Talk:History of English/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Beowulf

While it is probably reasonable to describe Beowulf as the "most famous surviving work from the Old English period", I question the sense of describing it as a "fragment" (of what longer piece is the poem as we know it a "fragment"?) and the statement "it is thought to have been substantially modified, probably by Christian clerics long after its composition" is surely just wrong. Or, well, perhaps someone, somewhere thinks that, though I am sure most reputable sources discussing the issue will observe that Beowulf was in fact composed by Christian clerics (albeit drawing on various earlier materials, the nature of which have been, and are, fiercely debated in the scholarship); see, for example, the famous Tolkien essay, etc. While it is probably worth mentioning the poem itself as a famous example of literature from a particular period of the English language's history, I think it would be wise to remove the description of the poem as a "fragment", and leave the issue of the work's composition for the Beowulf article itself, as neither issue really offers much to the current article on the history of the language. Carlsefni (talk) 19:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Hengest'n'Horsa

This article refers to Hengest and Horsa in such a way that the casual reader might well assume there was no question regarding their general historicity -- which, I think, most contemporary Anglo-Saxon historians would agree there is. Admittedly, it does preface the identification of "Angles led by Hengest and Horsa" with the phrase "according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", though that qualification might not be a sufficiently bold caveat to those unfamiliar with the ASC's often doubtful historicity for the more pre-Alfredian entries. Likewise, the statement "We can be certain that Germanic settlement in Britain was not intensified until the time of Hengist and Horsa in the 5th century" suggests more certainty about the historicity of Hengest and Horsa than is perhaps justified. The actual Wikipedia article on Hengist and Horsa itself at least admit in passing these problem with historicity (e.g. perhaps more circumspectly describing Hengest as "semi-legendary"), so perhaps the History of the English language article should likewise be at least so cautious. Or, perhaps better, I suspect that all reference to Hengest and Horsa could be removed from this article without impairing any readers' ability to gain a basic understanding of the history of the English language. That might actually be simpler. Carlsefni (talk) 13:41, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

These figures are quite obviously mythical, and I know of no modern scholar specializing in this area that sees them as anything more than a reflex of twin horse deities directly stemming from Proto-Indo-European religion. :bloodofox: (talk) 12:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Use modern language =

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Feedback request and Wikipedia:Use modern language.
-- Wavelength (talk) 04:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Huh?? - BilCat (talk) 20:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Article title

While "History of English" may be unambiguous to fluent speakers of English, it can be misinterpreted by less fluent speakers. As such' I've reverted the undiscussed move of History of the English language to History of English made in April 2009. Please use the formal move request process if you feel "History of English" is a more approriate title. - BilCat (talk) 20:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Milton

May I point out that Milton, with his florid, Latinate syntax whose influence was not greatly felt by subsequent English literature is not the best example of Early Modern English? I know it seems obvious, but why not use a passage of Shakespeare? --Peter Farago (talk) 03:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Celtic Hypothesists

There should be a link to the study into Celtic influence in English for which there is a good body of work and plenty of ongoing research. So in the Old English section, following the paragraph on the Norse influence:- Some scholars attribute the simplifications in Old English, in part, to the influence of a Celtic substratum in England. --Fodbynag (talk) 05:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

There's this paper called Standard Average European and the Celticity of English intensifiers and reflexives: some considerations and implications by Erich Poppe. It basically discusses about the Celticity of the English language in a big Eurolinguistic picture. Komitsuki (talk) 05:35, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Myres

For the moment I have removed this.

Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated, and the identification of the tribes with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes is no longer accepted as an accurate description , especially since the Anglo-Saxon language is more similar to the Frisian languages (some Frisians emigrated in Britain in the 3rd century) than any of the others.

The reference does not seem to support the text. Myres page 46 Is this just a citation error? Anyway, I'm not sure that all modern scholars discount the description of Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Anyone know what was meant, and how it can be supported? Rjm at sleepers (talk) 08:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

60% of the modern English vocabulary from Old French

"About 60% of the modern English vocabulary comes directly from Old French." The source given for this sentence is a joke, isn't it? Moreover, I doubt that 60 % of modern English vocabulary (Which vocabulary? Just the basic vocab or really the entire vocabulary?) comes from French. A big proportion was borrowed from Latin and, to a lesser extent, from Ancient Greek, especially in scientific and elevated language. I will remove this sentence until someone comes up with a more credible number and a more reliable source.--Colomen (talk) 14:49, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

"The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to Latin, modern German or Icelandic."

Modern German doesn't have any noun-declension to speak of. Old English's declension was richer than modern German's, less rich than Latin's. 'similar to that of Icelandic' should be enough. 78.49.198.25 (talk) Wojciech Żełaniec —Preceding undated comment added 09:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC).

Germanics in the Roman Empire (Including Britain) in Roman Times

There is lots of evidence for German speakers all over the late Empire in the West. Their numbers are estimated at millions. There was an entire Roman province, Germania, which was fully German speaking. Much of North and East Gaul was German speaking. Germanic graves are found starting in the 2nd Century A.D. in Britain. Contact between German and Latin speakers was most intense within the Empire and not without it. It is misleading to state that the Latin borrowings were only as a result of contact by non-Roman Germans trading and fighting with the Romans. While this could have been the way some words arrived, many more were undoubtedly due to the Germans living within the borders, many of whom had some Latin fluency.

I'm sure you are aware that we rely upon sources that are considered reliable by the criteria at WP:RS, and those must directly discuss the subject of the article. You may be right but we'll need sources. Dougweller (talk) 16:08, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Start here with other Wikipedia pages: Germania Inferior; Germania Superior. These are pretty large areas, filled with German tribes, inside the Roman Limes. It's common knowledge stuff - here was the most intense interaction between Germans and Romans. The guys in Sweden and Denmark were not learning their Latin up there. They were learning it from the guys who learned from the Romans. These guys learned it from the Romans where they lived with the Romans.

Please read WP:INDENT and indent your posts, and sign them with 4 tildes, eg ~~~~. We don't use our own articles as sources. Dougweller (talk) 09:13, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Dominant Language of Sub-Roman Britain was Latin and not Brythonic

Gildas makes it clear that Latin is the language of the Britons. He calls it "nostra lingua." Brythonic was no longer was the language of the majority or dominant group by his time.

Latin was the language of commerce, politics and religion however it is wrong to suggest that Latin replaced Brythonic. Brythonic words were used for towns, rivers, forts and islands (see The Place-names of Roman Britain by River and Smith for example). Also Brythonic survived into the middle ages in parts of England(see Coates, et al. Celtic Voices English Places Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in England). Peoples names also continued to largely be Celtic or a Latin/ Celtic hybrid. Even in the Saxon period several of the kings of Wessex had Anglicised Celtic names.Wilfridselsey (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

For the South-East this is an assumption, Latin is not an assumption for this time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kozushi (talk • contribs) 01:00, 15 June 2012 (UTC) Of course Brythonic was spoken still in Britain, but the evidence for its prevalence in the South East in the Late Empire is weak or non-existent. It was of course much more widespread than today, or in the later Middle Ages. Latin was the main culprit initially in displacing Brythonic. Then, German displaced Latin. Then Danish and Norman French almost displaced English but ended up not doing so. If Brythonic were so prevalent, Gildas would have left some kind of hint of it, but instead he calls Latin "Nostra Lingua." Compare this with Bede who is very clear on what language is the language of the English - English! :)

No it is not an assumption, it is a theory based on the evidence I have already outlined above. I don't think anyone can be sure what language was spoken at home by the British but the amount of Brythonic loan words floating about during Roman times supports the theory that it could have been Celtic. As far as the SE is concerned, remember that most of it initially was a client Roman state headed by the Celtic chief, Cogidubnus. Do you think that he would have been speaking Latin at home? Gildas was believed to have come from northen Roman Britain and possibly moved to the west country at some stage and therefore had no first hand knowledge of the SE, he was probably making a few assumptions to support his sermon. Wilfridselsey (talk) 09:05, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Cogidubnus lived and died 400 years before our time in question! Sure, he spoke some kind of Celtic language, but were the people living in the Southeast of Britain still speaking a Celtic language after 400 years of Roman domination? Maybe, but there is no proof of it. There is, however, lots of proof for Latin. The Gauls were still speaking their Celtic languages in 46 AD too (Cogidubnus' time) but not a lot were in Gildas' time - they were speaking either Late Latin or Frankish. The Romans did quite a number on the Celtic cultures they conquered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kozushi (talk • contribs) 14:00, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

This is not a forum where you can argue about this. We would need modern sources for this meeting our criteria at WP:RS - not blogs, for a start. Dougweller (talk) 16:05, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out Doug. However, if people actually read what I wrote I was actually agreeing that Latin was the Linga Franca, and it is up for debate what extent that Brythonic continued to be used at home or elsewhere. Scholars are divided on this so we should reflect that and not push a specific POV. Wilfridselsey (talk) 10:39, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Support for the survival of spoken Latin in Britain can be found in: Hall, Alaric (2010) Interlinguistic Communication in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. In: Interfaces between Language and Culture in Medieval England: A Festschrift for Matti Kilpiö. The Northern World (48). Brill , Leiden , pp. 37-80. ISBN 978 90 04 18011 6 abstract: "'Interlinguistic Communication in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum', seeks better to understand the processes whereby English and, to a lesser extent, Gaelic, expanded in early medieval Britain at the expense of the p-Celtic dialects. Most research has tried to examine this process in its earliest, prehistoric phases, but the present study focuses on the (near-)contemporary evidence for its seventh- and eighth-century phases provided by Bede and other writers of his time. Bede's concern about Anglo-Saxons' limited access to Latin is abundantly clear, but taken together, a number of hints also point towards his sensitivity to Roman and British Latin-language traditions in Britain. British Latin maintained features of vulgar Latin pronunciation as well as some distinctive semantics; Bede disliked both, but the fact that he saw fit to snipe at them may itself be evidence for the vigour of British Latin--and arguably for Bede's own anxiety at the fragility of Anglo-Saxons' Latin heritage relative to Britons' deeper traditions. Bede's evidence also suggests that British Latin was heard rather than merely read, and not only heard in the liturgy. However, we also have some evidence that by the decades around 700--whether more in Bede's time or the 660s is hard to guess--Latin would not have afforded its speakers much leverage at major ecclesiastical meetings in Northumbria, and perhaps also, therefore, in Irish-speaking regions. It seems that such meetings were, at least at times, being conducted in English and Irish, even when we might imagine Latin to have been a useful lingua franca. This does not tell us anything definite about the upper levels of Latinity in the early Anglo-Saxon and Irish churches, since the choice of language may have been influenced by the presence of less learned participants, but Bede also implies that it would be unsurprising for an Anglo-Saxon in an Irish monastery to learn Irish, suggesting the prevalence of vernacular languages in Irish and English ecclesiastical discourse at this time. Thus although British Latinity may have been in better shape in Bede's time than surviving texts would suggest, this may not have much helped British clerics to advance their interests." Urselius (talk) 11:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Paradise Lost

The text of Paradise Lost being used to illustrate Early Modern English was actually from a modern edition with punctuation, capitalization, and spelling changed to fit modern usage standards. This may be appropriate if our goal is to read the poem, but is clearly inappropriate if our goal is to illustrate Early Modern English. I've replaced it with the actual text of the 1677 edition from Wikisource. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.13.165.3 (talk) 22:24, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Victorian English

Was there such a thing, or is it generally regarded as the Romantic period in Modern English literature? Perhaps if I tried to find The Brontës in the original?! Crock81 (talk) 11:51, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Inadequate on written language origins and development

The article as it is seems to hold together very well, but with disappointing omissions. Not just on Sanskrit - that is, a summary of wider language group history before English came to form. There needs to be links and information on the history of written English; at least mention where the phonetic letter systems came from and elaborate a slightly fuller history of tied developments between English as spoken and it's orthography. And link to other appropriate articles. The examples of written English, and comparative references to these and those of other languages, come as if from the moon. As does, in that context, reference to the first dictionary. That is, at least, on my skim read. Is this not the ideal parent article for ALL English language history? Kathybramley (talk) 11:21, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Library of Congress Subject Heading

One LCSH is "English language--History".[1] I don't know whether there is any target at loc.gov appropriate for External links here. --either a search report or a documentation of the heading analogous to our preface at Category:History of the English language.

WorldCat returns this search report for the subject heading.[[2]

--P64 (talk) 01:03, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

English has links to sanskrit?

I came here to find more but there's nothing on it. It seems capped at about 2000 years old, history-wise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.244.217.149 (talk) 13:26, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language Kathybramley (talk) 23:49, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Repression of other languages/dialects in England?

Across Europe the main languages have become dominant through repressing regional languages and dialects and asserting a "standard" form, which was usually the dialect/language of the people with power. In France at the time of the French Revolution, for instance, only around 50% of the population spoke French (according to Eric Hobsbawn) and French was imposed especially via the education system. In Spain, similarly, what we know as "Spanish" is really Castilian. Did this process not happen in England? If so, this article really should cover it. 79.97.173.59 (talk) 13:37, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Unlike the languages that you mention, there is no official variety of English, and regional and class differences exist to this day. There are standardizing influences, but they are unofficial: Printed books standardize spelling (with different British and American standards). Some varieties are considered prestigious, reinforced by elite schools. Mass media have a homogenizing effect. —teb728 t c 10:40, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

CE vs AD edit war

@Dougweller: and @86.26.110.35: please stop your edit war and read WP:ERA. The standard there is “Do not use CE or AD unless required to avoid ambiguity.” The history of the English language (as opposed to Proto-Germanic and Proto-West Germanic) begins in the fifth century; so CE/AD is inappropriate for this article. —teb728 t c 09:38, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry If I joined the war, I just saw this discussion on the talk page. Revert to what ever is correct per the rules. I assumed you leave as it is in the article.--Inayity (talk) 10:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually the primary standard here as per WP:ERA is "Do not change the established era style in an article" DougWeller informs me that the date format was changed to BCE/CE in the last few months and that probably isn't enough time to establish the trend, hence the ORIGINAL use of BC/AD is entirely appropriate. Your views welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.110.35 (talk) 10:41, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Instead of arguing over CE or AD, why not comply with WP:ERA by deleting both (except where the date is close to 0)? --Roly (talk) 10:53, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Good point. I wouldn't call my one edit an edit war, and as you can see on my talk page the IP and I came to an agreement. I was wrong. The IP's first reason was also wrong. Dougweller (talk) 11:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

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Opening section

This sentence at the end of the opening section makes no sense to me unless "Old English" is changed to "Middle English": "Old English developed into a full-fledged literary language, based on the most common manner of speaking in London during the 13th century." Also, it would make better sense to talk about Old English before talking about Middle English in the opening section. Calling English a "borrowing language" may not be very meaningful, either; all languages borrow words, if not more, from other languages. Jk180 (talk) 21:14, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

"With the end of Roman rule in 410 AD, Latin ceased to be a major influence on the Celtic languages spoken by the majority of the population." I'm not an expert but everything I've read about Latin in England said that there were close to zero penetration of the Latin language in England so I'd be interested to know what "major influence on the Celtic languages" it had. Again, sorry if I'm wrong but I'd be interested in an answer on this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB00:1C9:7700:194E:FA2A:7045:69F1 (talk) 18:27, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 7 March 2020

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: No consensus - The supports and opposes have very good arguments regarding the name of this title. While the supports argued that the new title makes it clearer what the article is about and precise, the opposes argued the current title is concise and it already clear. Interstellarity (talk) 15:22, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

---

• History of English → History of the English language
• History of French → History of the French language
• History of Portuguese → History of the Portuguese language
• History of Greek → History of the Greek language (bolded on the lead)
• History of German → History of the German language (bolded on the lead)
• History of Polish → History of the Polish language (short description of the article)
• History of Swedish → History of the Swedish language
• History of Hindustani → History of the Hindustani language
• History of Icelandic → History of the Icelandic language (bolded on the lead)
• History of Romanian → History of the Romanian language (bolded on the lead)
• History of Catalan → History of the Catalan language
• History of Danish → History of the Danish language

– According to Talk:History_of_English/Archive_3#Article_title, "While "History of English" may be unambiguous to fluent speakers of English, it can be misinterpreted by less fluent speakers." Therefore, the title "History of English" is biased towards the native and fluent speakers of English. I suggest to rename it "History of the English language" à la History of the Spanish language. Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 16:49, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

• Nom comment – I have added more articles in the RM. --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 17:32, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nom! Definitely much clearer, and consistent with the page titles. (EDIT: Neutral/Oppose for now on History of Modern Standard Chinese → History of Mandarin. That one seems be a mildly different case, and should be covered separately.) Paintspot Infez (talk) 18:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose in the form nominated. First, merely reversing the redirects is not going to make anything clearer. If people are not good English speakers, they are bound to get the occasional surprise when reading any English text – but in the absence of any suggestion of where to retarget the "History of..." redirects after moving them, I can't see that anything is gained in doing so.

As for consistency, I manually sorted all the entries in the Template:Language histories (in the absence, it seems, of a category for these) and here are my results:

"History of the X language" (20 entries)
Arabic (Redirects to Arabic#History) Bulgarian Cherokee Chinese Czech Dutch English (Redirects to History of English) Hungarian Irish Korean (Redirects to History of Korean) Macedonian (Redirects to Macedonian language#History) Malay Norwegian (Redirects to Norwegian language#History) Persian (Redirects to Persian language#History) Russian Russian language in Ukraine Scots Slovak Spanish Welsh

I've checked whether all those links are the article titles and not redirects: none of the "History of X" ones is a redirect, but two of the "History of the X language" ones – English and Korean – are untargeted redirects to "History of X". So there's an almost even split between "History of the X language" and "History of X". We could aim to get some kind of WP:CONSISTENT naming here, but I'm apposed to changing some of them but leaving others. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 20:34, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Eighteen articles are titled "History of X", while 20 articles are titled "History of the X language". --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 05:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

As I said, "an almost even split". I gave the figures, and the navbox has it 18:20 for "History of X" vs "History of the X language". But two of those, History of the English language and History of the Korean language, actually target History of English and History of Korean. These could be changed per WP:NAVNOREDIRECT, making it 20:18 instead of 18:20.

While consistency is good, it's a toss-up which way to jump. In any case, your nomination only has 12 of the 18, so consistency would not be achieved. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 06:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support proposal. I find the proposed titles much more WP:PRECISE and less ambiguous. History of English for some can be seen to be a name for an article about History of the English people --Gonnym (talk) 07:03, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Even assuming that is the case, this proposal does nothing to address it. The History of English article could have a {{confused}} hatnote. If it's moved, History of English targeting History of the English language, presumably with a {{redirect}} hatnote. What's the difference?

An alternative is to have a disambiguation page with topics for History of the English language and History of the English people, but then that falls under WP:TWODABS, and is not part of the nomination anyway. Also, History of English people is red, which suggests that people do not actually need more help finding the demographic article. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 08:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Your argument that that this proposal does not address the problem is incorrect. Even with the scenario of the redirect redirecting to the language page, you still have a destination title that is more clear the moment you reach it, as well as in categories, where you only see the title. That being said, no one said that the redirect needs to target to the language page. Addition argument for my support: I've just noticed that some of the languages above (haven't checked all) aren't the primary usage for the language word. So Catalan is a dab page and the language is at Catalan language. As sub-pages should follow the parent naming and these are clearly cases where the correct name would be "History of the x language" --Gonnym (talk) 09:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Nobody – certainly not the nom – has proposed that the redirect go anywhere at all. If the plan is to make the "History of X" redirects into disambiguation pages (or retarget them), then that should be made clear in the nomination.

But if a term such as History of Chinese is truly ambiguous, why has nobody overwritten that redirect with a disambiguation page: or at least added a {{redirect}} hatnote at its target? I doubt because of WP:NOTFINISHED.

Many language topics are of the form "X language" with a DAB at "X" because of WP:NOPRIMARY and WP:NATURALDIS per WP:NCLANG. When the language is unquestionably primary topic, just "X" suffices, even if there are other topics named "X": Hindi, Kannada, Farsi, for example.

I do not understand the argument about categories at all. What would you expect to find in Category:Language histories other than articles dealing with the history of language? History of German is not in Category:Germany or any subcategory thereof, as far as I can tell the linguistic and geopolitical classification hierarchies are quite distinct. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 10:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Strong support because only leaving History of XX without word "language" would be confusing, as it also the demonym of every countries worldwide, for example German is demonym of Germany but doesn't mean that speakers of German language only limits to Germany, same as French language not limit to speakers in France. I also Weak support for moving History of Hindustani to History of Hindustani language because if I strong support of this move would questioned from many Indians and Pakistanis as they claim that Hindustan is non-secular name of India as it means (Hindu country) implies that the country only inhabited by Hindu religion. 110.137.162.190 (talk) 07:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

There isn't a proposal to move History of Hindustani to History of Hindustani language. The proposal is to move it to History of the Hindustani language. Do you support that, or are you proposing to drop the "the"? 85.238.91.68 (talk) 08:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

WP:NCLANG starts: "Articles on language varieties ... can be titled with the bare name of the variety where this is unambiguous (e.g. Bokmål) or where it is unquestionably the primary topic". So even if "History of German" is ambiguous, the linguistic article is unquestionably the primary topic, so "language" is not required for disambiguation. cf. Austrian German, Austrian language. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 08:50, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

In your example, the article is at German language and German is a disambiguation page. Clearly the language is not the primary topic of the word "German". --Gonnym (talk) 09:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the language is the primary topic for the noun "German".[3] - Station1 (talk) 09:31, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I never said the German language was primary topic for the word "German". The question is narrower: what is the primary topic for "History of German"? Nobody has argued that any other article is primary topic for it, so the proposal is merely to swap History of German with History of the German language to be WP:CONSISTENT. That argument has legs, but the idea that doing so will avoid confusion doesn't, because the shorter title will still be a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT, unless it gets turned it into a disambiguation page – which is not part of this proposal. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 09:55, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Comment (edit conflict) I'v updating the navbox, without prejudice, per WP:NAVNOREDIRECT for the English and Korean, and WP:NOTBROKEN for the section links as "redirects can indicate possible future articles". Diffs here. I found that History of the Basque language has its own article, so I changed the section link.

This alters the numbers I gave above, now: "History of the X language" has 30, "History of X" has 24, and section links where there are no suitable redirects have 6. (Before 20 + 18 + 24 = 62, now 30 + 24 + 6 = 60, so I've miscounted somehow.) Some section links could have been replaced with either "History of X" or "History of the X language", in which case I chose "History of X". 85.238.91.68 (talk) 07:53, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. We have also History of English Language (note initial "L"), History of French language, History of Russian language, History of Russian language in Ukraine, History of portuguese language (lowercase "P"), and perhaps others. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 08:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CONCISE. The current titles are completely recognizable as referring to languages to any fluent English speaker. Contrast with History of the English, History of the French, History of the Greeks, for example. The quote in the nom is just one editor's opinion. This is not Simple English Wikipedia, which is "written at a basic level of English", and even so doesn't need to call itself "Simple English Language Wikipedia". (I'm neutral with regard to the last item, Mandarin. That doesn't seem to belong with the others.) Station1 (talk) 08:34, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree. I support moving articles to be WP:CONSISTENT, but for concision we would better move "History of the X language" to "History of X". Against that is consistency with "X language", but those are WP:NATURALDIS and "language" is not required by WP:NCLANG. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 09:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

As for Mandarin, History of Mandarin targets History of Modern Standard Chinese, but History of Mandarin Chinese targets Mandarin Chinese#History. That's confusing and is perhaps WP:XY. 85.238.91.68 (talk) 09:32, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support per WP:CONCISE which Station1 continues to misread on dozens of RMs. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:12, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

  In ictu oculi, would you mind elaborating how WP:CONCISE should require a short unambiguous title to be replaced with a longer one? – Uanfala (talk) 14:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm guessing from "The goal of conciseness is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the general subject area." If a title is too brief, there is insufficient information to unambiguously ID the topic. IOW, WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE often need to work together. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:55, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree. WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE must always work together, so the title is neither longer or shorter than necessary. In fact CONCISE is a subsection of PRECISE. In this case, titling the article "History" or "English" would obviously be too concise to precisely identify the topic. Titling it "History of English as written and spoken by humans" would be totally correct in precisely identifying the topic, but is unnecessarily overprecise and long. That's analogous to the proposed title(s). It's not "wrong", it's just unnecessarily overprecise and long, because the current title(s) means exactly the same thing without being ambiguous. Station1 (talk) 07:43, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Reading WP:Concise, this seems to support the present title; I don't see how anyone is misreading that policy in this instance, and if it's been misapplied in other cases that doesn't have any relevance here. English speakers would not expect "History of English" to direct to "History of the English", so there's little risk of confusion; but "History of English" seems like a more probable search formula than "History of the English Language"—which would still be a perfectly good redirect if people do search for it. I think the same would be said of most if not all of the other articles included in this discussion, particularly "Greek", the one that brought me here. I find it hard to believe that anyone would confuse "History of Greek" with "History of the Greeks". The current titles have a clear meaning in English, and are more likely to be searched for than the proposed alternatives, in my opinion. P Aculeius (talk) 14:40, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
  • And yet the section title of English people#History of English people is called exactly that, "History of English [...]" and I'll note the number of articles that start with "History of English". I very much can see how someone can confuse this incomplete title for something else. --Gonnym (talk) 15:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

    I don't see how these are relevant here. In "English people" (and all similar phrases of the type "English X"), "English" is an adjective that modifies the following noun, it can't stand on its own. In a phrase like "History of English", the word however can only be a noun, and as a noun it can only refer to the language: the whole phrase isn't ambiguous. As far as I can see, confusion can only arise for users with partial grasp of English, and as has been pointed out above, they're not catered for by this version of Wikipedia. – Uanfala (talk) 17:09, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

That search is for all article titles containing the term, not those that start with it as you stated. Here:

All pages with titles beginning with History of English

There are 26 (6 articles and 20 redirects), excluding this article itself. But the point is moot. The history of the language is primary topic, so that's where the article title should lead. The others are all WP:PTMs by defiinition. "History of English" is not an incomplete title. Same editor as 85.238.91.68 94.21.219.87 (talk) 06:43, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Much clearer, less ambiguous and less confusing titles for our readers.--Darwinek (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support: The suggested titles seem clearer, and the phrasing of the current titles (without further context) seems grammatically awkward. This helps to clarify that the terms are nouns, not adjectives. Otherwise, the reader could mentally ask "History of English what?" and "History of French what?" —BarrelProof (talk) 07:56, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

"English" is an adjective in the suggested title, so that wouldn't clarify it being a noun. Same editor as 85.238.91.68 94.21.219.87 (talk) 13:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

"English language" is a (compound) noun in the suggested title, and "English" is a noun in the current title (although it can be misinterpreted as an adjective). —BarrelProof (talk) 15:57, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, "English language" is a compound noun, but "English" there is an adjective, not a noun adjunct. Cf. "English teacher" (a person who teaches English) where "English" is an adjunct, and "English teacher" (a teacher from England) where "English" is an adjective. Same IP editor as 85.238.91.68 94.21.219.87 (talk) 04:53, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support. More clear. Ping User:Nihil novi, wouldn't you agree? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:45, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CONCISE. If readers are confused, then the lede / first sentence should clear things up. A non-issue, IMO. SnowFire (talk) 19:45, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, none of the "History of X" and "History of X language" articles has a {{confused}}, {{redirect}} or similar hatnote. I infer that few people find the titles confusing. Same editor as 85.238.91.68 94.21.219.87 (talk) 13:27, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support. I can see the virtues both of conciseness and of precision. Sometimes the more concise phrasing may prompt a double-take: for example, "English" can refer to "body English" or to "the spin given to a propelled ball by striking it on one side...", and "Polish" can refer to "a substance... applied to smooth or shine a surface." In some contexts, I incline toward precision. Nihil novi (talk) 07:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think I've ever seen "body English" referred to as simply "English". In any case, we have no article about Body English, much less History of body English. And if we ever have an article about the History of polish, it will use a lower case P. Station1 (talk) 08:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that "English" alone could theoretically refer to spin—but it's very unlikely that this use would ever occur in the title of a "history of" article. "In 1756 the Earl of Sandwich surprised everyone at an international billiards competition when his ball seemed to curve around obstacles unnaturally. When questioned as to his technique, he shocked and dismayed the French team by explaining simply, English! thereby precipitating the Seven Years' War." P Aculeius (talk) 13:57, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CONCISE and consolidate other articles to the format of the current name of this article per WP:CONSISTENT. Intelligibility to non-native speakers is such an expansive and variable thing that one can make almost any kind of argument pointing to it, as there are hundreds of millions of them all over the world and they inevitably vary in their command of the language. Anyone with the proficiency required to read the English Wikipedia knows that when a demonym is used without an article or suffix it refers to the language. Nardog (talk) 13:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that's the usual result, and certainly the case here, but not sure about the formulation of the principle—you can certainly have some Swiss on your sandwich, and possibly take some Danish for dessert. Of course, those are just abbreviations for "Swiss cheese" and "Danish pastry", although the former is said much more often, and uses like this are only capitalized some of the time—and also there's no language called "Swiss". P Aculeius (talk) 13:57, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

That's elision. Your "swiss" example is illuminating, though. Swiss cheese is an article about North American cheese, not even a redirect to the list of Swiss cheeses, because the same rule applies as always: is there a primary topic? For "swiss" the primary topic is [Switzerland]]; for Swiss language it is Languages of Switzerland, for Swiss cheese it is about something that rarely even is made in Switzerland. We have History of Swiss nationality law but presumably none of History of Swiss, History of Swiss law and History of Swiss nationality is deemed precise enough even to have as a redirect: we let the search engine do its job. Same editor as 85.238.91.68 94.21.219.87 (talk) 16:57, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

It's an outrage that Swiss cheese goes to some American crap imitation rather than Cheeses of Switzerland - that is certainly not what the term means outside North America. It should be moved. Johnbod (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, that's sorted! Try Swiss cheese now. Johnbod (talk) 13:22, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I spoke too soon, but there is now an RM at Talk:Swiss_cheese#Requested_move_23_March_2020. Johnbod (talk) 04:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support, doesn't seem grammatically correct to me, you would ask yourself "[Nationality] what" it's smooth to add the "language" part, if is about that. Editoneer (talk) 21:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

All the titles are grammatically correct. 94.21.219.87 (talk) 17:04, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose per WP:CONCISE, WP:COMMONNAME, and noting Support has no basis in policy or guidelines. In particular, nom’s argument advocating recognizability for “less fluent speakers” of English is not supported by any policy or guideline. Last I checked JDLI was not a policy. I suppose I should acknowledge a few Supporters cite concision as if it favors the proposed moves, but they don’t explain how. Their arguments should be dismissed accordingly. And the fact that the current titles unambiguously identify their respective topics in fewer words than the corresponding proposed titles demonstrates the current titles are more concise. Likewise, History of the Spanish language should be moved to History of Spanish. —-В²C ☎ 06:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Perfectly clear as it is. This is an article for English speakers, not an article for EFL students, who would rather see the language as it really is anyway. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

But even a fluent English speaker will have to think whether it is about the "History of the people of England" or "History of the English language". Natural disambiguation applies. --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 12:32, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support for clarity. Native speakers of British or American English might not have to think about it, but those of eg Indian English probably do, like 2nd-language speakers from all over. Johnbod (talk) 12:43, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  • But I don't see the advantage of "History of Modern Standard Chinese → History of Mandarin" in terms of clarity, & perhaps accuracy, & am not supporting that. Johnbod (talk) 04:06, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support. It's not true that this is not confusing to native speakers - I'm teaching a "History of German" class and if I just say that I'm teaching "History of German" people usually ask for some sort of clarification(such as "German... people?"). Now, the names should in my opinion not be ambiguous, but I don't think your average person is aware that languages change or have histories. Even reading some of our less-edited Wikipedia articles (where this is sometimes discussed in terms of decay or corruption) indicate to me that this idea is strange to a number of our editors.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:44, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Just stumbled upon the History of Romanian article and had to do a double take, why is the article not History of the Romanian language? The new proposal makes it clear for readers. § DDima 21:54, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. This violates the concise policy. Apologies to the nom; however, there is no need for this at all. And I'm more than a little curious as to why the final proposal is to a form from which all the others are asked to be moved away??? Shouldn't it be History of Modern Standard Chinese → History of the Mandarin language, OSLT? Also, if these titles were to be about the peoples, then they would be titled "History of the English", "History of the Greeks" and so on. The definite article "the" would make all the difference. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 07:42, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
• Question: If the article's title is to remain "History of English" rather than be changed to "History of the English language" as proposed, then shouldn't the article "English language" be retitled to simply "English"? And, then, why do we need a disambiguation page by that title ("English")? Nihil novi (talk) 11:48, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Good question. The word "English" commonly means either "people of England" or "the most-spoken language by total speakers". --Soumyabrata ^{wash your hands} _{to protect from coronavirus} 12:37, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it probably should be. English (the dab page) gets over 500 hits a day, which is quite a bit for a dab page, and the vast majority of people landing there (well over 90%) want English language (see pageviews). Of course, we'd still have to keep a page at English (disambiguation) for the other minor uses. Station1 (talk) 08:29, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, agree it should be moved. But there is a lot of momentum for X language titles to overcome. —В²C ☎ 00:01, 31 March 2020 (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.