers than native English speaker questionable. The English page seems to be well done but the Spanish page is poorly done and results in a potentialy false statement (that English is the number three native language) on this page.

If the data can not be adjusted to take into account the different standards used in counting native English and native Spanish speakers then one should not rank them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.171.181.95 (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The "215 million" is probably just a simple digit reversal. The table just below the "215" gives the number as "251 million," which sounds like it may be correct. It suggests that there are 50-60 million, or so, persons in the US whose first language is not English, a not unreasonable number, I'd say. Gsdwikiuseracct101 (talk) 03:15, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. I erred. The "251" figure in the table is for the TOTAL number of English speakers. To the right of that figure the "215" figure is also given, but it's for the number of NATIVE English speakers (speakers whose first language is English) and, of course, is the same as the number in the text. The coincidence of the same digits in the two numbers led me to jump to the conclusion that there was just a simple reversal. Sorry.

Perhaps I can partly make up for that error by pointing out that if you adjust the "215" figure for an increase in the US population from 262 million to 307 million, it just turns out that the tentative new figure for native speakers would be 252 million (and the tentative adjusted figure for total speakers would be 294 million). The closeness of the tentative adjusted figure of 252 million for native speakers to the 251 million I used above means that at least I can stand by my statement: "It suggests that there are 50-60 million, or so, persons in the US whose first language is not English, a not unreasonable number, I'd say." Gsdwikiuseracct101 (talk) 04:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

English Originated from Sanskrit ?

Can somebody write on this topic; Look at amazing similarities between numbers and very important words such as mother("Matru" in Sanskrit), Father (Pitru), Brother (Pitru) etc between both languages ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.61.50.119 (talk) 18:59, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

See Indo-European languages. Duoduoduo (talk) 19:02, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

English language removed

Hello

I would like to say English is not an official language in Madagascar and was removed. (according to the new constitution of 2010). Moreover, English has never been a spoken language in Madagascar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nary14 (talk • contribs) 23:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Scots

A user has removed references to Scots in the Classification and Related Languages section, citing that "Scots is a dialect, not a language". I move to revert the edits. What is the concensus here regarding Scots? Leasnam (talk) 02:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

It's usually treated as a dialect of English in the sources. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Go with whatever sources you find. Speaking as a linguist, I don't think the question of whether Scots is a language or a dialect has a clear answer: There just aren't any non-arbitrary criteria that distinguish between languages and dialects in a principled and intuitive way. garik (talk) 16:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Any decision should be based on the use of reliable sources. The sources, ofr course, have to be ones from the field of linguistics. PiCo (talk) 10:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I realise "go with whatever sources you find" could easily be interpreted to imply that any old source would do, which isn't the case. I'd add, however, that you're unlikely to find many sources from the field of linguistics that resolve the question. The question of whether Scots is a separate language from English or a dialect of English is at least as political as it is linguistic. garik (talk) 13:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Scots has a separate language code (sco). In Wiltionary it is treated as a separate language. 98.121.175.240 (talk) 00:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

There's also a Scots Wikipædia. —teb728 t c 01:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Source: English in Science

• Matthew E Falagas, Eufemia Fabritsi, Fotini C Chelvatzoglou, and Konstantinos Rellos. "Penetration of the English language in science: the case of a German national interdisciplinary critical care conference." Crit Care. 2005; 9(6): 655–656. Published online 2005 September 16. doi: 10.1186/cc3817

WhisperToMe (talk) 01:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

• • Prior to WWI, Germany had reigned supreme in organic chemistry and chemical technology. It was said in 1905 that America lagged fifty years behind the Germans in organic chemical processing.

Even America's chemistry and chemical engineering professors had been primarily trained in German Universities, and a working knowledge of the German language was essential to keep up with the latest chemical advances (see: www.pafko.com/history/h_contrb.html). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.113.241.45 (talk) 14:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Voiceless alveolar affricate ( t͡s )

The Voiceless alveolar affricate appears in the English language. For Example, in the word "Pizza".EsB (talk) 07:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Why would you say that the zz in pizza is an affricate /t͡s/ and not a sequence of a stop and fricative /ts/? — Eru·tuon 14:04, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Your right. My apologies for any confusion.EsB (talk) 14:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Percentages don't add up

In the computerized survey listed in the [[English_language#Word_origins|]] section, the percentages given for the origins of English words by language don't add up to 100%: hgilbert (talk) 12:44, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%

Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%

Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%

Greek: 5.32%

No etymology given: 4.03%

Derived from proper names: 3.28%

All other languages: less than 1%

Peer review

I put this article up for peer review, so if you want to review it, please do here. Thanks!--Lucky102 (talk) 16:50, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Vocabulary vs Lexicon

Vocabulary is different from lexicon and this article seems to confuse the two. Vocabulary generally refers to the set of words that a specific person knows whereas lexicon refers to the entire set of words and possible expressions within a given language. So one wouldn't say "the English vocabulary is very large" one would say "the English lexicon is very large" whereas one would say "his vocabulary is very large" when referring to a specific person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.108.115.45 (talk) 22:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Not in linguistics, where "lexicon" is the standard technical term for the set of words an individual speaker knows. It's also used to refer to the words known by a set of speakers, such as all English speakers. In linguistics (though not in everyday language) the term "vocabulary" is, as far as I can tell, a rather less common synonym for lexicon. garik (talk) 23:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I should add that "the words known by the set of all English speakers" is equivalent for most purposes to "all the words of English". In other words, the term "lexicon" is used in both senses in linguistics, while the term "vocabulary" is less common in both senses (in my experience at least). garik (talk) 23:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This article seems to be ideologically motivated; biased: English, a West Germanic language?

The author of this article seems to really want English to be known as a 'West Germanic language'.

However, admitted within:

"Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%." "Germanic languages....25%."

Furthermore, "...the majority of more advanced words in subjects such as the sciences, philosophy and mathematics come from Latin or Greek...".

Also, the author writes:

"Yet the ability to choose between multiple synonyms [borrowed from French, Latin, etc.] is not a consequence of French and Latin influence, as this same richness existed in English prior to the extensive borrowing of French and Latin terms."

This sentence is logically problematic: Old/middle English's richness of vocabulary is irrelevant; more relevant is the extent to which modern English borrowed from Romance languages, which certainly is a consequence of influence from Romance languages. Vocabulary derived from Romance languages is regarded as 'borrowing' whereas that derived from West Germanic languages is reified as 'genealogical derivation'.

How can modern English be classified as 'West Germanic' when more modern English words derive from Latin than 'Germanic languages'. English should possibly be re-classified as a 'West Germanic/Latinate (Romance) language.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.117.17.127 (talk) 01:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The taxonomy of a language is not determined by vocabulary - no amount of borrowing from Romance languages will change the fact that English is historically and structurally West Germanic. It's basic grammar is clearly Germanic. BTW I have no idea what makes you believe that this article has a single author. If you look at the history you'll see that dozens, if not hundreds, of people have contributed to it. Roger (talk) 16:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

As an example of how English is structurally Germanic: When a verb is borrowed into English, it follows the pattern of the Germanic weak verb. —teb728 t c 18:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I apply the 'washing powder test', which can done with any set of instructions. I am a native English speaker, I have never learnt a foreign language to fluency, though I did once try to teach myself Anglo-Saxon, ironically. If I look at the instructions attached to any product then Finnish, Russian and Hungarian are totally meaningless, Greek (if you can transliterate) gives up a few clues, German, Dutch and Norse languages yield about the same amount of useful meaning as Greek; in contrast French, Spanish and Italian often yield intelligible information. Yet English is supposed to be most closely related to Frisian and other West-Germanic languages. This, if the primary function of language is to convey meaning, seems to prove that linguistics/philology is not scientific in the least - I'm a scientist. Urselius (talk) 11:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a rather odd conclusion, and rather a poor test. Consider this analogy: bats seem to have more in common with birds than with cows. Yet zoologists tell us they're more closely related to the latter than the former. Should we therefore conclude that zoology is not scientific? I too am a scientist. garik (talk) 13:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

How is it a poor test? It is a direct test of relative comprehension. If you gave me a random passage in two languages I had no prior knowledge of - say Catalan and Old Gothic - I can guarantee that I would be able to extract far more meaning from the Romance language than from the Germanic. My first degree was in zoology. You can't mate a bat and a bird, but languages can combine to produce hybrids. In zoology when an arab horse mates with a donkey it produces a hybrid - a mule. However, in linguistics the hybrid is apparently exactly the same as one of its parents! English lost about 80% of its Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, and now over 60% of its present vocabulary is Latin-derived and it is still a "West Germanic" language. Remarkably unscientific. Urselius (talk) 15:53, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Your "test" proves only shared vocabulary - and your own comprehension (in)ability. Roger (talk) 16:00, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

No it doesn't it just shows that linguists care more for fossilised derivations than for the real purpose of language - that is to convey meaning. The grammar argument doesn't hold up all that well either - what speaker of Modern English would understand that se earldorman ofsloh thone biscop means exactly the same as, thone biscop ofsloh se ealdorman? Apologies for 'th' rather than thorn. Urselius (talk) 16:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

You're missing the point, Urselius. Just as organisms aren't assigned their positions on the biological phylogenetic tree based on how similar they might appear to a non-zoologist, languages are not assigned to language trees based on how similar they appear to a non-linguist. Now, that would be unscientific. Instead they're assigned on the basis of inheritance. And it turns out that English really does go with the Germanic languages in terms of its inheritance. You're quite right that hybridism works differently in language. And if English were a true creole language (a proper hybrid) there would be a strong argument for classifying it as Romance-Germanic. But, although a couple of people have suggested it should be considered a creole, the arguments are not very strong. In terms of syntax, morphology, phonology, and phonetics, English is pretty straightforwardly Germanic. And it turns out that it's pretty Germanic with respect to lexicon too. While you're right that it lost a very great amount of its Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and replaced it with words from other sources (chiefly Romance), it happens that the vast majority of the most common words in English are of Germanic origin. In other words, if you take a random conversation in English, most of the words are likely to be of Germanic origin. (In fact, over 70% of the words in my post up to the opening of this parenthesis are of Germanic origin, in spite of the number of technical words that it contains.) English just isn't an equal hybrid of Germanic and Romance, however much it might look like one to you. garik (talk) 19:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, your point about "the real purpose of language" really isn't as good as you think. It's a little like arguing that the real purpose of animals is to move around, and that they should therefore be classified according to how they do so. As it happens, it's far from universally accepted that language is mainly about communicating propositions, surprising though that may seem to non-linguists (and a few linguists). People are usually very surprised to learn quite how much language is used for what Robin Dunbar described as vocal grooming: Basically chatting for the sake of chatting (or, in some cases, bullshit in Harry Frankfurt's sense of the word). Its role as a means of indicating affiliation and distinguishing between ingroup and outgroup members is also far more significant than many people realise. And in this respect phonology and phonetics almost certainly matter more than lexicon. garik (talk) 19:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The primary function of language is to keep linguists employed, obviously. The following is an interesting exploration of the topic: JeanMarc Gachelin (1990). Is English a Romance language?. English Today, 6, pp 814 doi:10.1017/S0266078400004855 [2] The last sentence of this article is worth quoting. "Its very heterogeneousness befits the international vocation of English, because, as Sir Francis Palgrave once put it, 'the warp may be Anglo-Saxon, but the woof is Roman as well as the embroidery'. Urselius (talk) 15:21, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

To quote Murat H. Roberts, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Jan., 1939), pp. 23-41. University of Illinois Press: “In English we can use, without hesitation or awkwardness, such hybrid phrases as good reason, pleasant day, sufficient likelihood, reign of law, dream of empire, grandeur of the sea, turbulent waters, nocturnal darkness. Despite divergent etymologies, the locutions ring true. Good English indeed consists in just such an equipoise between its two historic elements, the Teutonic and the Mediterranean. In interfusion resides the quintessence of English. Its hybridness is its Englishness; its excellence springs from intermixture.” Urselius (talk) 15:21, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

English is a Germanic language...and there is no doubt about it within any linguistic field of research. Its grammatical structure is utterly germanic, the 100 most used words are overwhelmingly germanic, its verbal structure is totally germanic, pronouns, basic adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions are almost completely germanic. The phonology is germanic. The format and meaning of most expressions are germanic. The numbers are germanic. The words for family members and most familiar objects are germanic. Basic words for nature, animals, basic food stuffs and geographic features are germanic. The most used verbs are germanic. The verb to be is germanic...the very verb that is used in 2 out of 3 sentences. The conjugations are germanic. The inflections are germanic. The many many phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and the daunting prepositional phrasal verbs are germanic. The word order is germanic. The irregularities are germanic. The whole language is germanic except for a superficial borrowing of Latin vocabulary used mostly in formal, academic, legal, cultural and culinary settings. There is no special ideology or bias used when declaring English as a germanic language because it is a germanic language. I can understand how you may find the superficial relationship between French and English as a much closer one, but it is not. I recommend you go learn Dutch, Spanish and French and you may change your mind. If you still believe that English is not a Germanic language, then go ahead and prove it academically, not by reading cereal boxes. --Shabidoo | Talk 06:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The sentence you used, "Basic words for nature, animals, basic food stuffs and geographic features are germanic" if stripped of its Romance/Hellenic elememts becomes, "words for food stuffs and are" - I rest my case! Hwaet! If you look earlier in the thread you will see that I taught myself Anglo-Saxon, it was entirely the same as learning a foreign language, the congruences to Modern English are so slight as to be almost useless in learning it.

One of the linguists I have refered to above places no greater emphasis on grammar than on other elements of language, including vocabulary. I think that the basic problem is that the way professional linguists, or the majority of same, class English as a West Germanic language of the Anglo-Frisian branch, or whatever, does not accord to the experience of the vast majority of people who use the language. It is like insisting that an animal is a pure-bred Arabian horse when it is stood there with ears the size of windmill sails and is braying continuously. Urselius (talk) 08:29, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

As for Anglo-Saxon, the difficulty of Anglo-Saxon is twofold: the spelling rules are different (hwæt vs what); and the poetry uses a syntax that is not possible in Modern English. But after learning the spelling rules and a little grammar I find I can easily read Anglo-Saxon prose; it is not at all like learning a foreign language. See for example the second text sample at History of the English language#Old English: Notice how closely the translation can follow the original.

You may disagree with the accepted experts, but the rules of inclusion in Wikipedia say that we are to report what they say even if they are wrong. —teb728 t c 09:45, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

My problem with the article as it stands, and I think it is cogent, is the lack of balance. There are eight paragraphs explaining at great length why English is a Germanic language, some of them esoteric to an unhelpful degree, and only one paragraph explaining why English is so very unlike other modern Germanic languages. Modern English has over half its vocabulary of Romance origins, its grammar is not all that similar to Modern German and Dutch, and this needs to be explained. Why English eschews constructions like "farspeaker" for 'telephone' needs comment. The influence of Norman-French changed Anglo-Saxon into English, if this had not happened English would probably now have the same international usage and influence as Dutch. The article has been badly unbalanced by one or more Germanic linguists to the detriment of its relevance to the majority of potential readers, who are certainly not Germanic linguists or linguists of any hue. Urselius (talk) 11:17, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, what you're saying has no basis in WP policies and guidelines or reliable independent secondary sources, and is therefore irrelevant. In fact, it's completely at odds with many policies and guidelines. Please read our policies and guidelines carefully: WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE and WP:NOR. And read the aavilable reliable sources. Then come back and make a concrete proposal to improve the article based on reliable sources that conforms with our policies and guidelines, and then we will have something worth considering. Until then, please refrain from using the article talk page as a soapbox or forum. Thank you. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 11:28, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but an encyclopedic article on any subject needs to reflect the breadth of the subject. If an article is narrowly focussed, then it is of limited utility to the reader. Please look above - I have referenced and provided links to two "reliable independent secondary sources," written by professional scholars (one a French professor of the English Language, the other a philologist) to support my argument, as is your stated requirement. Therefore your assertions are entirely baseless and irrelevant. To state matters more clearly, a person looking at the present article with the question in mind, "why is English the premier scientific and international language?" will find eight paragraphs showing why it is essentially the same as Frisian. With no intended denigration to Frisian, it has about the same international relevance as Lakota, the language of the Sioux "indians" of America. The international relevance of English has more to do with the differences between it and Frisian than the similarities. I would submit that the evolution of English from a West Germanic dialect into an international language is at least as important as its membership of the Germanic language family. As a bridge between the two major language groups of Western Europe (and Western Europe, and its cultural offshoots, has been the world's intellectual powerhouse from 1600 at the latest) the English language is uniquely accessible to both Germanic speakers and Romance speakers, and is almost designed to be a lingua franca. This argument is made in the scholarly works I have indicated, and the article would benefit from more content of this type. Urselius (talk) 11:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

You've pointed out two obscure post-modern/structuralist academics and their articles, one of which I cannot even order through the two major Universities through which I can requisite nearly anything. You have not demonstrated any established dissenting view on this topic in the study of linguistics. Point out a source or an article which demonstrates any significant debate within the field of linguistics about the "Germanic-ness" of English and we might all learn something. Honestly, it would be helpful for anyone with an interest in comparative-linguistics if you could point out where this other view is coming from and who supports it or critiques it or who knows about it. I would highly recommend learning another living language. Perhaps French. It's well worth it. --Shabidoo | Talk 17:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The second article is on JSTOR, I believe. I hold my hands up, my challenge to the classification of English as a Germanic language was and is an exaggerated position. I 'entered the lists' partly because the idea that Modern English as a "West Germanic Language of the Anglo-Frisian sub-genus" or whatever, seems patently ludicrous to non-linguists, and partly due to the fact that linguists mis-apply biological taxonomy paradigms to languages and get very defensive about it. However, my real motivation is very serious indeed, and has not been addressed by yourself in any way.

The article as it stands is very biased, especially in the first substantive section, which inevitably strikes the reader particularly as it is the "lead". The reader is plunged into some rather obscure and detailed discussion of why English is a Germanic language. Perhaps the first substantive section should be more about the general characteristics of the language, and its global relevance. The question "what are the Germanic roots of English?" is answered more than fully, in fact the reader is belaboured about the head with it. The very cogent and reasonable questions: "Why as an English speaker is Anglo-Saxon unintelligible to me?" - "Why does English no longer have a possible 19 versions of the definite article, ie. is no longer an inflected language?" - "Why am I, as say a Turkish speaker, tought science in English?" "Why is English a uniquely flexible language, very open to borrowings from other languages?" - are not addressed, or at least not to the same extent or with the same prominence as the Germanic roots of English are.

As I said before, it is the differences between English and other languages such as Frisian, German, Dutch, Vlaams etc. which are more important to the relevance of English as a language on a global scale than the similarities. These differences and the genesis of Modern English as an rather atypical Germanic language need much more coverage.

I exaggerated, I can at need, and have, translated scientific papers from French, which as a scientist is all I need (the word noyau threw me for a while - I couldn't understand what 'nuts' had to do with a paper on spindle-formation in mitosis). I have never been interested in the inner workings of languages as such, just the application. Urselius (talk) 11:28, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for your ideas Urselius. --Shabidoo | Talk 12:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Bangladesh and Ireland

Am I right to say that Bangladesh was omitted on this page as a country where English is spoken, at least by some educated inhabitants? And when this is correct, why? Also Ireland was not mentioned satisfactorilly. --Zbrnajsem (talk) 15:29, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Bangladesh is listed in the section “Countries where English is a major language” as a country where English is an important (but not a primary or official) language. Ireland is listed several places as a country where English is a primary language. —teb728 t c 21:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Maybe all of this is correct. However, is English really an official language in Nigeria, India and Pakistan, whereas it is not in Bangladesh? And what about the Republic of Ireland? Is Gaellic the only official language? I see some differences in treatment of the countries, in a certain sense, where such differences possibly do not exist to this extent. --Zbrnajsem (talk) 09:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

(The Republic of) Ireland has two offical languages Irish Gaelic and English. Bevo74 (talk) 16:21, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, English is really an official language in Nigeria, India and Pakistan, whereas it is not in Bangladesh. (See the articles for those countries.) And English is not only an official language of the Republic of Ireland, it is the first language of a majority of the inhabitants (which is really a bigger deal than being an official language). —teb728 t c 04:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

University of Oslo claim: English is a Scandinavian language

Please see, eg:

• UiO linguist makes sensational claim: English is a Scandinavian language, new research by Jan Terje Faarlund, a professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo, eg.: "The two researchers show that the sentence structure in Middle English - and thus also Modern English - is Scandinavian and not Western Germanic."
• ‘English is a Scandinavian language’

--Mais oui! (talk) 09:30, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Advantages and disadvantages of speaking in English

A suggested add:

Advantages:

• There is no gender in English, except for animate beings, and even so, the only gender about them is of the "he/she" sort. We don't have special adjectives like "reservado/a" in Espanol, or go around giving every single thing and idea a gender that doesn't even have to do with its function.
• Sounds. Rather than having to drum-roll our tongues against the alveolar ridge, we can simply lift the tip a bit for "r". Some believe this is more convenient. People won't care if you pronounce "metal" as "medal", either. English also lacks that guttural sound found in "achmed". It also allows you to reduce unstressed vowels to "uh" or "ih". All these allow English speakers to sound more fluid and easier to say than any other language.
• Letters. We don't use any accents, hats, umlauts (at least not in Modern English), or ~'s in English, thus making our typing faster. Most Latin-based languages have their own weird characters. German has that B-like thing, the northern languages have that slashed O, Spanish has that N. English's weird character, the Ampersand, is rarely used anymore, and when it is, it is just a short way of writing "and".
• Article. There is only one definite article. "The". There is no El/La/Lo/Los/Los to honor the plurality and gender. It is just The. It never changes, except in pronunciation.
• You. Unlike most other languages, there is only one way of writing "you". Others have multiple ways, usually used to honor your parents/boss/teacher/police, talk to more than one person, or to fill the object case.
• Expression. As Shakespeare said, the English language is very flexible. It can be made to sound strong, bold, weak, thin, thick romantic, serious, nerdy, cool, sexy, or repulsive. Other languages have a somewhat limited amount of expression, almost as if the speaker of the same language always sound the same.
• Speed. For every 4-syllable word in a foreign language, there is a 2-3-syllable one in English. In Spanish, the words "hamburguesas" and "matematicas" are 4 and 5 syllables, respectively. In English, they are "hamburgers" and "mathematics". Those are one syllable shorter than the Spanish. No wonder that many foreigners speak so fast, it is to compensate for the big words! Furthermore, English speaker would often shorten those to "burgers" and "math". Saves breath, doesn't it?

Disadvantages:

• Spelling. English has very historical spelling system. It is replete with strange combinations as "ough", and has sounds like "ʒ" with no standard spelling (most people call it the "zh" sound, but it is rarely spelled that way).
• Culture. Foreign languages may sound very interesting or cultural to some. English, on the other hand, is very lacking in culture.

revise if necessary

Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 20:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood what Wikipedia is for... garik (talk) 00:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC

That's pretty POV. Most of those "advantages" could also be taken as disadvantages that make the language imprecise, strange, and confusing in comparison to other languages. Plus many are largely wrong, we have plenty of replacements of "the" and "you" based on context (the importance of word order and context in English could be seen as a large obstacle). Also, English pronunciation is actually rather difficult for foreign speakers; consider the existence of accents among those who cannot pronounce the language the same as others. --Dagko (talk) 07:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm inclined to take this as a joke. Consider the sheer ridiculousness of "As Shakespeare said, the English language is very flexible" and "English, on the other hand, is very lacking in culture." Surely no one who can spell their own name would propose this sort of nonsense seriously? garik (talk) 16:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

add category Category:Languages_of_the_Netherlands?

The official website of the Dutch central govt. states that English is an official language of the Netherlands since Oct. 2010, but only in the small islands Bonaire, Sint-Eustatius and Saba. Not just languages of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Should the Category:Languages_of_the_Netherlands be added? Andries (talk) 10:50, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

San Andres- Colombia

The article should be added that in the department of San Andrés (island) in Colombia. The English language is the official language--Koldorogollo (talk) 12:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

origins

I would like to propose changing the names of the sub-headers: Old Norse origins, French origins, Dutch and Low German origins to Words of Old Norse origin, Words of French origin, and Words of Dutch and Low German origin for clarity (as these languages in themselves are not the origins of English). I realise that they are under the heading Word Origins, but one might not readily catch this and the subheadings can be misleading if viewed out of context (e.g. when used as links in other sections). Leasnam (talk) 16:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure, that sounds good.Jeppiz (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Done. Leasnam (talk) 17:29, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Bad English expression

I quote from the article:

"An exception to this and a peculiarity perhaps unique to a handful of languages, English included, is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one."

The sentence is arguably over-long with too many clauses, but the main difficulty is that the word "unique" is misused. The "peculiarity" is either unique or it is found in a number of languages - it cannot be both! Urselius (talk) 09:00, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I reworded to remove the reference to uniqueness. Further improvement may still be possible. Victor Yus (talk) 09:19, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Change in 2nd intro para

I changed the para from this:

English arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and what is now southeast Scotland. Following the extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 17th century to the mid-20th century, through the British Empire, and also of the United States since the mid-20th century,[6][7][8][9] it has been widely propagated around the world, becoming the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions.[10][11]

to this:

English arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and what is now southeast Scotland. Through the extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 17th century, and of the United States since the mid-20th century,[6][7][8][9] it became widely dispersed around the world, the leading language of international discourse, and a lingua franca in many regions.[10][11]

If a consensus isn't reached, we shouldn't be disruptive in the article of course.

It's a cause and effect paragraph.

Causes are:

extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom extensive influence of the US

Effects are:

English was widely dispersed around the world English became the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions

It's saying that both effects are the result of both causes. So the influence of the UK may have lessened in dispersing the language around the world in the mid-20th cent, but it's certainly continues in supporting English's use as a world language and lingua franca. BBC is widely watched and listened to and British English is widely taught. So the influence of the UK can't be given an end date.

The para as it was suggests that the spreading of the use of English was "extensive influence" of the GB/UK through the British Empire. But the empire was a part of the extensive influences of the county, not that the empire's influence in spreading English was extensive. So it could be said "extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 17th century, including of the British Empire" but the British Empire is not necessary and if mentioned, it's an elaboration. But it's confusing to readers because of the two interpretations above. And this article gets many international views so clarity and lack of any chance of confusion is very important.

Also, saying "propagated" suggests that it was result of a missonary-like activity. But there was no goal of spreading English. So becoming "dispersed" without indicating intention of doing so like "propagated" suggests is a better term.

"it has been widely dispersed around the world, becoming the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions." suggests that the second clause was caused by the first, that is, becoming the leading language of international discourse and a lingua franca in many regions was caused it becoming widely dispersed. But the two are just independent effects of the two causes.

I changed "the lingua franca in many regions" to "a lingua franca in many regions." If it's "the lingua franca" in some regions, it's "a lingua franca" in more regions. The first, for example, excludes India, but the second includes it.

I changed "it has been widely dispersed around the world" to "it became widely dispersed around the world." Again, the second gives less suggestion that it was intentionally done, which it was not. No need for torturing non-native English readers with the Present Prefect Continuous "has become dispersed," the Past Tense "became dispersed" expresses it just fine.

I changed "Following the extensive influence" to "Through the extensive influence" because the influence was a long process, and the effects happened through it, not "following" it.

--Fu7gffeg7456 (talk) 05:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

While I don't necessarily disagree with your changes here, the sentences cite multiple sources. The problem is that you may be making assertions that the original sources haven't made, since you haven't stated that you checked these sources first. The idea of "propogated" may be from those sources, and is probably supportable. Ditto your other changes. It would be best if these changes were reverted until someone can verify what the given sources actually say. - BilCat (talk) 05:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Not the loanwords from the Romance languages, but the victory of the US in WWII has propagated the English dialect till to the de facto world language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.113.196.40 (talk) 09:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

How many countries have English as their official language - 54 or 56?

The info box states that English is the official language in 54 countries, with a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_English_is_an_official_language#Sovereign_states

But The list contains 56 countries. Is the number 54 outdated? Perhaps because South Sudan and some other country have been added? Or am I missing something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Espensj (talk • contribs) 23:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Map problem

I have already left a message at File talk:Anglospeak.svg#Guyana but realize that it may be a long time before anybody responds there, so I am bringing it up here. The map does not include Guyana as a dark blue country (countries where English is the official or De facto language), but English is the official language and the most widely used language of Guyana. This should be fixed. --Philpill691 (talk) 23:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I must admit my lack of expertise concerning Guyanese demographics. Could we have a source that English is the mother tongue of a majority of the population?Jeppiz (talk) 23:34, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

For one there is this Wikipedia article. Sources outside of Wikipedia:

• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

Thanks for the quick response! --Philpill691 (talk) 00:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The legend is badly worded. Dark blue is both official *and* the majority native language. According to Ethnologue, the native language of 650,000 Guyanese is Guyanese Creole. The population is only 780,000, and that's probably a more recent figure than the speaker data, so it looks like 85% or more speak Creole as their native language, not English. Light blue is therefore the correct color for the country. — kwami (talk) 03:16, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

North Germanic

I saw some articles that say English may be a North Germanic language. The articles talk about a scientist named Jan Terje Faarlund, and he says English is not West Germanic, but North. Here they are:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/12/language-families
If you look at ordinary words, you can find similarities with North languages, but not West. Try this:
English: "They took the knife and cut the steak." All the words in here are of Norse origin, except for "the" and "and". Also, the grammatical structure is similar in English with Norse, but not German. Languages don't borrow such common words as pronouns, and grammar doesn't change much, either. Respond, please. Shikku27316 (talk) 18:58, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Nothing much to discuss, because neither of your sources are remotely reliable for this kind of information. You'll need academic peer-reviewed seconday journal papers or monographs for that. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:04, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Shikku, there is a policy for WP:FRINGE, which is quite clear in saying that an isolated person with views disregarded by virtually the whole academic community is not to be given undue space. Jan Terje Faarlund is such a person, his views are not supported (nor even taken seriously) by almost anyone else.Jeppiz (talk) 21:48, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Languages don't borrow such common words as pronouns, and grammar doesn't change much, either.

That's just plain wrong. Grammatical typology is very unstable. Loanword typology is well-researched, and researchers such as Sarah Thomason emphasise that anything can be borrowed, every kind of word, no matter how common. It's just that words (such as pronouns) that are closer to the grammatical than the lexical end of the grammar-lexicon continuum are more rarely borrowed, typically in situations with close contact (widespread, intense bi-/multilingualism) or closely related languages only, and the borrowing of bound morphemes such as case-endings is less frequent, although it depends on how fusional the morpheme is – highly irregular, fusional or suppletive paradigms such as am, are, is or good, better, best are possibly the only case where borrowing truly never occurs, especially not wholesale (but even singular/plural or masculine/feminine pairs may be borrowed).

Apart from that, a crucial problem that Faarlund totally misses is: if Modern English were a Scandinavian/North Germanic language, lots of basic words, including pronouns, would have been borrowed from Old English into it! The overall share of Norse lexicon in the English language is small, some 2% as given in the article. There are also words that are hybrid or Norse-influenced, and others that are simply ambiguous, aided by the similarity of the languages. However, the majority of the Modern English core lexicon is clearly inherited from Old English. (Moreover, I am continually amazed at how many old West Germanic words, such as found in German, are still somehow, somewhere present in Modern English, even if sometimes only marginally, in regional dialects or in archaic registers, or older stages of the language Early Modern English – and Middle English should count too since it is after all more recent than the Norse influence!)

Ultimately, the true reason why no scholar familiar with the history of English takes the ideas of Modern English as anything other than a direct continuation of Old English is that the development from Old to Middle English and later stages is directly attested, and without any essential gap. Sure enough, the transitional period in the High Middle Ages is somewhat sparsely attested, but still enough remains to see that there is nothing but continuity and slow change. Nobody who seriously studies the development of English can miss this continuity, right to the point of at least traces of the Old English weak declensions and the consonant stems surviving in Modern English irregular plurals (to be sure, they cannot descend from the Old Norse counterparts, which although similar are often decisively different). That's also a powerful argument against so-called creolisation hypotheses.

Do check Sarah Thomason's explanation in Language Log just so you see that Faarlund's idea really has no merit. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I presume Oppenheimer's book falls under this "fringe" thing? Lots of good stuff in it, mind. LudicrousTripe (talk) 21:31, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Merge

I propose merging Modern English with this article as I belive they are covering the same topic. Thanks, Rob (talk) 16:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Bevo74's recent revert of edit by 95.113.193.127

Just want to point out that this is the same nonsense, from a similar IP address (95.113.*.*), that got this article semi-protected last October. Rwessel (talk) 00:44, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Lead sentence

"It is widely learned as a second language and is an official language of the European Union, many Commonwealth countries and the United Nations, as well as in many world organisations."

Why is the European Union the first named organisation? Surely the United Nations should be first merely by way of organisational size? I would swap the placins of the UN and the EU, keeping the Commenwealth in the middle; biggest to smallest as it were. 89.101.100.11 (talk) 20:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)Aerach

I would guess that the EU and Commonwealth are mentioned as geographic entities, while the UN is merely organisational. −Woodstone (talk) 09:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

What section does moral decay go under?

As Rajnath Singh properly points out, use of English cause erosion of cultural values."BJP chief claims English bad for India, triggers outrage." So what part of this article does that go under? Hcobb (talk) 00:17, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Nowhere. - BilCat (talk) 01:39, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 8 August 2013

Please see if you can make the poetry better on the next to last line of "Ned of the Hill." I have been attempting, as I learn to play this beautiful song on my harp, to find the best lyrics. The version I heard first is sung by Cathie Ryan. I do believe your source gave up on the next to last line of the song, which offers no rhyme in its present state. This line should read, "But the mind knows the way where the heart holds the will," and thus it will rhyme with the concluding line! (Besides being infinitely more beautiful!). Thanks, see me on fb - Margaret Lee, Charlottesville, VA, M.A., Georgetown University and advanced Celtic Harper. 184.6.2.194 (talk) 20:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Not done: This request does not appear to be relevant to this article. There is no apparent reference to "Ned of the Hill" in the article, nor has the requestor specified the desired change. Rwessel (talk) 22:23, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

The requestor may have intended to post this request on Talk:Éamonn an Chnoic, but that page is not protected. Rwessel (talk) 22:29, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Propagation

The article claims that the propagation of the language was due to the influence of the United Kingdom from the 17th century to the mid-20th century, ...and also of the United States since the mid-20th century". But English become "the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions" before the mid-20th century, thus the role of the USA in spreading the language internationally must be questioned.203.184.41.226 (talk) 01:25, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, in a sense, the statement appears to partially contradict itself. Perhaps it can be reworded a bit to remove the apparent contradiction. I have tagged the statement, so hopefully interested editora can discuss it here. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 02:19, 26 August 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

It all depends on how one defines "many regions". The increased interest in English in countries that had massive immigration to the US already in the 19th century would probably be due to the influence of the US. I remember reading that one of the main reason Irish people started to abandon the use of Irish and speak English instead around 1850 was because it was felt as necessary if going to the US. Then again, the whole statement is so vague that it is perhaps better to rewrite it?Jeppiz (talk) 09:09, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Poetic usage

Quoting the article:

"Yet the ability to choose between multiple synonyms is not a consequence of French and Latin influence, as this same richness existed in English prior to the extensive borrowing of French and Latin terms. Old English was extremely resourceful in its ability to express synonyms and shades of meaning on its own, in many respects rivaling or exceeding that of Modern English (synonyms numbering in the thirties for certain concepts were not uncommon)."

This needs greater clarification, as many of these instances in Old English are of words or word combinations for poetic usage - it is to be doubted that constructions such as hwael rad - literally "whale-road", meaning the sea and wigsmithas - literally "warsmiths" - meaning warriors were used in everday speech in quite the same way that Germanic and Latinate synonyms are in English today - commence - start, finish - end, volume - book etc. Urselius (talk) 10:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Statistical information

Despite providing a source, the figure of 360 million native speakers as of 2010 cannot be correct. There are 310 million people in the United States alone. Add Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and many former British colonies, such as Singapore where English is the ´´lingua franca´´, and the figure must certainly be higher. Similarly, the number of secondary speakers is surely more than the figure given. Does someone have an alternative (and hopefully, more accurate) citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.24.46.189 (talk) 00:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Could use more information

Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world with almost 230 million people, and English is spoken by many people there; I don't see any data on that in the article. I don't see anything about Saudi Arabia, where learning English is mandatory. Inhabitants of Malaysia and the Philippines have excellent skill with English and so do many Koreans and Japanese. Peoples living in countries of East Asia use English to communicate with each other when they are online. When you take into account all the English speakers in the Indian subcontinent, Latin countries, and Europe, there can be no doubt that English is the most widely spoken language in the world and fast becoming the global language. There should be some data on this in the article. 166.147.104.155 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:32, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that talking to people I've met in China that the majority of present day college graduates (who don't major in English) have about 10 years of English language classes. That being said most of the classes are based on the written language rather than listening and speaking. Bucknastay (talk) 03:46, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Dubious

Following the extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 17th century to the mid-20th century, through the British Empire, and also of the United States since the mid-20th century,[dubious – discuss][6][7][8][9]

This looks like vandalism. What exactly is dubious about this?69.205.120.39 (talk) 07:34, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Relatives of English

With regards to Scots. As fas as I am aware there is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing a language from a dialect. Whether or not a variety is considered a language or dialect is not solely determined by linguistic criteria, but it is also the result of a historical and political development. If you have a source for a generally recognized definitive languageness test from the field of academic linguistics provide it. Otherwise please cease imposing your POV on the article. Nogger (talk) 18:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

It seems in the best interests of transparency for such a discussion to take place on the discussion page Talk:English language rather than here. I've no strong opinion one way or the other. I do feel that Scots should certainly be mentioned in the article, but could care less whether it is designated as a language or dialect. According to the article Scots language, this is a subject of some controversy. It seems like the right course of action is for PiCo and others to try to come up with a more satisfactory wording. (But please consider all but the first sentence of this comment as essentially from the peanut gallery.). Cheers, Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:17, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

With respect to Nogger, the issue isn't whether Scots is a language, but which languages are the closest relatives of English. That's the subject of the sentences under review.

The article says that Frisian is the language most closely related to English. I have no problem with that as I've seen it mentioned pretty often. I do have a problem with the article saying that Scots is a second closely related language. I've never seen that.

But more to the point, the whole question is left entirely unsourced - no sources at all for what languages are most closely related to English. That's the problem. PiCo (talk) 23:18, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Been there done that Talk:English_language/Archive_19#Scots Talk:English_language/Archive_18#Mutual_intelligibility_with_Scots Talk:English_language/Archive_3#Closest_Related_Language.3F.3F.3F_Scots_or_Frisian . And if that's not enough Talk:Scots_language/Archive_14#Scots_.22Language.22 Talk:Scots_language/Archive_13#Status_and_NPOV_phrasing Talk:Scots_language/Archive_10 Talk:Scots_language/Archive_9#The_linguistic_relationship_between_Scots_and_English Talk:Scots_language/Archive_8#Scots_origins_and_separate_language_revisited Talk:Scots_language/Archive_7#Scots_is_a_dialect_of_English Talk:Scots_language/Archive_4#Scots_not_a_separate_languageTalk:Scots_language/Archive_3#NPOVing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.229.159.115 (talk) 12:45, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Frisian languages also has a sentence about being the second closing language to English after Scots, this may also be effected by the above discussion]] Bevo74 (talk) 17:08, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Theoretically the reference to Frisian should also be involved, but I've seen it mentioned as English's closest relative in mainline sources. Not every statement on Wikipedia needs to be sourced, only those likely to be questioned. As the post by the ISP immediately above shows, the status of Scots as a relative of English keeps getting raised, and that's why sourcing is needed. Oxford History of the English Language, anything like that would do. I've changed the title of this header to show what the real issue is. PiCo (talk) 00:03, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.239.107.84 (talk) 21:57, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Not relevant. The question isn't whether Scots is a language, but what languages are the closest relatives of English. (In any case, that's not a source from the academic study of linguistics). PiCo (talk) 00:27, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

If one takes the position that Scots is a language it would appear to be the closest relatives of (Modern) English. "[Scots] It has been called a Germanic language in its own right, considered as distinct from its sister in England in the same way that Swedish is distinct from Danish. In addition its subordinate relationship with the English of England has been compared to Frisian in the Netherlands (dominated by Dutch) and Norwegian (once dominated by Danish)." The Oxford Companion to the English Language p.894. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.239.101.4 (talk) 17:21, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

That's still about Scots, not how English is related to other languages. The inference you're drawing is your own - we can't do that, sources have to be explicit. (That source is a good one, but it should be used in that other section lower down in the article that talks a bit about Scots; it could also be used in the article Scots language). PiCo (talk) 23:11, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

"Apart from such English-lexified creole languages such as Tok Pisin, Scots (spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland) is not a Galic language, but is part of the Anglic family of languages, having developed from early Northern Middle English. It is Scot's indefinite status as a language which complicates definitely calling it the closest language to English. The closest relatives to English after Scots are the Frisian languages..." A.S. Kharbe (2009) English Language and Literary Criticism, Discovery Publishing House, Delhi, P.9 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.239.113.64 (talk) 17:30, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Not exactly a ringing endorsement - "Scot's indefinite status as a language ... complicates calling it the closest language to English..." Might be better just to say that English is West Germanic language together with whatever - there are sources for that. PiCo (talk) 23:00, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

One would assume a NPOV wording would reflect the various positions i.e. something along the lines of:

The closest relatives to English after Scots (considered a language in its own right by some or dialects of English by others) are the Frisian languages.

86.142.171.217 (talk) 20:34, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

(Undent) But the thing is, the article isn't about Scots and its status as a language, it's about English. It's perfectly legitimate to say where English fits in the language tree (West Germanic, along with Frisian etc); we aren't asked to make a call on the status of Scots. That said, the status of Scots is very interesting - like so many languages, English isn't a single language but a continuum, and Scots might, or might not, be on the verge of splitting off into a language in its own right. I think that's a very interesting idea and it has support in the literature, but it can be dealt with as such (i.e., English as a continuum of related dialects from which Scottish may be in the process of splitting off. Incidentally, I'd compare this to Arabic, which everyone thinks of as one language, but in fact it's not, and an Iraqi would probably starve if he had to order lunch in Morocco).PiCo (talk) 07:22, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

In edit an edit on 14 September 2013 you removed the bit about Scots in "The closest living relatives of English are Scots (spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland where Ulster Scots is spoken) and Frisian (spoken on the southern fringes of the North Sea in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany)." with the comment "No source to support idea Scots is a language". Those have been provided. I've lost the plot. Should Scots be mentioned in the article or not? What is your agenda? 195.11.164.221 (talk) 09:24, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I've lost the plot too a bit - haven't been paying attention. My point is simply that we can't say anything about the "closest relatives" of English without a source. So far as I know, the sources that talk about this sort of thing say that English is a West Germanic language most closely related to Frisian, and slightly more distantly to Dutch, then German. I'm not aware of any that mention Scots. That said, I DO think Scots needs to be mentioned, but in a more appropriate place. Scots may well be in the process of splitting off from English as a language, and that's pretty fascinating. It just needs to be treated in the right way, that's all. PiCo (talk) 05:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

A bit long-winded but certainly an effective way of avoiding the S word "...(besides the Anglic languages and English-based creoles)...". However, according to the article Anglic languages, the only surviving Anglic language, other than English, appears to be that we dare not mention. The Anglic languages article also states that only the lexicon of the Creoles comes from English, not their linguistic structure. 5.152.214.34 (talk) 22:13, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

A new map.

A better map to demonstrate English around the world.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AnglophoneWorld.svg

MrWonderphul (talk) 23:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Done thank you. Anyone should feel free to revert if they would like a discussion first. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:35, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Issues with AnglophoneWorld.svg

There are a few issues with the image that need to be resolved first, which has given me reason to revert its use for now. They include:

• English, while not primarily used in casual conversation, is still a widely used language in the Philippines with nearly 80% of the population able to speak it fluently, and is frequently used in business and on official documents. So why is it colored light blue?
• Meanwhile, English is just one of the many languages used in South Africa, alongside ones like Afrikaans, Zulu, and many others with official status. It is not even the primary language of most of the population as only 30% can speak English and only 10% speak it natively.
• The categorization of the other African countries into widely used (blue) and not widely used (light blue) is also not sourced.
• The biggest issue is, what exactly is "primary working language" supposed to mean? That phrase is vague, not clarified, and not sourced, and therefore the three categories seem arbitrary without them.

Until these issues are fixed and sources are linked to directly verify the accuracy of this map and clarify the meaning of "primary working language", it will have to be reverted from English language for now. I am not saying a map like this with three categories shouldn't be used, but it should at least be accurate and sourced. Until then, the more straightforward two category map will have to be kept. Cadiomals (talk) 13:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• I am well aware of the situation in the Philippines as well as in other places. What I meant was that English was the uncontested lingua franca. In the Philippines, both Filipino and English are lingua francas. In India, both Hindi and English are used as lingua francas.
• Medium blue wasn't supposed to mean native language, it was supposed to mean that it is not native but the lingua franca of choice.
• I updated it to include some African nations that were more fitting of this category.
• It means that is the lingua franca, the official language. Places like the Philippines, India, Kenya use some other ones alongside English.

MrWonderphul (talk) 03:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Countries such as Philippines and Kenya have very few Native English speakers, so even though English may have official status and may be used for government purposes it is spoken only as a second language. Statistics about second language use is very difficult or impossible to find for many (most) countries so we should be using only native speakers in the categories. See below under "Proposal" for further details. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:00, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Someone will have to take it upon themselves to provide an accurate and statistically verifiable map with more than two categories if they really want to give readers a better idea of the degree to which English is spoken in different countries. Until then, the map we have now will stay as it is the most accurate. Cadiomals (talk) 23:50, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

If we want to have a more comprehensive and accurate map showing the extent of the English language around the world with more than just two categories, I feel it would be best to create a map that uses both official status and catagories/colors that are based on the percent of the population in each country that speaks it, instead of the unsourced categorization used by the above image. For example there could be three categories for greater than 80% of the population, between 40-80%, and official status but spoken by less than 40%. Seems much more straightforward and easy to source. Cadiomals (talk) 13:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The categories used must have mathematically exact definitions with yes/no answers. Absolutely zero room for interpretation or opinion. A country must definitely be in a given category or not, no grey areas or overlap allowed. The existing map complies as it asks only two questions: "Is English an official language?" and "Are native English speakers the majority of the population?" The proposed map does not comply with these conditions, thus it is unusable. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:19, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I somewhat agree, though percentage speakers by country would have been far more statistically verifiable than the categories used by AnglophoneWorld.svg. Would you say both my proposed map and the above map I reverted are unusable? Actually, we already have a map (colored in shades of green within the article) of percent speakers by country, so my suggestion would have been redundant. I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't keep the current map with two categories. Cadiomals (talk) 19:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Cadiomals proposal is the best way to go about this.MrWonderphul (talk) 03:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree, the map must be based on hard numbers. However, I don't see any reason for using 40 and 80 percent as category definitions. Imho 50% should be included as that is the boundary between minority and majority. Furthermore, intervals between statistical datum points should always be regular, thus I propose dividing into quartiles; under 25, 25-50, 50-75 and over 75 percent. As second language use statistics are very difficult to find or simply don't exist at all for many countries, these percentages should be based only on native speakers. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I suppose also people of the Caribbeans speak natively their own creole languages but not English, grouping them to the same category as the US or UK is a little bit too optimistic.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:17, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

infographic?

Hi, I’m Andrew Clark and I work at the Office for National Statistics in the UK.

We publish lots of info graphics and I wonder if this one on the proficient of the English language from Census 2011 data (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:English_language_proficiency_in_England_and_Wales_with_section_removed.jpg) would be of interest for English language

FYI, the full gallery is here <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Content_created_by_the_Office_for_National_Statistics>

All the best

Andrew Clark (smanders1982) 10 Dec 2013

Smanders1982 (talk) 13:05, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

These statistics are specific to England and Wales, and this article is more of an overview of English, with summary info on its history, structure, varieties and global distribution. There is little to no info in this article regarding the proficiency of English speakers, so it would be difficult placing this infographic in a relevant area. However, you may be free to add it to the article on British English where it appears more directly relevant. Cadiomals (talk) 13:51, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Helpful, thank you. Smanders1982 (talk) 11:48, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

"Classification and related languages" - where's Scots?

Why no mention of Scots - the closest relative? 87.154.111.231 (talk) 22:26, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Discussed aboveJeppiz (talk) 22:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 December 2013

KUCHKOL ENGLISH GRAMMER

182.186.232.175 (talk) 05:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. RudolfRed (talk) 05:18, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Query Germanic vs Latinate claims

"It is well-established [ref: Quirk, R. (1974). The linguist and the English language. London: Arnold. p. 138] that informal speech registers tend to be made up predominantly of words of Anglo-Saxon or Germanic origin, whereas the proportion of the vocabulary that is of Latinate origins is likely to be higher in legal, scientific, and otherwise scholarly or academic texts."

Formal text, as well, predominantly comprises words of Germanic origin ... Quirk has been misunderstood or he is just plain wrong. Could someone show me a formal text from these areas in which the vocabulary is not predominantly Germanic? And also, why "speech" registers, when the claim involves written texts, surely. Tony (talk) 10:57, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

"English equalled and may have surpassed French as the dominant language of diplomacy during the last half of the 19th century."

"English equalled and may have surpassed French as the dominant language of diplomacy during the last half of the 19th century." This is not true, I would rather say at the beginning of the 20th century. --2.243.209.181 (talk) 13:23, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Anecdotally, that appears to be a reasonable comment by the anon editor. Tony (talk) 10:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Cultural impact

Should there be mention of the fact that English is arguably the dominant language of popular music, film, literature and video gaming (these facts aren't hard too find), or would that just look like obnoxious Anglo-arrogance and appear a bit too unprofessional? Or is this notion essentially covered in the first sentence in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.238.240 (talk) 18:08, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Is This Really Relevant?

"Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has gone so far as to compare concerns over vocabulary size (and the notion that a supposedly larger lexicon leads to "greater richness and precision") to an obsession with penis length."

And who's the smarty who inserted it in the first place? Tony (talk) 07:16, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 February 2014

You have incomprehensible English under your English History heading: ... Latin[15] commonly coined new terms from that language to refer to things or concepts for which no native there was English word. ...

should read, ... for which there was no native English word. ... 74.110.13.136 (talk) 01:35, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for pointing that out - I'm not sure if it is amusing or worrying that the article on English language was in Double Dutch Arjayay (talk) 18:24, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Weird things

"A version of the language almost universally agreed upon by educated English speakers around the world is called formal written English. It takes virtually the same form regardless of where it is written, in contrast to spoken English, which differs significantly between dialects, accents, and varieties of slang and of colloquial and regional expressions."

That's rubbish: there are significant differences from variety to variety and between individuals. (And BTW a hyphen is required. I'll insert one now.)

"Contract" is just about the last word in English I'd choose as an example of vowel reduction. When it's a nominal group, with the accent on the first syllable, the "a" is anything but schwa. When it's a verb, the unstressed "o" is not schwa in many varieties. Tony (talk) 13:30, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Population

We have an editor pushing Anderson (2012) as a ref for the population of English, apparently without reading it. Anderson never says there are that many English speakers, he merely ref's Ethnologue in a discussion of what such numbers mean. By consensus, we've generally abandoned Ethnologue for the Swedish encyclopedia for the languages in the latter. It's not even the recent edition of Ethnologue, and the editor citing Anderson misunderstood what L2 speakers means. — kwami (talk) 20:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

(Shrug). I'm not going to get into an edit war with you. I can see you've been here for a while, but you might point a "new" editor to an existing consensus rather than parroting that term here. If you refer to WP:Consensus, you can see that "Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus." I made the edit on 18 January. No one disputed it, and various editors continued working on the article.

And an editor "pushing" Anderson is a strange way to put it. (You never explained how he or the OUP is a "bad source".) Forgive me, but I'm new to this field. I read a book to familiarize myself, and thought I might make an edit which seemed to improve/update the article and Wikipedia. It's unfortunate that you see that as "pushing" rather than a good faith edit. Best, Airborne84 (talk) 19:43, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I was brusque. OUP is not the source, Andersen is. If you read him, you'll see he says that's the number according to Ethnologue. And if you check Ethnologue, you'll see the number is from the 16th edition, not the current edition. So Andersen is a poorer source than Ethnologue, and we've abandoned Ethnologue in favor of the Swedish encyclopedia. I can't tell you exactly where that decision was made, as it was quite some time ago (that is, it's been established consensus for quite some time), but it's probably somewhere at list of languages by number of native speakers, where we decided to give them priority, and which I use periodically to check the top 100 languages to guard against population inflation. (That wasn't the problem here, but we commonly have drive-by editors exaggerating the size of their languages, so it's something that needs to be policed.) Also, the number given for L2 speakers was actually L1+L2, and they cited Crystal as their source of data, so I went directly with Crystal. — kwami (talk) 22:48, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

OK. As far as the source, OUP is part of it. WP:RS states: "The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings: the piece of work itself (the article, book); the creator of the work (the writer, journalist), and the publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press)." And he did appear to point to Ethnologue. However, I've been through this on the Reliable Source Noticeboard before. When a source which may not be considered reliable cites a reliable source, the first cannot be used here typically because he/she might cite out of context or put a spin on it. When a reliable source cites other sources, the reliable source can normally be used on Wikipedia because the person who is a reliable source can "reliably" interpret the information and present it in a manner which we can accept at Wikipedia. In any case, The Andersen book, author, and publisher are about as high-quality as sources get here on Wikipedia. Thus, I was not able to determine what you meant by "bad source".

In any case, I'm not going to make it a contentious point here. As I stated, I'm new to this field, and if there is an existing consensus on the matter, I don't want to wade in with blinders on. If I could make a request, perhaps you could help by recording the established consensus at the top of the talk page in an FAQ section. That might make later discussions easier if they are needed someday. Best, Airborne84 (talk) 17:56, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Error: Words origin

Carolinesigouin (talk) 15:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC) In the section "Words origin", the percentages reported from the survey of Joseph M. Williams appear not to be the good ones. Here are the numbers in the book in Google Books.

Left to right

I inserted once sentence saying English is read and written from left hand side to the right hand side. It was removed with the explanation "that information is common to all languages using the Latin alphabet, and is therefore not to be included here". I disagree that the information not need be included because other languages such as Arabic language/Arabic alphabet are written right to left. More than 422 million people use the right to left method and would be confused in trying to learn English from right to left.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 00:25, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I really dont have a stance on whether it should be in the article or not, but the people who "use the right to left method and would be confused in trying to learn English from right to left" aren't likely to be able to read this article yet. Those that are reading this article have more than likely figured out that English is read left to right by this point, don't you think? - BilCat (talk) 04:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Countries where English is a major language

I deleted "In the Canadian province of Quebec, French is the primary language and in Manitoba and New Brunswick both English and French are official languages." since doesn't appear to add appropriately to the topic and, more importantly, it is both inaccurate and misleading by omission. Under the Constitution of Canada, the official languages of Canada and of the Province of New Brunswick are English and French. By Quebec statute, French is the official language of Quebec. Manitoba does not have an official language. Under the Constitution of Canada, there are limited constitutional protections for English and French. For example, in Manitoba and Quebec, the statutes must be published in English and French. But Manitoba has no official language (provincially) and English is not an official language (provincially) in Quebec. There are minority-language educational rights in all provinces. Hebbgd (talk) 16:24, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 March 2014

2DVDS PLAE 24.187.79.198 (talk) 18:19, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to any article. - Arjayay (talk) 18:30, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Celtic base languages - English development in a linguistic terra nullius?

Hopefully this has not been addressed elsewhere. This otherwise excellent article is concerning in that there is an almost complete failure to comment on the issue of Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland prior to the Germanic invasions and their role (or lack thereof), in the development of English. The role of Nordic languages is developed in the article but there is no discussion as to why, to what extent (etc), Celtic words did/did not enter English. Given the Germanic tribes arriving from the 5th Century landed in a Romano-Celtic culture with clearly non-Germanic languages in total use, the article should at least make meaningful comment on the issue of how English - it's predecessors used by relatively small numbers of diverse migrating Germanics - interacted with the base native language of Britain (in particular). This is no small issue when you consider that Bede (who is quoted) should be read in light of his pronounced Celtophobia; and native (Celtic) polities survived outside of Wales/Cymru (and therefore alongside the Germano polities with whom they interacted) until the viking attacks of the 10th Century (see Strathclyde). Indeed, Celtic languages survived alongside English in Cornwall until the late 18th Century and in Wales (an interesting word in its own right), to the present day; this is not to mention Manx. Also not addressed is the interesting issue of any Pictish influences even if only to dismiss them. That the article fails to comment on the interaction/influence of these things on the development of English is surprising and a little disappointing and tends to read as if English developed in a linguistic terra nullius. Signed: Carl T — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.86.209.101 (talk) 01:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

English is the most widely used language in the world.

The lead of this article contains a claim that English is the most widely used language in the world. That is factually incorrect. There actually nearly three times more Mandarin Chinese users than there are English users. And there are more Spanish users as well. Tvx1 (talk) 01:43, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

This sentence is not referring to the number of native speakers, it is referring to the sourced fact that English is the world's lingua franca of international discourse and used as a "common language" across many countries. Note that in the next sentence it says "[English] is the third-most-common native language in the world". Cadiomals (talk) 02:27, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Even by that definition it's wrong. Spanish, to name one, is used across more countries than English.

Please read my statement again. Spanish is not the world's lingua franca. There are a lot of sources to say English is. Cadiomals (talk) 09:51, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

• The lede claims that "[English] is now the most widely used language in the world." It does not say that "from a lingua franca perpective, English is now the most widely used language in the world" nor does qualify the current claim in any other manner. The mere fact that another, independent, sentence states that "[English] is the third-most-common native language in the world" does not do away with the unqualified claim of the statement in question. As such, @User:Tvx1's argument has merit and the lede should be reworded to reflect its current inaccuracy. Per WP:BOLD either one of you can make the necessary changes. Mercy11 (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The thing is that is already mentioned in the second paragraph of the lead. Do you think that sentence should just be removed and its source transferred to the other sentence so as not to confuse readers? I agree that "most widely used" seems to be up for interpretation. Cadiomals (talk) 23:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Or we could change the sentence from "the most widely used language in the world" to "one of the most widely used languages in the world" Tvx1 (talk) 00:40, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The emphasis is on the word "widely"; it has nothing to do with the total number of native speakers. I've lifted the following list from the article on World language:

• a substantial fraction of non-native speakers (function as lingua franca)
• official status in several countries
• use across several regions in the world
• a linguistic community not defined strictly along ethnic lines (multiethnic, pluricentric language)
• one or more standard registers which are widely taught as a foreign language
• association with linguistic prestige
• use in international trade relations
• use in international organizations
• use in the academic community
• significant body of literature

Arabic, Spanish, French and Mandarin might qualify on some of those criteria, but not all. In addition English is used much more widely in science, technology, international travel and even on road signs. In how many countries with signs in two languages do you see Spanish or Mandarin as the alternative to the native tongue? Why, now, is the term "linguistic imperialism" applied to English but not to other languages? The sentence is fine. Wiki-Ed (talk) 10:32, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The current wording seems just fine to me. Tony (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I think a good compromise would be not to give that sentence as much prominence and just putting after mentioning that English is third in terms of native speakers. This way readers aren't confused by it right away considering "widely used" could be up for interpretation if it isn't clarified. Cadiomals (talk) 16:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

• The switching around of sentences helps some, but the fundamental problem continues. I went ahead and qualified the statement currently in the lede and presented it verbatim as the NYT article gives it. This way: (1) the questionable "widely" word is removed, (2) the good faith but now controversial paraphase/interpretation of the Wikipedia editor that put the now-troublesome statement in the article is no longer an issue, and (3) the statement is provided verbatim, and no one can argue what something says when it is provided verbatim. We could argue here forever about the likes of science, technology, international travel and even road signs, but if what we want to do is to report what others have said, the simplest way is to say what they say. Mercy11 (talk) 23:43, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it is indeed much better this way. Tvx1 (talk) 10:50, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

No. This is not consistent with the manual of style: The first sentences of the introduction should explain why the topic is notable. English is notable because it is spoken extensively across the globe; there are innumerable sources supporting this - it is not even slightly controversial (except in France). If there is a problem with some readers misunderstanding or deliberately contriving "widely" to mean the greatest number of native speakers rather than the greatest extent then we need to pick a different word and maybe a different specific source. Wiki-Ed (talk) 11:58, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• Rather than arguing forever about one single reason for English's notability, when there may be several, or picking on the French, when French is spoken in every continent in the world, or even guessing without WP:AGF what others may understand by "widely", imo the elimination and substitution of the NYT source helps a lot as it removes the initial inaccuracy that English is "the most widely used language in the world". Mercy11 (talk) 14:45, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I must say that I preferred the version before the recentmost edit. The way it's worded now means we make the assumption that our random reader is fluent in Latin or at least understands some Latin expressions like "Lingua Franca". That, however, is an assumption that we cannot make. Tvx1 (talk) 21:47, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

It is also now repetitive since its status as a lingua franca is mentioned twice in the lead, in the first and second paragraphs. I too would have preferred keeping the original wording but putting it after "third most common native language", though I addressed your concern by putting the wikilink for the first mention of lingua franca for those who don't know its meaning. Cadiomals (talk) 02:03, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:MOS: Notability should be established in the first few sentences, not half way through the paragraph or in the second paragraph. English is not notable because it is a West Germanic language or because it is spoken in the UK, US etc; it is notable because it is the most commonly spoken language (i.e. counting native and non-native speakers) and because of its international usage. Wiki-Ed (talk) 20:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Canada all English speaking

The map of North America all colored in red is false, as the province of Quebec is a majority of French speaking francophones.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed a bazillion times - the short answer is that Canada, as a country in its entirety, is English speaking. It is also French speaking but that is not relevant to this article. The map is concerned only with countries as entire entities, not provinces, states, counties, regions, oblasts, etc. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :Quebec is not a country. The caption states: "Countries where English is spoken natively by the majority of the population." That is totally true, as over 50% of Canada natively speaks English. - BilCat (talk) 17:55, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Canada the country is English speaking. 6,102,210 of the 7,903,001 (year 2011) people in Quebec province speak french, so my point was that the map is misleading. I haven`t seen the previous bazillion discussions.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 21:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not misleading, as Quebec is part of Canada, not an independent country, and Canada is a majority English-speaking country. If Quebec ever becomes an independent country, then the map can be changed. - BilCat (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

In that case kindly remove arabic states where english is explicitly not listed as one of their actual legal official language, thank you. 216.252.73.116 (talk) 22:48, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Section Other Germanic Languages

The Dutch word for "freedom" is not "vrijdom" but "vrijheid". Rgds. 94.227.39.226 (talk) 17:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

The rarer vrijdom stands as a synonym for vrijheid Leasnam (talk) 06:35, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not only rare but mostly erroneous, being a bad calque of english. It goes once this stupid article is unprotected. 216.252.73.116 (talk) 22:51, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

List of countries by English-speaking population - numbers don't match for India

I've started a discussion here. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 15:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

sign?

As things now the article lists numbers of speakers. Deaf people may not speak English, and almost certainly won't speak it as first language native speakers, whichever sign language they speak will be their first language. Is this reflected correctly in the figures here? I have my doubts as the article seems to switch between speak and use which are not the same thing. Can this caveat be added in for accuracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.205.148.141 (talk) 22:36, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

numbers

for l2 there are about 100million too low according to ethnologue http://www.ethnologue.com/language/eng also ethnologue has a scale for how widely a lanhuage is used can that be adapted in.

"Population 55,600,000 in United Kingdom (ELDIA 2012). Population total all countries: 335,148,868. L2 users: 1,500,000 in United Kingdom (Crystal 2003). L2 users worldwide: 505,000,000." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.205.148.141 (talk) 23:19, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

"A" vs "the"

Colleagues, on another language page, an editor insists on starting the sentence with "X is the langage" instead of the usual "X is a language. I used English language as an example - surely this is a high-visibility page, with thousands of edits, by now someone would have seen if the construction is wrong. It starts with "English is a West Germanic language". I pointed out that "a language"/ "a dialect" is the way we speak about languages." The editor in question insists that this is wrong and that on this page it should read "English is the West Germanic language". I am not getting through to this editor. Your opinions are welcome. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 11:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

English is only one of several West Germanic languages so "a" is correct. Only if "English" and "West Germanic" were exact synonyms (if English was the only West Germanic language) "the" would be correct. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Roger. The editor's reasoning is based on the second part of the sentence "first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca" - that there is only one such language first spoken and now global. on the face of it, the editor is 'correct', but these are two separate statements, which he/ she is not grasping. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 12:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

"English is the West Germanic language + postqualifier—that would undesirably shift the "news" of the clause to "English is that West Germanic language ... the one that was first spoken in ...". But where it first spoken is not the "news", and is not used to directly distinguish English from the West Germanic languages that weren't first spoken there and are now not lingua francas. Tony (talk) 13:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 May 2014

125.209.81.74 (talk) 18:54, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 19:09, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

15.5M Australian English Speakers?

The number of English speakers in Australia is stated to be 15.5 million, with an utterly ridiculous disclaimer that people who speak a language in addition to English are not native English speakers. This is not at all supported by the provided source. Worse, this figure is then used elsewhere, without any disclaimer at all. Anybody who identifies themselves as not just English speaking, but even speaking English at home, is so clearly an "English Speaker" that I cannot fathom how this could be misinterpreted. 166.137.208.24 (talk) 08:07, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

15.5M sounds about right to me, given that almost half the population was not born in the country, and more than half of them came from non-anglophone countries. Tony (talk) 03:45, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject English

I have boldly planted a seed that I hope might grow into a WikiProject about the English language. Please see Draft:WikiProject English and feel free to add to it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:54, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 August 2014

2600:1011:B10E:B9B:0:39:8DAA:DA01 (talk) 12:15, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 13:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

430 million native speakers, really?

The Swedish Nationalencyklopedin 2010 gives a total of 360 million native English speakers. Other older sources give 330 million. The number of 430 L1 (L1 = native language) speakers is exaggerated. I don't think the source is reliable.Ernio48 (talk) 23:57, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Interesting that you are consulting a Swedish encyclopedia for information on the English language! I agree the source in the article is not reliable; it is very lightweight and the information appears to be user submitted. There is also no hint where the site sourced the information from. My copy of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language gives L1: 300-350 million and L2: 700-1,400 million in the appendix. The range is due to different estimates in different sources, but the author consistently uses the higher figures in the body of the book. I think this is a good scholarly source, especially as he has compiled the figures from a large number of sources (thus helping us to avoid the problems of using a WP:PRIMARY source). However, my copy is quite old and there is a new edition. I will compare the figures next time I go to the library before updating the article. SpinningSpark 10:21, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Gut.Ernio48 (talk) 20:29, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I got Crystal (1997) from my library and he gives 427 million so I updated the article to that. It's not a million miles away from the previous figure and it might seem like a step backward as the replaced source was 2013, but as I said above, I think that source is completely unreliable and I really don't believe that their data is genuinely 2013, they copied it from somewhere in 2013 more like. There is now a third edition (2010) of Crystal if anyone has access to that. SpinningSpark 21:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I am aware that English is a leading world language and rapidly expanding, but nevertheless I am a little surprised with this number of native speakers. Thought it will be a little more than 300 million, cause Ethnologue and most sources claims that number. List of languages by number of native speakers is based on the Swedish Nationalencyclopedia and claims 360 million speakers of English.

I am still inclined to go with Crystal because he has reviewed multiple sources. I wouldn't set any great store by other tertiary sources agreeing with Ethnologue, that may well be where they got their figures from. In fact Ethnologue is one of Crystal's primary sources. From his bibliography, the two sources used to compile his list of speakers are,

• Bright, W. (ed), International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, New York & Oxford: OUP, 1992
• Grimes, B. F. (ed), Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 13th edition, Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1996

Crystal says he has "averaged" his sources where they disagree. I don't know what averaging algorithm he is using but presumably Bright has a much larger figure, or else there is some other source that Crystal considers more accurate. In any event, the source that was in the article had to go, there is no sign that it was reliable. SpinningSpark 09:23, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.109.70.122 (talk) 21:45, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Crystal is an excellent linguist, but he is wrong here. To take but one example, Crystal claimed close to 300 million native English speakers just in the US back in 1997. However, the latest US census records only 229 native English speakers in the US. What Crystal is saying is contrary to most other sources, and I'll replace it with data better corresponding to censuses, not personal estimations.Jeppiz (talk) 17:03, 2 September 2014 (UTC)