Talk:Yola dialect

First entry

I am a newby. I don't understad the star symbol and its meaning. I think is a good thing. Herodotus21

Comment moved from article

There are small errors here which a native of south Wexford can correct.
Drazed means 'scuffed'. The drawing of thread from wool was known as 'drazing'. A wound incurred after a fall is known as a 'draze'.
Keek is actually 'geak' or 'geek' - to take a geak at something, meaning to look at it; or geeking in the window. Obvious cognate of 'gawk' and 'gawking'.
Amain may be a rendering of Ammin' meaning 'ambling along'. Rare.
Fash stems from 'farsh'. Compare with the Yiddish for old and confused person 'farshimmeldt'.
--- No no no. Farshimmeldt = far+shimmeldt 'mouldy', schimmel is mould, as it is in Dutch. 84.53.74.196 23:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The other words mentioned must be extinct.

From Poole's glossary:

Curkite could stem from a old Wexford Norse word for a badly behaved young dog - a 'cur'. Although it is more likely this is simply an variant version of a common expression in Wexford 'crookity' meaning twisted, not straight or square.

Other terms still commonly used:

Houghboy pronounced 'hoe boy' meaning a delinquent.
Rake is very commonly used to imply a large quantity, e.g. a rake of drink, there was a rake a people at the wedding, etc.
Cnat meaning a sly (usually young) person. A devious youth or petty criminal - Cnat is used more in Wexford town suggesting Norse rather Yola heritage. Similarly 'bolsker' (extinct) is almost certainly Norse. The 'Boker' in Wexford town is one of the earlist sites of norse settlement and 'bolsker' is possibly a rendering of someone (a viking settler) from the Boker' but that is pure speculation. A more likely possibility is that 'bolsker' or 'bolskar' is a fogotten placename. For instance, 'Esker' and 'Tuskar' both are place names of coastal areas, the latter for the Tuskar Lighthouse.

User:Jonisrael 15:39, 20 December 2006

As a native of south Wexford, (and a hebrew speaker), I would like to point out that in my experienece of the Carne, Kilmore and Hook areas (which encompass the Baronies of Forth and Bargy) several of the words in Diarmuid O'Murithe's list are completely unknown to me. But let's not trip over my inductive reasoning.

In the case of Jacob Poole, the collector of allegedly Yola phrases, it must be emphasised that he was not a lexicographer - despite his enthusiasm - nor was he a comparative philologist. Consequently, the relative 'ages' of the lexical items he recorded are close to conjecture.

Secondly, no one has ever verified the accuracy of Poole's rendering of Yola. Less than a handful of Yola documents exist and most of these are from the 18th century raising the possibility that the originals (if they ever existed) were massaged into something quasi-intelligible in the English of the time. One plausible explanation for the absence of written materials (one must note that the Templars founded a large abbey in the area - so an awareness of learning was extant) is that after the 'second wave' of Norman invaders came, Dublin became the center of commerce and trade, leaving the settlements of the first wave to flounder. It is likely that the merchants decamped leaving farmers and fishermen behind. The destruction of the Templars further diminished the status of the area and gradually it became a relatively insular community. At the time of the first consolidation of Forth and Bargy, the Jews in Norther France were being persecuted and sought refuge in either the papal statres or areas away from direct French Court influence. A search through patronomyics of many of the surnames in south Wexford using French genealogy resources, shows that many are not French names - or certainly not French Christian surnames. It is plausible that a proportion of the original settlers were French Jews, who wrote in the Hebrew alphabet and spoke Judeo-French (Zarphatic). Once those with writing skills left, only oral traces would have remained. I will return to the linguistic evidence later.

Yola - Scots common words

A couple of words listed here as Yola are, from my personal experience, also common in Scots [see Scots Language], specifically in Fife where I lived but I'm sure more widely, namely neape = turnip (spelt neep, as in the popular dish "tatties an' neeps") and fash = confusion (in the sense of mental confusion or worry, as in the frequent exortation "Dinnae fash yesel."). I'm not sure what this implies but someone more expert may be able to make something of it. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 12:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about "fash", but in the case of "neape/neep" it's a case of an archaic word that has died out in the standard language being preserved in dialects. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 18:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Another word which I used to often hear my aunt from Wexford Town use was "fornenst": "It's out there fornenst you" meaning "It's out there in front of you". I remember a man I know from Belfast saying he had heard it there and claimed it was Scots but owing to the relative conservatism of some features of Hiberno-English, such features are probably just survivals from Middle English. My aunt would always say "lacen" for "laces" and "ashen" for "ashes", clearly on the same pattern as ox-oxen, child-children in English. An Muimhneach Machnamhach (talk) 17:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've often heard lacen (also as a verb) and ashen too but I couldn't find them in my sources. User:geraldkelly 9 April 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 21:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Questions on sources

I’m moving this to the Discussion Page in order to deal more satisfactorily with the issues of sources. I have queried the sources used for some recent changes. I deal with these below. If sources cannot be provided for these additions I suggest they be removed.

On sources in general, I have confined myself to quoting from ó Muirithe and Dolan (1996) because they conducted a scholarly and professional survey of all the source material and included in their book what they thought was worth including. Leaving out much what they considered unreliable - which includes much of Barnes's material.

Vocabulary

I have checked Poole’s Glossary as published in ó Muirithe and Dolan (1996). I can find no mention for the following words: weisforth, londe, daie, yersel, vriend

Please provide a source for these words.

Pronouns

The reference to “Poole 1867” means, I presume, the book written by William Barnes in 1867 and entitled Glossary of the Dialect of Forth and Bargy, which reprints Poole’s Glossary. On page 133 (which is a quote from a speech given to the British Association by the Very Reverend C W Russell, DD, President of St Patrick’s College Maynooth) there is a discussion of pronouns and a general comparison with modern English. However, I cannot find any reference to the information, specifically the forms of cases for personal pronouns, as laid out in the table.

This book can be downloaded from Google Books. Geraldkelly (talk) 09:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: Pronouns

If you take the care to read through all of the sources, including the Yola Zong and read the translation, all of the pronouns become obvious. I don't really feel like citing every single pronoun (there are multiple spellings) in every single story but I suggest you look through the book before deleting them again. Αεκος (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Reply

The reference to page 133 of this book is incorrect. Please re-read what I wrote above under Pronouns (where I went to the trouble of finding the correct reference). To be included in the article information must be from a reputable source. If this is some original research by yourself then please provide us with access to this. Amateur speculation about Yola grammar isn't particularly useful and gives the misleading impression that this subject has been thoroughly researched which to my knowledge it hasn't.

As with the other list of words which I also dealt with previously, you have put these back in the article and you have still not provided sources.

One of the problems with this subject is that there has been very little research and so there are very few sources of information. In fact as regards Yola grammar I would go so far as to say that there are no reliable sources of information. The article should reflect this lack of information rather than including stuff which is just guessed at.

Geraldkelly (talk) 13:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

"stuff which is just guessed at"

Guessed at? It's all in the primary sources in the glossary. Do we need to cite the page of every single pronoun usage, then also cite the page of the English translation? Go to the Google Books page, type "wough," page 79. Typing "thou," "mee," "thee," etc. will turn up similar results. Yes, there are variant spellings, and if I've missed them you're welcome to look in the glossary and add them. But there are hardly guesses, they're all in the glossary somewhere. Αεκος (talk) 03:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This is my last word on this subject because if you don't listen to me this time there isn't any point saying it again. The source you give for all of your contributions to this article is "Poole's Glossary". However, none of it is in "Poole's Glossary". I've already explained this at the very beginning under the heading Pronouns.

For everything you put in this article you must be able to put your finger on the spot and say "this comes from here" or "this claim is justified by this evidence". So far you haven't done that.

As an aside, Barnes, Russell, etc. are not primary sources. As far as I know Barnes never even came to Ireland. But that is irrelevant for now. Geraldkelly (talk) 10:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Origins:

I'm unsure why genetics (as a marker of prehistoric/historic population movements) is considered by other contributors to be on little relevance to language transmission and development in the pre-industrial world. There is strong evidence that, prior to the 19th century transportation revolution, arable farming populations were very static. There is little evidence that any significant numbers of english speaking peasants moved to Ireland during historic times due to the logistic difficulties. Arable farmers can only move during the seasonal window between late Autumn after harvest time to early Spring before planting! It is highly likely that most of the "peasant" farming population in Ireland are descended from the original neolithic farmer seettlers. These tended to move in small bands and the genetic evidence of Brtain and Ireland suggests that they intermarried with females from the hunter-gather bands they encountered. Linguistic studies show that language usage among the base farming population tends to change very slowly - many examples can be cited from Central America, Latin America and South Asia where the language of a conquering Aristocracy (e.g. the Spanish) has had only limited lingusitic impact on the native populations until the rise of the modern state apparatus and mass education in the 20th century. Obviously, the attribution of Yola as the language of the neolithic farming population of eastern Ireland is controversial given that the origin of English as the language of neolithic farmers in England has not been widely accepted yet despite its possible inference from one of the earliest written descriptions of Britain (i.e. Julius Caesar) but is quite plausible and supportable from Gaelic Literature e.g, the Book of Invasions.

Genetics has no relationship to language because they're transmitted differently. Children learn the language of their peers (generally, slightly older children in their peer group), which is not necessarily the language of their biological ancestors. To take an extreme example, a modern-day Native American, African American, Asian American and White American may all be native speakers of the same language, but share little or nothing genetically (beyond what all human beings share, of course). And more specifically to this article: this article is about a language, not a people. Whatever genetic evidence there may be about the speakers of Yola, it isn't relevant to an article about the language, though it might be relevant to the article Irish people (assuming that the view expressed is widely held enough not to fall foul of WP:FRINGE). —Angr (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for your reply. I should have added previously that the article (exclusive of my own limited contribution) is very informative. My own view is that Yola is a very important relict neolithic language which may demonstrate the resilence of language to change in the pre-modern world (just as Gaelic proved very resilient to change in many parts of Ireland until the 20th century CE). The language transmission process you describe is quite valid and actually supports my proposition - its application to the spreading of a common dominant language among different ethnic groups is really only relevant with the introduction of mass education from the 19th century onwards. Aristocratic invaders throughout history until the 19th Century usually took little trouble with trying to change the language of those they conquered - in fact they were usually very anxious to distinguish themselves from the conquered (i.e. the Spanish in Latin America, the British in India). Since you introduced the article by outling the commonly accepted history of Yola, I thought that readers might be interested in recent developments - I'm happy to move this to a separate section if you wish. By the way I am Irish amd find it quite interesting to find a possible historic example of a Gaelic speaking aristocracy dominating a significant English speaking population for 2000 years! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.211.36 (talk) 19:36, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but you can put it out of your head that anyone has been speaking any form of English in Ireland for 2000 years. Quite apart from the fact that there isn't a scrap of evidence to support such a claim, Yola is far too similar to contemporary Middle English to have been separated from it for that long. 2000 years ago it wouldn't have been possible to distinguish the ancestor of English from the ancestors of the other West Germanic languages, and if one West Germanic dialect had been transplanted to Ireland at that point, it would have developed quite differently from its cousins back in Germany and would not have been mutually intelligible with the contemporary language of England, which Yola clearly was. It is by no stretch of the imagination a "relict neolithic language". Keep in mind Renfrew and Oppenheimer are not linguists: they may be a respected archaeologist and geneticist respectively, but they're both well known for making rather ignorant claims about historical linguistics. As for Harper, he's simply a crackpot whose book cannot be considered a reliable source for anything. —Angr (talk) 20:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

There is considerable evidence in Irish history to the presence of other tribal groups contemporary with the Gaels/Milesians from the earliest written sources. For instance the Irish annals refer to the tribes of "aithechthúatha" whom the Romans may also have being referring to under the title "Attacotti" whom they distinguished from the "Scotti" (usually interpreted as the Gaels). The proposition that Yola is related to middle-English is also quite questionable. The current accepted English Language paradigm itself takes quite a few leaps of logic based on almost negligible evidence (in fact it ignores some of the earliest written evidence!) and is almost completely contra to known historic paterns of population migration and language adoption. Though Harper may be a "crackpot" he does point out many of the deficiences of the current paradigm - he has a least challenged the defenders of the current English (and indeed other Indo-European) language paradigms to produce more evidence to substantiate their assumptions. I feel that it is tantamount to censorship to delete an alternaive historic interpretation of the available evidence and that can point to the work of other historians of relevant fields. Though Harper may be putting forth quite a different interpretation of the available genetic, linguistic and achaeological evidence he is hardly in the Eric VanDanikan / Zacharia Sitchin league of "historians" - no aliens or supertechnology involved! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.228.19 (talk) 21:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The point is there is no evidence the "Attacotti"/"Aithechthúatha" or any other people present in Ireland 2000 years ago were speakers of a Germanic language. Yola's close relation to Middle English can be well established on the linguistic evidence (not to mention common sense - you only have to read the example text given in this article to see that it's even more closely related to English than Scots is). You simply cannot use archaeological or genetic evidence to make claims about language adoption - they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. If the linguistic evidence doesn't jibe with the archaeological and genetic evidence, that doesn't mean the linguistic evidence is wrong, or has been misinterpreted. It means someone is comparing apples and oranges. Even if the genetic and archaeological evidence proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ancestors of the Yola speakers had been in Ireland for 2000 years, that doesn't mean the language was. All the linguistic evidence is against it; there is no linguistic evidence at all to support it. The linguistic evidence is that Yola derives from the English that arrived in Ireland in the 12th century, and if that runs contrary to "known historic patterns of population migration and language adoption", then that means the theories of population migration and its effect on language adoption are wrong. You can't contort the data to fit a preconceived hypothesis; that's just bad science. And crying "censorship" whenever mainstream publications like Wikipedia ignore pseudoscientific claims like this one is one of the hallmarks of crackpottery. —Angr (talk) 21:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for your reply. Unfortunaely I disagree that the historical evidence is so clearcut. I think that the invocation of "censorship" is fair where no room is left open for disenting but reasoned views - after all, all great truths begin as heresies! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.28.216.164 (talk) 22:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I quote: "it evolved separately among the English (known as the Old English) who followed the Norman barons Strongbow and Robert Fitzstephen to eastern Ireland in 1169." Sorry, the Normans spoke French, and even the English (who have never been known as 'the Old English' didn't speak modern English - Yoda (lol, oh tut tut, I can't spell now) can hardly have evolved from it. The Irish in the east spoke English in the 19th century - that's not exactly surprising. This garbage wasn't written on April 1st was it? The quoted statement, like most of this piece is, to put it kindly Wikipedia b-s. Johnpretty010 (talk) 00:41, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

You have misunderstood this passage, which to be fair is a little ambiguous.

". . . the Normans spoke French . . . ." Yes, but their ethnically English vassels, serfs or whatever spoke (Middle) English amongst themselves (and doubtless many of the Norman overlords were in practice already becoming bilingual in order to deal with them, regardless of what they spoke to their peers - Anglo-Norman ceased to be vernacular only a couple or so centuries later).

". . . the English . . . have never been known as 'the Old English' . . ." This article implies (and the linked article explains) that this is how the descendants of these particular English-speaking immigrants to Wexford came (from the 16th century on) to be described by their immediate Irish- and Hiberno-Irish-speaking neighbors, not that the English Peoples of the 12th century were as a whole contemporaneously called 'the Old English'.

". . . the English [of the 12th century] . . . didn't speak modern English . . . ." Of course not, and the article clearly states that Yola descended from the Middle English of the 12th century, in near isolation from the latter's evolution in Great Britain into Modern English, hence their differences.

"The Irish in the east spoke English in the 19th century . . . ." The article makes it plain that Yola was far more more archaic than the later-introduced and evolved Hiberno-English spoken in Ireland in the 19th century, which was influenced by continued direct exchange with, and of, contemporary Modern English speakers in Great Britain, so Yola could not have been derived from Hiberno-/Modern English.

The article refers to several sources which argue the proposition to which you object. They may be factually wrong ('reliability' in the Wikipedia sense does not imply correctness): I think not, you do, but neither of our unsupported opinions are reliable sources. To oppose the article's proposition one would need to find other reliable, published sources that do so and add their arguments, with citations, to the article. If such sources exist, this certainly ought to be done. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.13 (talk) 15:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

IPA

This article needs IPA to be used in it to demonstrate pronunciations. The current spellings are clumsy and could be pronounced vastly different depending on the readers own dialect. If I can find the source documents, I will put the proper phonetic spellings in. DonConquistador (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:10, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Since the language was never recorded before it died out, it isn't known exactly how it was pronounced, so it won't be possible to add IPA. Angr (talk) 21:01, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the IPA, why is the diphthong [ɑi] described as "not in English". This is the most prevalent realisation of the diphthong /aɪ/ in English English and I expect in Irish English as well, so will be perfectly familiar to what I expect would be the majority of the English-speaking readers of this page.

"Anglic"?

I've removed the term "Anglic" twice now, as it doesn't appear in the cited sources I've been able to check. It's certainly absent from the two books by Hickey I cited in my additions. The term appears to be pretty obscure and may be confusing to readers. Additionally, the Hickey books call this a "dialect" or "variety", but never a "language". Finally, I think the List of dialects of the English language article is a better and more intuitive target than English languages; if anything the two articles should be merged.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:43, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, I'm wondering if "Forth and Bargy dialect" or "Forth and Bargy" would be a better title for this article. This is what's used in both books by Hickey and by Dolan, and it returns 28,600 Google hits. "Yola" is harder to tease out, but Yola English returns only 14,800, most of which appear not relevant; "Yola language" returns 73, mostly Wikipedia knockoffs, and "Yola dialect" returns only 75. It seems names using "Forth and Bargy" are more common in the sources.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:54, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if the articles should be merged or not, but as long as they're separate, we should retain links to both. "Yola" is the ISO name, not that we need to follow ISO. "English", "Anglian", and "Anglic" are all names for the node; any would be acceptable. — kwami (talk) 02:20, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

How is this? I'd originally written "English language or dialect", with the link going to English languages, but after more reading I didn't see any sources that called it a "language", and none use the term "Anglic", so I figured list of dialects of English is a better link. As for Yola, I'll do a bit more research. It looks like it's well established (obviously) but "Forth and Bargy" may be more common.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

"Language or dialect" would be fine, though "variety" is often used where the distinction is not clear. It's a separate language per ISO, but I don't know how widespread that POV is. — kwami (talk) 15:23, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 16:34, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yola language → Forth and Bargy dialect – While "Yola" is in use, it appears the proposed form is more common in the sources on the topic. Diarmaid Ó Muirithe's work is titled The Dialect of Forth and Bargy Co. Wexford, Ireland, and the dialect is listed as "Forth and Bargy" in Raymond Hickey's Dublin English and A Source Book for Irish English. It's the same in The Cambridge History of the English Language,[1] Poole's Glossary,[2] and other sources.[3][4] According to Kwamikagami, the ISO name is "Yola", and this turns up in some sources, but it seems to be less common. Additionally, all of the sources I could check use the term "dialect" rather than "language". Cúchullain ^t/c 17:33, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

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

amain = norman word [comment moved into chronological order]

hi lads. amain is actually a norman word derived from the old norse 'almanna' which means 'of easy use', so im guessing that goin on amain means getting along easily or without any hassle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neilowex (talk • contribs) 17:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Southern Ireland?

There is much use of the term "Southern Ireland" no doubt by an English write who wishes to distinguish that part of Ireland from the British possession of Northern Ireland. However, to anyone else in the world who is not British the term "Southern Ireland" would probably mean the extreme south of the island of Ireland rather than the Republic of Ireland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.20.219 (talk) 06:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems to be used here only once, and it is indeed reference to the southernmost parts of Ireland rather than the Republic.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:08, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Last Speaker

"The last speaker of Yola died in 1998." --should this be 1898 perhaps ? Leasnam (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I saw an old woman who was claimed to be the last speaker of Yola on television (The Late Late Show) in the 1970s, so 1998 could be correct. Gnomon42 11:34, 4 July 2017

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"Spurious"?

Why on Earth is this page in the Category:Spurious languages? Is there any serious doubt that this dialect existed? Steinbach (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 19 April 2022

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

The result of the move request was: moved. (non-admin closure) NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 19:10, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

---

Yola (language) → Yola language – Current title is inconsistent with other titles for languages. ~Red of Arctic Circle System (talk) 18:24, 18 April 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. _signed, 511KeV ^(talk) 16:07, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). – Ammarpad (talk) 08:16, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi there. This doesn't look uncontroversial at all. There was an RM in 2013 which saw it moved from Yola language to Forth and Bargy dialect. And then a couple of months ago somebody boldly moved it to Yola (language), and I imagine that user added the parentheses because the title without them already existed. This needs a discussion. Dr. Vogel (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Support I don't see what's controversial with keeping the same title but without parentheses. It can be discussed whether it is a language or a dialect later, but move it to "Yola language" for now to be consistent with other language articles. -Vipz (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Languages has been notified of this discussion. _signed, 511KeV ^(talk) 16:07, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support for consistency. JIP | Talk 18:07, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 20:07, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Showiecz (talk) 07:01, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Viking french Irish

things Must have been confusing For every one when they got to drinking . 209.171.85.210 (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Revival movement

Is there much warrant to include a revival date or L2 speakers? The source provided seems to be original to whoever added the edit, and the justification for the number given within is based on either unreliable or unverifiable information.

In particular, the discord server which provides the 140 speaker count experiences only sporadic activity and there has not been conversation in Yola since 2022. For those of you who wish to see the server for yourselves, the link can be found on the 'Gabble ing Yola' website (https://sites.google.com/view/gabble-ing-yola/language/english?authuser=0).

To wrap up, this really seems more like a group of people interested in the language from an academic perspective rather than a serious attempt at revival. Due to this, I would recommend the removal of this information from the article as it seems to be misleading. Galloglach21 (talk) 15:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree. This doesn't seem like a quality source, especially if all they cite is a Discord server. As I'm sure we're all aware, lots of people say stuff on Discord. Doubly, as mentioned, it seems more like a group of people who are interested, not anyone who is actively trying to revive it. I have thus removed this from the article again. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Jack Devereux 'last native speaker'

It seems there is no real backing for this but a number of users are adamant that the page display this. All sources indicate that Yola 'died out' in the late 19th century with words, phrases and songs surviving in the region longer up till the present day. I'm very skeptical about this misleading claim. Moling Luachra (talk) 23:16, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Moling Luachra: Do you have any reliable source that directly states that Jack Devereux is not the last native speaker of Yola? – Treetoes023 (talk) 23:40, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argument-from-Ignorance

absolutely absurd, the other sources cited in this same article are very clear that Yola died out in the 19th century! 'some say Jack Devereux was the last native speaker' according to an Irish Independent article, who said this? what source is there to say that he was a native speaker of Yola? Moling Luachra (talk) 00:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Moling Luachra: You are combining material from multiple sources to reach a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source provided, that is WP:SYNTH. Of the two sources provided, one was created before the extinction of Yola (so it could not provide a date of extinction), and the other did not provide a date of extinction, only the date of death of "one of" the last native speakers. – Treetoes023 (talk) 00:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Treetoes023 That is how research works, you look at multiple sources to gain a clear idea of what the historical situation was. The sources I included in my edit to revert what is frankly misinformation on your part were written by Herbert Hore and Kathleen Browne, two prominent researchers and documenters of Yola that were contemporary with the last generation of speakers so thus could provide us with this information. If you do not want to believe them, that's fine by me frankly but you don't get to pick and choose which parts of their work you present because that's biased and cherry picked editing which is also, to my knowledge, against Wikipedia policy. If their firsthand accounts (Hore himself was a Yola speaker!) are not sufficient quality to you, you shouldn't be using the exact same documents as sourcing for claims else where in the article.

You also seem to have a problem with comprehension of your sources. For example, you claim that Kathleen Browne was a fluent Yola speaker, however, the actual source you use to justify that claim does not state that at all. What the source actually says is that Browne possibly produced some of the last documents in Yola which, needless to say, does not make her a fluent speaker. And this is a common trend throughout the article in your edits; you make grandious claims based on tedious evidence in singular sources that are often not verifiable (Jack Devereux), or are not at all what the source actually states (The previous example).

If you dig deep enough you can find a source that says anything you want, I could edit the Apollo moon landing page right now to include material that doubts the veracity of the moon landing if I wanted to. However, that doesn't make it a good edit because the sources are crap, and a one off article in, if I remember correctly, the independent that off hand mentions the claim that Jack Devereux was native in Yola without any source as to the info is not a good source. So I'm going to ask you to either learn how to properly evaluate and summarise a source or take a hike and stop vandalising the page. I have been thinking about getting Wikipedia editing staff involved with this for a while and you're not giving me many options here. Galloglach21 (talk) 05:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Treetoes023 Do you have a source that states this invisible purple unicorn next to me isn't the last speaker of Yola? This is very clearly a logical fallacy Galloglach21 (talk) 05:33, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Galloglach21: A source that states an invisible purple unicorn next to you is not reliable, only reliable sources can be used on Wikipedia (WP:RELIABLE). Do you have a reliable source that directly states that Jack Devereux is not the last native speaker of Yola, or are inferring information not directly stated by the sources you are using, which is not allowed on Wikipedia (WP:ORIGINAL). – Treetoes023 (talk) 13:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Treetoes023 You're still ignoring the whole issue that your source for claiming this is unreliable. It is not up to me to disprove a spurious claim, this is literally the only source I can find for Jack Devereux natively speaking Yola on the Internet and I have looked. You've either gotta find something better or stop adding it back whenever it gets removed because it's an unreliable source.

The sources I've added are by two contemporaries to the extinction of Yola, one of which was a Yola speaker and both of whose testimonials cast immense doubt on your point. Galloglach21 (talk) 13:47, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

It is as clear as day that Yola was not Devereux' first language and that it hadn't been for anyone for about 100 years by the time he died. Not a single contemporary source with Jack's life mentions him as a native speaker. I think this page needs to be locked because a number of users are deluded about Yola and continue to add spurious claims to this page. Any way to lock it to unregistered users to prevent more vandalism? Moling Luachra (talk) 15:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Moling Luachra I honestly have no clue, we'd need to chase down one of the moderators, preferably someone with a background in Ireland and linguistics. Galloglach21 (talk) 18:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Galloglach21 and Moling Luachra: The source I used is reliable, it cites the book "The Forth and Bargy Dialect", which is a reliable scholarly article published by Wexford County Council. You have not provided a source to support your claims about Jack Devereux, and you are using original research, specifically synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources. This is against Wikipedia policy, please find sources that directly support your claims about Jack Devereux AND the extinction date of Yola. If you do not, your edits will be reverted. – Treetoes023 (talk) 19:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Treetoes023 First of all, your source is a news article that does not cite that anywhere, second of all this is not original research by any means, this is collecting sources, it is you who is doing original research by posting the link to your own website as a speaker count Galloglach21 (talk) 19:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

As Galloglach said, you have not cited this book anywhere. The book is not a scholarly article and does not mention Jack Devereux as a native speaker. It is a dictionary.

The sources given are not original research and I don't see any problem with them and they are cited elsewhere in this same page. A source that explicitly states 'Jack Devereux was not a/the last native speaker of Yola' is not required, we can put on our thinking hats and realise this claim doesn't make sense on the face of it and that's an irrational argument anyway. Moling Luachra (talk) 19:59, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Galloglach21 and Moling Luachra: The book is not just a dictionary. This is going in circles, I have made a dispute resolution request here, perhaps a third party can help resolve this dispute. – Treetoes023 (talk) 03:11, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Moling Luachra Just pinging you here so you know to add your version of events Galloglach21 (talk) 07:05, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Change title to Forth and Bargy Dialect/ Yola Dialect

I see no reason why this article should be titled the 'Yola Language'. There is no evidence anyone ever considered it a separate language and no academic or semi-academic work on the subject calls it a language. Instead, they all tend to use the 'Forth and Bargy Dialect' or the 'Yola dialect'. The only sources that seem to call it a language pull from this Wikipedia page. Indeed, it's quite likely that the idea it is a language is from a misinterpretation of 'A Yola Zong', with people interpreting that as a 'Yola language song' instead of an old song, as the title would translate to in more standard English.

For some more modern sources about it being called a dialect, not a language, see:

Sascha Santschi-Cooney *The Forth and Bargy Dialect* (2019)-- "Yola was a dialect..." (7) and continuously refers to it as a 'dialect' throughout his book.

Raymond Hickey, in his chapter of *The Oxford Handbook of Irish English* (2023) -- "The Forth and Bargy Dialect" (48). This is consistent in all his other works on Hiberno-English that mention the topic; he does mention "*Yola*, the form of the word 'old' in the dialect, came to be used as a reference to the dialect itself."

So while he says Yola is acceptable, he explicitly states it is a *dialect*, not a language. This is congruent with his other works as well as all other, older work on the dialect and Santschi-Cooney. Thus I propose the title should be changed from 'Yola language' to 'Yola dialect', and remove calling it an 'Anglic language'. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 20:00, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí There are quite a lot of examples of books referring to it as a language. It also has a separate ISO code (which isn't definitive, but is strongly suggestive that it isn't some simple misunderstanding by ignorant Wikipedians). Theknightwho (talk) 16:17, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

@Theknightwho

I see, at least on the first page, none of those books that are particularly academic, or written by academics. Indeed, most seem to be using it from this various article or the various Irish Times articles. The one that does explicitly cite it as a language also considers the 'Yoles' an entirely separate ethnic group, something for which there is even less evidence. I see several of these sources literally are collections from Wikipedia. Others are Library of Congress holdings, which quite likely follow the misled SIL because if does have an ISO code, even if there's issues with said code (see below). Indeed, very few of the books actually deal with the Forth and Bargy dialect at all and are pop books likely written by non-specialists. It's certainly not 'trivial' to find quality examples of it being called a language, even in it's own time.

I have looked into the ISO code, and the *only* source cited in the change request to create the code was Poole's glossary -- which, in its very title, calls it a dialect! Hardly good information on it being considered a variant language, and I'm actually disappointed in SIL for creating the code on such flimsy evidence.

This is the usage that has been continued by literally every academic who has written and studied the language (even from the time where there would have been rememberers and possibly still speakers), including the foremost scholar of English in Ireland, Raymond Hickey. This includes even the most recent book on the language by Santschi-Cooney, which he aptly titled The Forth and Bargy Dialect. There really is no reason at all to consider it a separate language, and this Wikipedia (and ISO 639, based on faulty information) seem to be where most the people calling it so have gotten their information. It's directly spreading misinformation. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 11:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí The issue is that it's not clear what it's supposed to be a dialect of. It's plainly not English, given it diverged significantly too early for that (as Hickey makes very plain). However, if we call it a dialect of Middle English, then we're arguing that Middle English was spoken right through until the 19th century, while also ignoring the innovations and external influences that did occur. Neither is satisfactory, and neither position is particularly well-supported by the source material. Theknightwho (talk) 18:15, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

It's very clearly an English dialect, and not that divergent from other dialects of England at the time (and even slightly later). Indeed, Barnes, in his introduction to Poole's glossary, makes it perfectly clear it's clearly a dialect of English: "yet the old Forth-Bargy speech seems clearly to be English with some Irish-English which has taken up..." (Barnes/Poole 7).

Likewise, later in the same introduction, he makes explicit comparisons with it to the dialects then extent in southwestern England, and dismisses much of the Flemish influence (as Hickey also does) that people say make it distinct: "It may have been in these clippings (articulations) that some readers may have deemed that they had found in the Forth dialect a mark of the Flemish; but it so happens that they are no more Flemish than they are West English, since, in Somerset and Dorset, they are yet strong…” (Barnes/Poole 15). He quite clearly is starting it's a dialect of English, and likely mutually intelligible with other variants of English.

The same holds in the appendix, where Barnes gives a copy of a speech by one Dr. Russell to the Dublin Meeting of the British Association. Here, Dr. Russell straight up says "The latter [the Forth and Bargy dialect], indeed, were it not for the large proportion of Irish words which it contains, does not depart very much from the ordinary English than some of the provincial dialects of England themselves." (Barnes/Poole 135).

This is the source closest to the time when it was in use, and clearly we have two of the people who documented and working on it stating they clearly see it as a dialect of English. There's no reason it shouldn't be classified as one, unless we are to also say that the traditional dialects of Somerset, Dorset Devon and Wilts (per Dr. Russell) were all separate languages as well!

Likewise, Hogan gives perhaps our earliest attestation of the variant, from the 16th century, as the people telling speakers of Irish to turn to English! Not some separate 'language', but to English. They clearly all saw it as a dialect of English. "... had picht his foote within the Pile and spoken Irishe, the Weisfordians would cammunde him forthwith to turn the other ende of his tongue, and speake, English,..." (Hogan, 37).

There is absolutely no reason for this page to be classified as a separate language. Nobody at the time clearly thought it was a separate language, and there's absolutely no modern scholar who calls it a language. None of the books you gave in your list earlier were academic ones, and all but a handful were irrelevant to the topic at hand. It should be classified as a dialect of the English language. Indeed, once you get used to the spelling, it's pretty much 100% mutually intelligible with modern English, and would've been even moreso with historical variants of around the same time. Please, tell me what arguments there truly are against calling it a language, when pretty much everyone who has worked on it in an academic matter calls it a dialect! Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí Are you including Middle English when you use the term "English"? And I've just been reading Hickey's 1985 paper on the phonology (A lost Middle English dialect), which is completely at odds with your claim that it's 100% mutually intelligible, given that it didn't even go through much of the Great Vowel Shift. Theknightwho (talk) 18:38, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm using 'English' in the sense that the authors in Barnes's edition of Poole's Glossary used it; that is, the English that was spoken at the time period. They very clearly related it to the dialects spoken in southwestern England at the time, and considered it mutually intelligible, with one going so far as to state it's barely any different from those dialects at all!

As for Hickey, looking at his discussion of it in his most recent writing on it (his chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Irish English), he makes no mention of it being a Middle English dialect, simply referring to it as a dialect of English (this is section 3.6.2, page 48), as others at the time had done. I truly see no reason for considering it anything but a dialect of English, again given that all the sources refer to it as a 'dialect', and many make notes of the comparability of the dialect to those of southerwestern England. Are we to claim they're now separate languages, even if they did diverge differently from Middle English? There's no scholar or reason to consider the Forth and Bargy dialect of it. Otherwise, apart from those comments above on intelligibility and connections with other dialects, I've seen no mention of it being mutually unintelligible, or anyone considering it anything other than a dialect of English. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 18:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí Hickey definitely does not call it a dialect of English - I've just read the page! He calls it a dialect lots of times, but doesn't state what it's a dialect of. You're also ignoring the paper of his that I've already mentioned (A lost Middle English dialect), in which he discusses the phonology in great detail, and it doesn't square with the claims that you're making about mutual intelligibility. Contemporary descriptions are not necessarily reliable when it comes to deciding things like this - especially an attestation from the 16th century, which quite obviously isn't going to make a distinction between English and Middle English given it was a transitional period. Theknightwho (talk) 19:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm reading the paper now (or at least the 1988 paper by the same title in the volume Historical Dialectology) much of which has been reprinted in his 2007/2011 work Irish English - History and present-day forms. That said, I see nothing in the paper where he argues it is a separate language. Indeed, he explicitly only compares it to modern English, as it evolved in the East Midlands; namely, the modern standard prestigious dialects. His exact words: "I am referring to the variety known today as 'Received Pronunciation'. However I have avoided the use of this term as it is too narrow for my present purpose of having a broad phonological yardstick against which to measure the extent of deviation of Forth and Bargy from preset-day southern British English." He's explicitly comparing it to a variety of English almost 200 years later! Not to the dialects of Early Modern English.

However, as other sources I have mentioned show, there were strong similarities with the dialects of western England as they were spoken in the 19th/early 20th century, namely Somerset and Dorset, with one claiming the dialect is not any more different from standard English than those 'provincial dialects' are. You have yet to say anything in response to this. I think it's clear that, if those should be considered dialects of Early Modern English, than certainly the Forth and Bargy dialect should be as well. There's no reason for it to be considered a separate language, and, as said, the fact it even has an ISO code is predicated on one source...where even the title doesn't call it a separate language! Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí What you're saying is directly contradicted by chapter 2.1: he explicitly says it's a relict in which pre-Elizabethan English continued to be spoken after 1600. Plus, he also states the phonology is in many ways most comparable to Middle English, and draws comparisons with Early Modern English; this makes sense, given he also argues it is a remnant of the language spoken by the earliest English settlers in Ireland. Also, you've quoted Barnes in stating that they note similarities with southwestern English, but ignore that straight after they note archaic Middle English plurals that didn't survive into English in Great Britain (e.g. "been" = "bees"). Your claim it was "100% mutually intelligible" is simply not true. You can't cherrypick like that.

What I'm mostly concerned about here is that it feels like you're trying to brush the awkwardness under the rug: plainly you don't want to call it Middle English, but your arguments that it's a dialect of (modern) English simply don't match what Hickey is saying. I also don't think some passing comments in the introduction to Barnes' glossary amount to much, either. Theknightwho (talk) 19:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but in that sense pretty much all the dialects of England itself are descendants of pre-Elizabethan English, at least at the time. Yet we don't call them separate languages. And, again, his comparison is with the Standard variants, not with, say those variants of southwestern England that others have noted it was similar to. At least from what I could find. And, yes, I'm aware that Barnes does mention some of the archaisms of it, but you can find archaisms in all dialects; it doesn't make them separate languages, especially when other dialects are similarly archaic or have changed in similar manners.

And I'm not against calling it a late-surviving archaic dialect of Middle English at all. What I'm against is calling it a separate 'Anglic language', something anachronistically applied to it that no scholar of the dialect, living or dead, has ever applied to it. Doubly so as there was no separate ethnolinguistic group that spoke it (the term 'Yola' is nowhere in evidence as being an actual endonym, even), nor did it have any separate literary tradition. By all means, let's call it a dialect of Middle English! Just not a separate language. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 20:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí How can that apply to "pretty much all the dialects of English" if Hickey is saying it's a survivor of pre-1600s English as a way to point out it's an archaic relict with a lot of Middle English features? Come on. The entire point of that passage was to draw a distinction. It's not Early Modern English; if it's a dialect of anything, it's Middle English with mixed features from Early Modern English, Irish and possibly some North Germanic contact, but those were loans, not common innovations, and I'm still sceptical anyway.

I would prefer to hold judgement for the time being while I see what I can find on the topic. Theknightwho (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

He's specifically talking about the case in Ireland. There are/were other survivors of pre-1600s English in England and other places in Britain itself. Indeed, it's not like, before the most recent converging, that all dialects of England evolved simply from prestige English of the time. They evolved from the other dialects that were already in place, thus the commonalities between it and the dialects of English in the southwestern part of England, which evolved on their own from Middle English, though certainly with more contact from the prestige dialect. Granted, most of them have been lost since due to general dialect collapse worldwide. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 20:25, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí You keep saying that, but all you're basing it on is 3 pages in an introduction to a 19th century glossary - and somehow from that you concluded it was 100% mutually intelligible. Simply asserting that it's just the same as southwestern dialects doesn't make it true. Hickey specifically calls it a relict and a Sprachinsel - these are not terms that have been applied to any dialects of English in Great Britain, as far as I know, especially when Hickey notes that English changed much more gradually in Ireland as a rule. Theknightwho (talk) 20:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Hickey himself mentions the similarities to southwestern English dialects, specifically with regards to the initial voicing of consonants: "However, as initial voicing is so widespread in the south and south west of England (Wakelin (ed.) 1972: 91ff) Flemish influence does not necessarily have to be postulated for its appearance in Forth and Bargy." (239 of his chapter in Historical Dialectology). And, even apart from Hickey, it's based on solely three pages of the introduction to the glossary. Hogan says the same thing about it, as does Dr. Russell's paper at the end of Barnes's edited version of the Glossary.

Also, he specifically states it was a Sprachninsel in regards to the language in Ireland; he makes no mention of the conservativeness of dialects in England itself, which would have generally evolved out of Middle English (or, even Old English) with influence from the prestige dialect of the elite. The difference between Forth and Bargy and those is the amount of influence it had from said prestige dialect.

And he explicitly states that when he uses 'mainland English' he is specifically talking about the prestige dialect. 'I am referring to the variety known today as 'Received Pronunciation' ' (pg. 245). So he's not comparing it to, say, the dialects of southwestern England, though he has mentioned there are similarities, but rather to that of what is essentially the elite, the standard dialect (of today). Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 20:54, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí You cannot take one sentence out of context and conclude that he makes no comparison:

• "From this it is evident that the two areas, Fingal and Forth and Bargy, are relict areas in which the English of the pre-Elizabethan period continued to be spoken beyond 1600. The varieties of English which were introduced into Ireland in the course of the 17th century, in the period of general colonization of the south of the country, formed the basis for general southern Irish English today and were clearly distinguished from the varieties of the older period, i.e., those of Fingal and Forth and Bargy."

  This is obviously referring to pre-modern English.

• "It would seem to be a general characteristic of all varieties of English (including those of the north) that as soon as they were imported to Ireland they slowed down drastically in their development. The original variety remains, apart from transfer phenomena due to contact with Irish, relatively intact. This is true to an even greater extent of the dialect of Forth and Bargy. Thus in its phonology (as attested in the late 18th century) one recognizes features which disappeared from English centuries before."

  This is a direct comparison between the speed of development of English in Great Britain and in Ireland, where it's undeniable that he is not just talking about English in Ireland. The fact that it especially applies in this case is highly relevant, as is the fact he excludes it from English (as a whole, not just "mainland English") when saying the features had disappeared.

• "The system of consonants is not dealt with in the present paper as it would demand too much space and does not contribute as much as the vowel system to the identification of Forth and Bargy as a dialect closer to Middle than to Modern English."

  Clearly, then, Hickey wouldn't agree it's a dialect of modern English.

Theknightwho (talk) 21:21, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

The first quote you give is clearly comparing the Forth and Bargy dialect to other dialects of English within Ireland. Specifically, those that came with a later wave of settlement from a different part of England. It says nothing about comparing it to variant dialects in England itself, nor discussing how different it is from them. It merely states it's different from the later dialects that were introduced to Ireland. No comparison to dialects in England itself.

The second quote just argues that it changes slower, which is fair. But, also, he mentions in the article that when he refers to English, it generally refers to the prestige dialects that gave us the RP, not variant dialects. He barely discuss them at all, though he notes that the extremely odd initial voicing of Forth and Bargy was present also in those dialects in the south and southwest of England. Other works have commented on the connection between the dialect of Forth and Bargy and those 'provincial dialects'. Are we now to say the dialects of Somerset and Dorset, as spoken in the 19th/early 20th century, were dialects of Middle English (or, worse, separate languages)?

I will concede on the third point, though, again, I'm not arguing the point of whether it's a dialect of English versus Middle English. I'm arguing that it's wrong to call it an entirely separate language. It's clearly been viewed by all scholars and the people they quote discussing it as a dialect, either of Middle English as explicitly marked by Hickey or as 'English', as marked by Barnes/Russell/Hogan. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 09:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí Are you quite seriously arguing that the dialects of English spoken in Somerset and Dorset were equally as phonologically conservative as Forth and Bargy, while surviving through to the 20th century? Hickey specifically states that mainland English is the term he uses for RP, but in the second paragraph quoted above he refers to English. The fact that some similarities exist between southwestern English and Forth and Bargy does not justify your claims that they were basically the same - that is a massive leap in logic. Theknightwho (talk) 14:42, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

That is exactly what the evidence we have suggests, especially the variants of the dialect at the end of the 20th century and in the middle-late 19th century. For instance, they both kept voicing. I have also never claimed anywhere they were the same, merely similar and (some) evidence seems to point to them being intelligible.

That said, I have been in personal contact with Hickey now about this question, and I am fully willing to accept the Forth and Bargy dialect being a late-surviving reflex of Middle English in Ireland. I've quoted his response to me on the question below, and I hope that's enough evidence (from perhaps the only living scholar to have actually studied it) to stop calling this the 'Yola language' and to change it to a dialect of Middle English.

"There is no way that this dialect can be regarded as a separate language. It is a reflex of the original Middle English input to Ireland from the late 12th and 13th centuries which survived in that remote corner of Co. Wexford."

I think it is safe to say, then, that if he is arguing that there is 'no way' it can be regarded as a separate language, it would be best to change the title and places in this page calling it a language - doubly so as we now have many sources calling it a dialect of (Middle) English and absolutely no academic or quality source calling it a separate language. I've also been in contact with SIL about deprecating the ISO code as well, especially after receiving this message from Hickey. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 09:20, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sionnachnaréaltaí Alright, let's go with it being a dialect of Middle English.

However, please don't try to deprecate the language code at SIL - the line between language and dialect is extremely blurry, and many, many dialectal differences are represented by the 3-letter codes. The difference is no smaller than that between Middle Irish (mga) and Classical Gaelic (ghc), for example. The codes exist to facilitate differentiation. After all, a reflex of a language is not the precise same thing as the language itself. Theknightwho (talk) 15:42, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Fair points, but sadly I submitted it before I went away for a bit. When the process goes through, I'll see what their decision is (very good chance they do decide to keep it as a separate code!) and see if there's some compromise they can make. Sionnachnaréaltaí (talk) 14:38, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

"Anglic language variety"

@Pigginator1 If we're going to call Yola a dialect, then we need to be able to say what language it's a dialect of. It's certainly not modern English, as it dates back too early for that. Whether or not it's part of Middle English has nothing to do with the era it exists in, but whether it has diverged significantly enough from it to establish itself as a separate language. If it has, then we need to recognise it as a separate language properly (not as a "variety"); if it hasn't, then it's part of Middle English. Theknightwho (talk) 03:25, 21 May 2024 (UTC)