Talk:English language

English, a Romance language?

I have always wondered why English was considered as a Germanic language while the largest portion of its vocabulary derived for Latin or French, which cannot be said about any other Germanic language. English is very intelligible for a French-speaking person, nearly as much as Spanish or Italian, unlike German, since a lot of English words have both a Latinate and a Germanic counterpart. I think it should be relevant to talk about it somewhere and to say that English is not a typical Germanic language, in the same way that French is not a typical Romance language (well, even if compared, French is much more a traditional Romance language than English is a traditional Germanic one). What do you think?

--Floeticsoulchild (talk) 14:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There's much more to a language than its vocabulary. English grammar is thoroughly Germanic, including the portion of its vocabulary used to express grammatical relations (function words). There's nothing atypical about having a large number of loanwords; Dutch and German also have many loanwords from French (if not quite so many as English has), and Yiddish has a huge number of loanwords from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic. But all of those languages, like English, are unambiguously Germanic. —Angr 19:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Some of this is artificial since if you look at "Latin roots as percentage of words in dictionary" you'll see a huge number, but if you look at "Latin roots as percentage of words in everyday speech" it will be far, far lower. SDY (talk) 20:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts:

1. "I have always wondered why English was considered as a Germanic language" Because it is Germanic, beyond any reasonable doubt.
2. "English is very intelligible for a French-speaking person" No, it's not. Most francophones don't understand English. Even in Québec, a province bordering the US, the majority isn't able to understand English.
3. "English is not a typical Germanic language, in the same way that French is not a typical Romance language" How do we define 'typical' here. Italian form plurals in a completely different way that Spanish, Portuguese and French, is that atypical? Portuguese has got a personal infinitive alien to other Romance languages, is that atypical? JdeJ (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

No, English is not 'very intelligible' to a french person. Finnish and Hungarian both have Mongolian roots but you wouldn't say that a Finnish person understands Hungarian would you? That is no more ridiculous than what you’re saying. The languages don’t even have as shared a history as one might be led to believe. English is, however, considered a slight oddity among the Germanic family, simply because of the sheer number of influences which have shaped the language. If we look at the very beginning, we get Celtic languages that were then shaped by a succession of invaders and various other tribes bringing with them their own Germanic and Nordic languages. Then we have the Romans, with their Latin. English didn't keep the romance roots of languages such as french and Italian because of how far away it was from the epicentre of the roman empire, right in a fringe area, the influence of the Romans began to crumble, including their language, with the beginning of the end of the roman empire. After that we have Germanic tribes bringing Germanic languages to England again, and thus ends the spell of Latin influence in Britain, with it being preserved in pockets such as the church and the country turning back to it's Germanic past. So, you see, relatively early in the language's history we already have a huge melting pot of influences. Then along come the Normans, bringing french and words with more romance origins, and so on and so forth. English could be seen unusual because it's been changed be countless other languages throughout its history. And then, to boot, we add the slightly more modern fact that English has the not entirely unique ability to 'absorb' words from the other cultures it meets, with this becoming more common with the boom of the 'global village'. You could say that the speed and dexterity that English does this is the interesting point here. But yes, it's words aren't entirely Germanic because it's had so many influences over the years, and perhaps a little because of how isolated the united kingdom is from mainland Europe which has undoubtedly shaped its history, society and hence it's language. Grammatically and historically, however, it is viewed as being more ubiquitously Germanic than anything else, hence it's seen as a Germanic language. I personally wouldn't call it a romance language by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the usage of Latin words, well, that makes sense doesn't it? Remember, compared to Germanic languages, Latin had a very, very limited influence on the language and actually nearly vanished with the crumbling of the empire, only later being reintroduced. More so, it's not simply that these words aren't used. Yes, they have a history of being associated with upper classes and the educated elite, so may still have a stigma as being slightly snooty if you were to drop one into informal conversation. Also, the Germanic words tend to be more informal, shorter and easier to say than their Latin equivalents. Why make life more difficult for yourself? Still, we're ignoring the fact that English has one of the largest word pools of any language and ignoring the amount that are used daily, shouldn't we at least thank our history's convoluted history and more interesting properties for that? It does mean, however, that it's a lot easier to deem what family English belongs to grammatically rather than based on vocab, and there there's no doubt as to where it belongs.

Just a question, are you basing your assumptions on geography? It just seems as if that may have played a role, and I’m not judging you about it, but we all know that geography doesn’t play a part in languages [ignoring the fact that England isn’t in any way connected to France?] I mean, look at the Basque language. Not related to French or Spanish, in fact, not related to any European language at all. And look at Finnish – it’s nothing like Swedish or Norwegian. Just don’t jump to these conclusions. --138.38.216.248 (talk) 23:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Is this now the forum for fringe language ideas? Finnish nor Hungarian are Uralic languages, neither of them are related to Mongolian.JdeJ (talk) 14:29, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I can tell you exactly why it is written as such here!! Because some learned people have written it as so! Not a very good explanation is it? Go ahead try include some more info on the lead section, see what happens. You may be "attacking authority" or "not speaking English very well" for people to understand you. This article is entitled "English language" not "The English language" and should be treated as such to avoid Ignorance and Confusion but that would be bleeding cocoa now wouldn't it. The term "English language" by definition includes "The history of language in England" and "Influence and influences of languages closely tied to England" but this is a mere classification and phonology article. Terror to think about changing or supplementing anything "important" on the mere notion that it may be Misleading or Incomplete when it is clearly "correct". ~ R.T.G 03:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

English Grammar is not thoroughly German or Germanic it has many similarities as it does with French. And the Structure of English and French is very similar (with the exeption of the placing of the adjective). --Lemonade100 (talk) 18:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that by "Structure" you mean syntax, there are significant differences. Completely off the top of my head, English has Subject Verb Object word order as a default for nearly all sentences. French uses Subject Object Verb where the object is a pronoun (e.g. "I have killed them" = je les ai tués -- word-for-word "I them have killed", with "killed" being plural.) In any case, syntax is notoriously changeable over time and thus a poor diagnostic of genetic language relationships. Core vocabulary, phonology, and, to a lesser extent, morphology, are much more important. For example, French is known to descend from Latin, but French usually has SVO word order where the object is not a pronoun, for which Latin generally preferred SOV. Grover cleveland (talk) 21:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Also worth noting is the crazy preposition/postposition problem. There are no postpositions in French, but English (like German) has a ton. Consider the differences between "Knock off" "Knock up" "Knock over" "Knock out" etc. (I could keep going...) The German verbs also feature ablaut, where the vowel changes to demonstrate tense, thus singen, sang, gesungen become sing, sang, sung. The French lexicon is also a bit more 'elite' as you might say, due to the Norman Invasion. Consider the word "arrive" vs. the word "come." "When are you coming?" vs. "When are you arriving?" The French "arriver" would have been used by the elite of England, whereas the Germanic "kommen" (not sure the English variety of the word) would have been used by the lower classes. So as mentioned above, just because the lexicon has been flooded by French doesn't make it "French." Just curious as to how you could think French and English were mutually intelligible... I can barely understand people from London, let alone France! Remember too, that a lot of loan words in German, for example, are very, very old. The word for "table" in German (Tisch), is actually a loan from the Greek word "dískos". The relatively recent introduction of French loan words accounts for them not being as well hidden. Retailmonica (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should analyse these particles as 'postpositions', but it's true that phrasal verbs are more Germanic than Romance. garik (talk) 16:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

What's up with the box

Why isn't it possible to edit the "fact"-box called {English language}. For the second time in less than a week, I find it containing errors, but I don't know how to edit it. The claim that English is ranked as the 3rd language in terms of native speakers is not correct, it's 4th. I hope that can be changed, but the real problem is the box. It's a part of this page, so I don't quite get the idea with it being edited somewhere else.JdeJ (talk) 11:51, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a separate template called {{English language}}. If you want to edit it, you have to go to Template:English language. —Angr 13:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I edited that template one time and it didnt show up for a few days although after a week is a long enough time. ~ R.T.G 00:21, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Problematic section

The section headed "Idiomatic" [1] is, to put it kindly, a load of rubbish. Even the heading itself is gramatically incorrect. I propose it be deleted. Roger (talk) 17:21, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted it. Grover cleveland (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Survey

There is currently a survey being done about the English map (anglospeak) at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Anglospeak.svg. You may want to participate.ReveurGAM (talk) 07:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:English language/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

The article deals with a great variety of topics. The accentuation is maybe not ideal, maybe not sufficient for FA, but for GA that would be sufficient. The only objection related to coverage is that the “Grammar” section is too short, even though there is an extra article on that. It must be quite a bit longer, address typological issues, include some info on sentence pattern types, information structure etc. etc. A compensatory shortening could be achieved by deleting “number of words in English” which is a bit shallow at the moment. You would want to know with how few words you can do in everyday speech, how the number of compounds in American English relates to idiosyncratic lexical items in British English etc.

A far more serious objection is that most of it is under-referenced: History, Classification and related languages, English as a global language, Dialects and regional varieties, Phonology (no single reference!) etc. etc.

And finally: the reference list is a mess: some sources are given in the “Notes” section, some in “References”. That would have to be unified.

I don’t say that this article would be GA if these points were met, I would have to do a more in-depth review for that, but I think it is not unlikely. Anyway, the number of references to be added is too big to be taken care of in one week. I would have preferred to put this article on hold, but it would have to be on hold for too long. Thus, I fail it. If the grammar part is enlarged and the number of in-line citations is up to hundred, I would suggest to renominate it. G Purevdorj (talk) 19:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

It is difficult to improve this article. Persons have ideas that the content should be restricted in unique ways thus making quality fairly static. I made a good edit yesterday but it was making things "too clear" and "too general" for "this article. ~ R.T.G 10:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

It is common to specify in the lead section to say sth. about language family: "European" language is far less useful than "West-Germanic", thus too general indeed. The other changes were replacing a general picture with a historic sequency, which I agree is not so much "too clear", but rahter "too specific" for the lead section. But as I stated, the main problem of this article is referencing and the grammar part, not the intro. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:41, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I don't know what a "sth" is. The other changes were a slight correction on the style. ?The only extra information added was "South-East England" and the date "1066" (1066 which I surmised should be entered seeing as the 5th century date is entered... "South-East"... why not? It's short sweet and true is it not?). Again, people do not read or else they talk crap. The paragraph is only 3 sentences. I think a cold shower for me this morning girls. People talk about anti-clarity and anti-specifics. Context and consistency are much more important. You put those two together with factuality and you have something. With crap you have nothing. Cya. ~ R.T.G 08:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Ireland

RTG, stop making a fool of yourself. According to the Constitution of Ireland“The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.” [original emphasis] —teb728 t c 09:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The "state" that document refers to is certainly not a republic. Can you even pronounce Eire? I doubt it. ~ R.T.G 09:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Is féidir liomsa "Éire" a fhuaimniú, ach silim go bhfuil an argóint seo amadach agus gan úsáid. -- Evertype·✆ 18:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Please post in English. Roger (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the one who was trying to use knowledge of Irish as a weapon. -- Evertype·✆ 11:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

When you post on an article talk page you are "talking to" everyone who wants to read it. If you wish to address an individual user please post to their user talk page. Article talk pages are not the proper place for "private" discussions. However, it is in any event bad form to post in any language other than English on the en.wikipedia - except for articles about a language (other than English). Roger (talk) 11:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(Translation: I can pronounce "Éire", but I think that this argument is foolish and useless. --89.101.216.172 (talk) 00:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC))

The statistic on the number of english speakers in the republic is 3.8 million. The statistic on Ireland as a whole is over 5.5 million. If you want to correct the naming, you should correct the statistic and you should correct the UK statistic because that also includes part of Ireland or you could just leave it named correctly as "Republic of Ireland" and save me from making a fool of myself. ~ R.T.G 09:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

In fact, the "Act of Republic" did not occur until the 40s and repeatedly throughout history votes have been not to confuse the Irish State with the Irish Republic. The Irish State refers to the whole island. The statistics here do not. ~ R.T.G 10:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The state became a republic in 1948, before that it was a constitutional monarchy. It did not change its name at that time. See Republic of Ireland#Name—particularly the part about the 1989 Supreme Court decision. —teb728 t c 10:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The title of the judge and the government is "of Ireland" or "na hEireann" but the country (and the 3.8 million statistic) is, in current law, "...described as the Republic of Ireland". See Republic of Ireland Act 1948 for the full text and an explaination, of the same confusion, by the man who wrote it. If it is of any interest, an act was passed in British law the next year with more details regarding UK citizenship but saying basically the same thing about the name. See Ireland_Act_1949#Provisions. I wonder, if it was up to him, would Judge Walsh say "They'd better remove the border or nobody's crossing it!" ~ R.T.G 19:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, as it says at your link, “the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland.” [emphasis added] And as it says at my link, “The name of the State is … Ireland.” [emphasis added] Both are true under current law. And in both cases the “State” means (as always) the sovereign government. (See State.) As you point out, some diehard nationalists reject the partition. But whatever its territory, the official name of the Irish republic is “Ireland.” (And calling the country by its description doesn’t affect the nationalist position.)

You are also correct that “the countries with the highest populations of native English speakers” in the Geographical distribution section is a list of countries. But because of that fact there is no ambiguity in listing “Ireland” there as to whether it refers to the country or the island. Only an incredibly stubborn person trying to disrupt the project to make a point could claim to be confused.

The list at the end of the first sentence of the article is also a list of countries. Therefore it is wrong to list “Great Britain” there, for Great Britain is not the name of a country. Likewise it is wrong to link the mention of Ireland there to the article on the island. —teb728 t c 04:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

[un]Look TEB, you are saying that both are possibly correct. I can't get to grips with this "Don't make this encyclopedia too specific" (roll!). The government neither has the right or the will to claim that Ireland is no longer the island but is now the republic portion. Now, if you agreed with that, why on earth would you argue that anything they say makes it so? They did it by accident, huh? huh? If you feel that rejection of Irish partition falls in the lap of crazy people, you are sadly misinformed and I am insisting it is acknowledged, reject or no. Your ideas on countries and islands are abbreviated as POV. Where does it say that the measurements of a country or island be more accurate or that talk of countries and islands cannot be made side by side? Of course, I insist you look at this: wikt:stubborn. "Your" link is reference to Wikipedia, not the law. The statistic of, as you say, "english speakers in the "“State” means (as always) the sovereign government", amounts to less than 300 people. lol. Regardless of what goes in the article, if you are a good person, admit to yourself now, TEB728, there is more than one valid government bearing the name Ireland. If they were to link up, there would be only one, but if they have not, stick to what you know, and don't talk about "die-hard nonsense" of which you do not know. ~ R.T.G 10:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

RTG, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your 10:57 post at all. In most of your sentences I don’t understand what sort of thing you are talking to. And in some of your sentences I can’t even make out the grammar. Please revise and clarify your comments.

But first let me say that I retract and apologize for my comment about stubbornness. Perhaps you replied hurriedly in anger over that comment. If so, I hope that with my apology you can get over the anger and reply more carefully. Secondly when I mentioned “my link,” I was referring to the Constitution of Ireland, which is law. (I gave that link in my first post of this section. I was not referring to my later links to Wikipedia articles.) Sorry if I did not make that clear.

About the only thing in your post I clearly understand is your request that I acknowledge there is more than one valid government bearing the name Ireland. I acknowledge there is a government legally named “Ireland,” and another legally named “Northern Ireland.” The names are different; so there is no ambiguity. —teb728 t c 06:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I am just saying that you do not need to be fanatical or winged to agree with nationalism or open borders, that kind of thing is about friendliness first isn't it? People are alive since before the border and hardly need to be fanatics to say "Yeah, take it down." That government wihich is named "Ireland" is less than 300 members in total (possibly a few thousand working for them altogether...?), the governments name alone does not nessicarily name the country (and possibly Ireland is one of very few examples why it does not, i.e. Did the Nazis name France "Germany" no.) You would have to say that people not of Ireland will call "Ireland" and "Irish" non-discriminately north or south (you may say that the north is in Ireland and that Ireland is the southern state buts thats the ambiguity, Ireland is an island) People of north who say "Ireland" is south of the border only and they are not Irish, will also say they are more Ulster than anything else (Irish of the highest order, the warriors and wild men of Irish Mythology, renowned but mysterious, Ulster is often thought of as many Scottish immigrants but the texts suggest the opposite). People south of the border who say they do not wish to use the term republic will usually be because they do not want the island divided, not because the border is so Irish now. Make two surveys "Are you of Ulster or not?" and "Are you glad of the border or not?", then add "Is the republic 'Ireland'?", you get the contradiction. So long as they don't fight, they can call themselves anything they want :) but to describe the southern state as "Ireland", you would need to explain it or something. ~ R.T.G 13:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I don’t know what 300 has to do with anything. By the latest census there are 4.2 million people under the government which is named “Ireland” (of whom 3.8 million speak English). In any case your argument cuts both ways, for there are the same number of people in the government which is described as the “Republic of Ireland” as the government which is named “Ireland.” (BTW, what do you call the south between 1938 and 1948?)

Have your surveys been performed and published in a reliable source? (If so, what were the results?) Or are they just original research?

Calling the south “Ireland” in a list of countries needs no explanation, for the context disambiguates the meaning. If anyone had any doubt, they could follow the link to the ROI article. —teb728 t c 04:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

As a thought, the article China may be useful for any person with difficulty differing a republic from its region. ~ R.T.G 11:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Boys and girls, this hellish spat has been being played over and over again. See Talk:Ireland where folks are trying to set a policy. In the meantime, relax, have a cup of tea, and STOP EDIT WARRING OVER THIS. (The text says Great Britain (an island) and Ireland (an island). That's what it should say. The UK and the Irish state have no relevance.) -- Evertype·✆ 11:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I may be treading on very thin ice as I know this topic has been discussed for a long time now. As far as I'm concerned, all wikipedia country articles are entitled with the common name of the country. This means that when referring to the 26 counties in the southern portion of the island we use Republic of Ireland (just look at packaging - usually ROI, or Irish soccer team - Republic of Ireland). This brings it into line with the United States or the United Kingdom. If we want to use Ireland as the name of the article with linksin other articles, then, as fair is fair, we should rename the United States article to United States of America, the United Kingdom article to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and perhaps Libya to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Great Jamahiriya? i.e. IMHO, common names only throughout unless completely necessary. --MacTire02 (talk) 20:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

But the common name is Ireland. No one says "I'm going on vacation to the Republic of Ireland this summer". —Angr 21:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The commonly used name is Ireland but the common reference is the island, Angr. Absolutely the USA and UK articles should be named correctly. Common abbreviation is difficult to accept in entireity in an encyclopedia, is it not? It is being taken here (WP:CREEP) and only because a lot of people are saying "thats what I say". I am going on about what the article says but would you reckon that I say "the Republic of Ireland?" I can't remember the last (or any) time I said those words without talking politics but I abbreviate other stuff... Unless we start to change spelling convention according to the common global slang lingo, is that on? The same, do you think that I call the RoI football team Irish or Ireland? Of course I do. I still know what the proper name is and see it as correct. ~ R.T.G 22:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

It is worth noting here that a live.com search of "United States of America" produces Wikipedias United States at the top of the list. Wikipedia policy is to provide titles that produce search hits but that policy is older than the search policy to provide Wikipedia at top of the list :) ~ R.T.G 15:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I've changed to the text in the introduction to be "Ireland" rather that "Republic of Ireland". That is both the formal and common name of the state. As there is also no need to distinguish between the state and the island, use of the long description is unnecessary and out of the ordinary. We don't, for example, say "Commonwealth of Australia", "United States of America" or "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in the same sentence (and quite rightly so).

Use of the phrase further down in the article seems fine to me since the construction is often used when giving statistics in order to make the population (of the statistical sample) as clear as possible. --89.101.216.172 (talk) 00:42, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Word Order of English-Speaking Countries

I would be in favor of reverting back to this revision. I think in this case the number of native speakers is the most important factor in determining what order to list the countries. It's a minor issue, but I think it reads better that way. – Novem Lingvae (talk) 12:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Presumably you're talking about the introductory sentence which explains where English originated? It is logical that the remainder of that sentence should list countries in the order in which the language was introduced to those countries. In fact, since it is really a geographical/social topic political boundaries should not be used at all: if we said "the British Isles, North America and Australasia" that should cover it (but I imagine generalisation will cause problems...). Wiki-Ed (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yup, that's the sentence. The way I see it, as the first sentence of this article, it's presenting the two most important facts: the language's origin and where it is predominately spoken. I'm reading it a bit differently than you are... I don't necessarily see these two things as being related, even though they're in the same sentence and you might initially think they should be. The second sentence in that paragraph goes on to support the second part of the first sentence by listing places that English is spoken as a second language, which tacitly supports the idea that it's focusing on places where it's predominately spoken and not necessarily places where it originated. Just my two cents, but I did take a look at the sentence again with your comments in mind and am still in favor of changing it back. – Novem Lingvae (talk) 15:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The origin and predominance are related though. According to thie article 96% of the UK population speak English as a first language; in the US it is 73% (although it is interesting to see that the statistical table attempts to fudge over that). If we throw in the second language speakers then India, Nigeria and the Phillipines would edge out countries like Ireland, Australia and New Zealand where it is the predominant language and has been for centuries. That does not seem to me to be a sensible course. If we are using population statistics for the first sentence then there are 101 arguments for different lists in different orders. It will be the constant focus of edit wars as populations change over time. It makes more sense to describe the origins and spread of the language in the first sentence and leave the tabs on the table for those who want to see numbers. Wiki-Ed (talk) 18:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not some medieval feast, so wiki-ed don't get insulted if your country gets listed after another, it is not a sign of rank. The text that you/IP were reverting to in any case contained editorial notes stating they are listed in chronological order. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not an answer. The controversial change that the two of you are advocating is illogical - why are New Zealand, the Carribbean and Ireland included on your list if it is a list of countries with the highest population of first language speakers? Also, it says the "first language for most people", but what percentage is "most" equivalent too? 70% seems quite low for this to be applicable. Maybe the US should be removed altogether.
The sentence is about the origin and spread of the language. Since it is poorly phrased I'll rewrite it altogether so it makes more sense. Wiki-Ed (talk) 21:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with chronology and in line with that would be to substitute the terms United States and Canada with North America and Anglophone Carribean with Carribean as those were the places that the language went to. Although this does not immediately provide the modern day names, they were not in existence. Reference to the differences could be made further down for follow up reading as per relevance? The alternative to chronology would be that the info begins by referencing USA and not Germanic or England. That is valid but not so likely to be fresh, and equally valid info to the reader as the chronological format...? ~ R.T.G 22:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I don’t care about the order of the list of countries. But as far as I am concerned Wiki-Ed’s radical rewording is unacceptable. If Wiki-Ed thinks the first sentence is about where English originated, I would agree to clarifying it by inserting a full stop after “England” and maybe adding the word “now” in the resulting second sentence like “It is now the first language ….” In any case I see no consensus for the new wording, and it should stay with the old consensus until a new consensus is reached.

Among the objections to the rewording: According to WP:LEAD the purpose of this introductory text, is to establish the notability of the article. But by changing the focus from the present distribution of the language to the historical spread, the countries where it is now spoken cannot properly be listed; it is this list of countries, which is a significant part of the notability. Furthermore, changing the United States and Canada to North America includes Mexico, where English is not spoken. Similarly, changing the Anglophone Caribbean to the Caribbean includes Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where English is not spoken. Also the rewording says that English spread across Ireland before the Age of Discovery, which is false. It also did not spread across the Scottish Highlands until after the Battle of Culloden. —teb728 t c 04:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

We need to discuss, also, stuff like "Pidgin English" which is excluded from the list. I am Irish. We, like any good Jamaicans (and on the subject of anglo-phone Carribean lingo, that is way more different than African-English), we speak a sort of a pidgin English, so far removed from the mimicry accent you often hear from American-Irish on TV. We talk "dis" an "dat", even in the government they always do or verge on it. In the TV news, they never do, but we have our own rival for BBC English (which I must request an article about). If the first language for most people in Nigera (one of the most populous countries in the world and "The most populous black country in the world") is Pidgin-English, that is an English language. I have seen voiced-over African-English on the TV news. It is definitly English (in fact it can annoy when they (news) voice it over and change all the dis and dat words, it's usually grammatical differences) ~ R.T.G 11:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't what your native language is (to judge from your writing, it isn't English), but Hiberno-English is most definitely not a pidgin or a creole. It is a dialect of English. It has an Irish Gaelic substratum, but it did not originate with a group of people who had no language in common and therefore had to communicate in broken English as best they could; nor did it undergo creolization to become the full-fledged language it is today. The fact that Hiberno-English has th-stopping (which is what I assume you mean by "dis an dat"), just as most pidgins and creoles do, is coincidence. —Angr 12:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I think I see the problem here. Some of the newer editors to this page evidently think the "consensus" is the version they are proposing. However, it is not a stable consensus version (that's what I have been reverting to) and the proposed changes are the result of recent editing.

"North America" is certainly an inaccurate generalisation, but no more so than wording which says something like it is "the first language for most people in the US". This implies that "most" is anything over 70% so on that basis we could reasonably include Mexico and Cuba etc because proportionately speaking "most" would still apply to the combined population...

Which leads to notability - the list of countries is arbitrary and inaccurate. The only way you could justify that particular list is to arrange them in chronological order of introduction, in which case the language's history is relevant. Alternatively you could have an alphabetical list of countries with the largest total number of speakers. As it is, I think arbitrarily selecting the first language total (not proportion) seems to be pushing a particular POV. Obviously that's contrary to policy so unless these points are addressed I will take it as such and revert to the stable wording used for several years up until a month or two ago. Wiki-Ed (talk) 11:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

No, you have not been reverting to a "stable consensus version". That version was never stable and never had consensus. There's nothing non-NPOV about listing countries in order of number of native speakers, and it's a method of ordering that's easier both to determine and to understand than listing them in order of when English arrived there. (When did English arrive in the United States? With the founding of the Roanoke Colony in 1586? When did it arrive in Canada? In 1610 at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland? But Newfoundland didn't join Canada until 1949. And should the UK really be listed first in chronological order, when the current United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland only came into existence in 1922?) Perhaps it would be less controversial to list the countries is in alphabetical order, conveniently putting both the UK and the US at the end. —Angr 13:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the concensus should be reached on the article being either -

• a> a discription of historical progression or
• b> an example of current condition - with a possible agreement of -
• c> that if no one is pursued, the two approaches should be complimentary rather than intrinsic or confusable with one another.
• If those methods ought to be combined intrinsically (as is the present case, example: first sentence), why?
• If something is easier, why? How?
• Rather than factual content, this debate is focusing on Methodology (quite good article excepting the "example" section) Facts are not being disputed so content may be progressive upon agreeing a method.
• The United States arrived in English. English arrived in whatever the Indians were calling it. Sadly, after looking for an hour or so, good reference is sparse on what, or wether, the Indians named the continent or area that the first English speaking settlement was but most likely it was territory of the Powhatan tribe (Pocahontas was daughter of the chief of that tribe) and speakers of the Algonquian language. The English named it Roanoke Colony of Roanoke Island in what was then the Colony of Virginia and it was an (twice) unsuccessful colony on a little island but appears to be the first of attempts to permanently settle the English language that side of the water. ~ R.T.G 15:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

To address User:Angr's points:
No, you have not been reverting to a "stable consensus version". That version was never stable and never had consensus.
Err, yes I have. The article intro started this way in 2001. It has been fiddled with by POV-pushers since then, but it has always been restored.
There's nothing non-NPOV about listing countries in order of number of native speakers
Why pick that figure (as opposed to total numbers)? That's massaging statistics, stats which are based on people's self-assessment of their own language capability (in some cases).
...and it's a method of ordering that's easier both to determine and to understand than listing them in order of when English arrived there.
How is it easier to determine? Population sizes change frequently and people learn languages quickly so the article will need updating continuously (i.e. it is always wrong). I've already pointed out inconsistencies so it certainly does not make it easier to understand.
Geography
Historical dates are fixed, unlike population statistics, and although the political entities are irrelevant the dates where English arrived correspond to the dates on the table in this article: Evolution of the British Empire. If you have a list in alphabetical order, which countries do you include? (Going back to the point about the current list being inconsistent if it is supposed to be about numbers of speakers.) Wiki-Ed (talk) 16:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, all I wanted to do was start a discussion on the lead. I'm kind of sad to see that it's degenerated into an edit war, complete with accusations of bad faith and posting 3RR warnings on people's talk pages. I recommend we all take a step back and relax... The semantics of the lead are important, but they're not so important that we should be edit warring over it. – Novem Lingvae (talk) 17:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The oldest version is not necessarily a stable version, a consensus version, or an NPOV version. The fact that people have been constantly wrangling over the order in which the countries are listed in the lead for the past 8 years pretty well proves that the version you keep reverting to has zero consensus. (And the version you keep reverting away from has just as little, of course.) Just because someone disagrees with you, Wiki-Ed, that doesn't make them a POV-pusher. The population-size version is easier to determine because statistics are kept on that sort of thing, while the chronological version has to be based on guesswork and tortured decisions about what counts as the date when English arrived somewhere. (Evolution of the British Empire tells us nothing whatever about when the English language arrived in various parts of the world and so is useless for our purposes.) The question of which countries to include has to be answered regardless of what order we put them in; that's not a problem unique to alphabetical order. —Angr 17:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

For reference, in the past there have been people pushing particular points of view (looking through the article's edit history earlier reminded me of one of them) and that's my concern. Also, I did not say that the oldest version is necessarily stable, agreed or balanced, but it was not a point of contention until the list was added.

As for the historical aspect - I was not proposing to use dates or even years. The reworded paragraph I proposed used historical periods and broke apart the list so it did not appear to be exhaustive or exclusive. The table in the article I referred to tells us when a colony had definitely started and since the English colonists spoke English we could reasonably guess that the language "arrived" at that point. As to what "arrived" means, well I agree that it doesn't mean much in terms of coverage, but then again what percentage of the population should speak a language for it to be significant in that country? 75%? Oops, knock out the US. 100%? Oops, knock out the UK.

Anyway, there are no "tortured decisions" if we say the language spread from across Great Britain to Ireland between the 700s and 1500s. That's not contentious even if did not reach the farthest corners of those lands during that time (it still hasn't). To say that it reached the Americas during the Age of Discovery is also correct and avoids value judgements about the speed with which it spread (again, English is not universally used). That it continued to spread during the colonial era to reach Australasia, Africa and India is very general, but it definitely happened after the language had reached across the British Isles and America. Wiki-Ed (talk) 19:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

BTW, 82 > 75. —Angr 20:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

BTW, (215m(first language) / 281m (population)) x 100 = 76% Wiki-Ed (talk) 21:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, 76 > 75 too, even if that weren't bad math, which it is, because the 281m includes children under 5, while the 215m excludes them. Anyway, the 2005 estimate is down to 80.6%. But it's actually dangerous to equate this number with native English speakers, because (1) not everyone who speaks English at home in the U.S. is a native speaker, and (2) not everyone who is a native English speaker in the U.S. speaks English at home. —Angr 22:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

So what do the children under 5 speak? Okay, only joking. Personally I think 80% is still relatively low but the point I was making is that the presented statistics are misleading. For example, some figures are relatively recent, some are nearly 20 years old. The world has changed quite a bit, even in that short space of time (e.g. random fact: apparently the French have given up speaking French at EU meetings and use English instead. Unthinkable until the internet came along.) Wiki-Ed (talk) 23:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

What the first paragraph needs to say is something to the effect of “English is the language of the UK, whose former empire began the worldwide spread of the language, and of the US, whose cultural, economic and political influence continued the spread. In recent years the dominance of the language itself has furthered its spread.” Wiki-Ed’s rewording totally loses sight if this. Mentioning Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand in the first paragraph is much less important; they are mentioned perhaps only because nobody can find a reason not to include them. —teb728 t c 19:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC) The use of English in the US is important not because it is spoken by xx% of the population but because it is language of cinema, television, government, and business. —teb728 t c 19:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Ha ha. Now that's funny. I edited something very similar into the article a few years ago. It now appears to have been moved to a section further down the page and replaced with the recent version, including this random list. My attempted rewording was designed to placate various parties, but I wouldn't object to what I originally wrote... :) Wiki-Ed (talk) 20:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)