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I don't see it... 65.101.174.47 23:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
In the list, Why is galician show as "son" of the portuguese? although both have the same origin ( Galician-Portuguese), they are diferent languages. Also, the Fala language is often considerated a galician dialect, not portuguese -- Alyssalover (talk) 08:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
1. ...Croatian (e.g. léta he flies, is flying with long rising accent vs. lêta years with long falling accent) and Slovenian (e.g. sûda of the vessel with long falling accent vs. súda of the court with long rising accent)... — words used in these examples are wrong. The supposed Slovene words are definitely not Slovene (vessel = posoda, genitive: posode; court = sodišče, genitive: sodišča). They probably aren't correct Croatian either (vessel = posuda, posuđe, genitive: posude, posuđa (should be verified with a native speaker of Croatian); court = sud, genitive: suda). In the first Croatian example: 'to fly' is leteti, 'he flies' would be (on) leti. I don't think leto exists in Croatian, 'year' is godina and 'summer' is ljeto (leto means year in Slovene and 'summer' in Serbian).
2. ...Cz. restaurace, Slow. Slovenian reštaurácia, ... — is Slow. intended for Slovak? Slovenian 'restaurant' is restavracija and it probably isn't same as in Slovak. NikNovi 15:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Since this is a geographical grouping, I don't see why languages that belong to so-called "European language families" but are spoken outside Europe are included. This includes the three examples given in the opening paragraph, Afrikaans, Pennsylvania German and Persian (Persian is there because of the migration of the Ossetians into the Caucasus, but that doesn't make Persian a European language; Afrikaans etc. because of migrations out of Europe, but, again, Afrikaans is not a European language). The relationships of these languages with European languages are important but they are dealt with in articles such as Iranian languages, Germanic languages.
There is a second question: does a modern migration make a language into a European language, or are languages brought to Europe by modern migrations excluded? Something needs to be said about this. Andrew Dalby 12:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
"Most of the many indigenous languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family."
Wikipedia article on indigenous languages says that: "An indigenous language is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples"
Is there any indigenous Indo-European languages (in Europe)? There are of course several Finno-Ugric indigenous languages and Basque might be one too, so the sentence seems to be just plain wrong. Even if indigenous meens something else, why shouldn't other language groups and Basque not be in the introduction? 213.243.181.212 21:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Which is the context? Merge with what? It is possible that someone removed the 1st line. -- Antonielly 13:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Why is Norwegian Bokmål mentioned specifically and not Norwegian Nynorsk? I know that there is some discussion about which category Norwegian Nynorsk should be in, but it looks very odd to just leave it out. - Nidator 16:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC) -
This is an interesting idea, but the "cultural-anthropological definition of Europe" with which this section begins is unreferenced. Since it excludes more than half of geographical Europe it appears to be a bad definition. In fact it looks more like a definition of "the parts of western Europe that we like", therefore none too neutral. Am I being unfair? Andrew Dalby 20:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
This page is a disgrace for Wikipedia, an article of such relative importance as the languages of Europe should not be allowed to look this bad. The second half of the article may very well be a copyright violation, it reads exactly as if it was taken from a book - note in particular the frequent use of "we may assume" and similar sentences. The only thing that speaks against the article being a copyright violation is the wast amount of errors. Saying that the Irish alphabet is still used in many books is completely wrong, it has hardly been used in any new books for the last 40 years.
The author even appears to be unaware of the fact that all Slavic Orthodox nations are Europeans
- he talks about features being common to European cultures, but then points out that they also appear among Orthodox Slavic nations. Neither does the author seem to have any insight into European minority languages. Frisian is listed as being in a weak position while many much weaker languages are listed as being in a strong position.
The author also implies that Flemish would be a weak language in Belgium.
These are only some of the countless errors, and then I haven't even begun to list the statements without sources. If not major improvements to the text is made, the second half of the article, starting with Common Features of European Languages, should be deleted. JdeJ 15:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I've tried to reorganize the contributions on languages in Europe a little bit: see European languages. I added the various definitions used for Europe and put the list of languages in a separate article. I also deleted the information in the article Eurolinguistics, so that it doesn't occur in the Wikipedia twice. I hope everybody is happy with this. -- Sinatra 12:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I was bold and restored the page to a version before the edits by User:Sinatra. IMHO, the article "Languages of Europe" should really describe the languages of Europe, and not the languages of Central and Western Europe. Btw, does the redirect American languages refer to Indigenous languages of the Americas or to Indigenous languages in the United States of America? -- zeno 21:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Dear Sinatra, I generally appreciate if specialists in certain fields contribute to Wikipedia. But sometimes they are biased and try to present their views as the generally valid views on a certain topic. I have the feeling that while you may have worked a lot in the research of European languages, you try to push a certain view into Wikipedia which is not at all shared by the majority of linguistic researchers. I think it is a little bit problematic to rely on and cite one's own work that much in a Wikipedia article. Are you sure your book is so relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe? Hint: You may be biased.
I have no problems with mentioning relevant minority views in articles (that should generally be the case in Wikipedia!), however, they should be presented as such. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. I would also like to point out that the approach of Eurolinguistics, especially your interpretation of it, is not shared by most linguists. As I have heard, many linguists have not even heard that the "discipline" of Eurolinguistics exists.
For example, mentioning it in the first sentence of an article about the languages of Europe is not in the interest of our readers, who want to learn about European languages, and not about a rather obscure branch of linguistics.
If you want to elaborate on the opinions shared by the people who work under the label of Eurolinguistics, it might the best to do it in the article " Eurolinguistics", but not here. But be prepared that also there you may have to live with the fact that other people may have different opinions on the matter.
With kind regards, -- zeno 12:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
If we followed this logic, then we would have to mention several different definitions of "Europe" in every article that covers some European topic.
The crucial point here is: The two reviews were not published in a widely accepted linguistic journal, but in an online journal of which you are (1) the editor and (2) the author of about 50 % of articles. To put it in other words: Your own, private publication.
The eurolinguists you cite may be prominent in the small community that operates under the label " Eurolinguistics", but I am not sure whether this makes your book relevant to the topic "European languages"/"Languages of Europe".
As I see the matter, it is disputable whether Eurolinguistics is to be considered a proper branch of linguistics. Maybe "Eurolinguistics" is better described as a small community of researchers.
Best regards, -- zeno 15:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Who are they? Using Google, I could not find any. Please give me their names, either here, or via WP-E-Mail. With kind regards, -- zeno 10:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
It has been suggested that List of languages in Europe and Alphabetic list of living languages in Europe be merged into this article or section.
Reasoning: the other two lists make assertions that aren't supported, mainly in regards to numbers of people using them. Since this article is almost completely formatted as a list already, they seem redundant and easy targets to POV pushing. Since it's not very likely that they will be sourced, the best solution is to simply redirect them here and find citations for this article to support any claims about usage numbers. 24.4.253.249 20:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I recently cleaned up Category:Romance languages and List of Romance languages. I am going to move all correct information from this list to List of Romance languages and then i'll put back whatever is relevant for Europe. -- Amir E. Aharoni 17:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe the proper term should be "Romance" and not "Romanic." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Facial ( talk • contribs) 07:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
What about the 140,000 chinese speakers in Ireland alone? There are more people speaking Chinese than Gaelic in Ireland yet they are not even mentioned in this article. 83.70.219.91 00:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
-hardly, in the latest Irish census, 1,650,000 Irish people claimed to be fluent in Irish, and over 500,000 claimed to use the language daily. (I don't know how to do these things, but I'll put the date and my name if it helps. (10/9/2007 - Paul) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.176.93 ( talk) 03:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Section General issues - Issues in language politics Sorry, but that's laughable. Esperanto was and is never seriously debated as an official language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.46.30 ( talk) 19:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
After the war in Kosovo, a large number of primarily Serbian speaking people have left the region. I recommend someone look at Wikipedia's own web page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Kosovo so that a more accurate mapping of the region can be made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.149.235 ( talk) 04:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The area for Catalan in the main map is wrong, as well as its merging with provençal. The map that represents only the romance languages is right and very good. I don't know how to change the main map, but someone who knows should do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.159.136.238 ( talk) 07:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I am removing this map from the page and moving it here for the moment because it is misleading. A map is of course useful, but this one is misleading. If only a single map is used, it should show the *predominant*, not minority languages for each area. Therefore, the language for the entirety of the British Isles should be shown as English - the *majority* of people in Wales, Scotland and Ireland speak English as their first and (in most cases) only language.
And this is just the area I am familiar with - if this is anything to go by the entire map is unreliable.
On the flip side, the map also suggests stark boundaries that simply don't exist in multi-lingual countries where two or more languages are either the official languages or are widely spoken.
TO summarise: good idea, but the data used is wildy innacurate. Perhaps it would be better to have a series of smaller maps showing the spread of each language, with gradations of colour/tone for what percentage of people speak that language in that particular zone (ie a high percentage (dark) blue for German-speaking people in germany, a lighter blue for German-speaking people in Switzerland, since it is only one of serveral official languages there, and not everyone speaks it)
Thanks - PocklingtonDan 16:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
What the map appears to represent is a classification of 'native dialects' in a simplified taxonomy. The part classified as Dutch in northwestern France is for instance accurate as a classification of original native dialects, which are dialects of Dutch, but these dialects have nearly completely been replaced by standard French in public life over the last century. Furthermore the Dutch taxon subsumes language cousins (Low Saxon, Limburgish) not generally considered 'Dutch' by their speakers (or by the Dutch for that matter). Same with the English, Italian language area, and probably many others. In most cases of argued language overlap we find local dialects belonging to one language group overlapped by a standard administrative language taught in schools from another one. There is merit in having a map based on the classification of native dialects, even if these have largely disappeared in public life in favour of a standard language from another group, but to make the classification principle more obvious it would be nice to add a map representing the dominant language in public life. In this map Dutch would for instance not appear in France, while Frisian would be reduced to the province of Fryslan in the Netherlands, where it is an administrative language and taught in schools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.18.192.124 ( talk) 10:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The main map is false-in Poland the Upper Silesian region has minority languages and dialects, not the Lower Silesia one, also in both Ukraine and Poland Polish language areas are missing.-- Molobo ( talk) 14:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
The map showing Spanish should be removed at it is not accurate. Russian is more widely spoken than Spanish so I have no idea why Spanish was included next the three working languages of the E.U. (English, French, German). Including a map makes Spanish look more important than it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 ( talk) 10:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I've added Russian and Italian to make this article less bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 ( talk) 12:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
If changes are being made to the map, I would request that Maltese be displayed as a distinct language (as befits its position as an official language within the European Union and national language of a sovereign state). Thanks ^_^ the roof of this court is too high to be yours ( talk) 09:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
The recently added map suffers from several problems. What's the idea behind coloring some areas in a single color and using stripes for other areas? I guess it's to give the idea of more than one language being spoken in some areas, but in that case I must call for major revisions. Let me give a few examples
I think the map is a foundation to build on, but the present version needs to be revised. The most important thing is to have proper definitions for when using one color, when using stripes and to define which languages should or should not be market. All of that is lacking at the moment, making the map a bit confusing. JdeJ ( talk) 10:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The map Image:CelGerLatSla europe.PNG is stupid. What is the green area labeled "Celtic" supposed to represent??? It certainly doesn't represent the area in which the main language spoken is Celtic! The creator of this map seems to be deeply confused about the status of Gallego... In other cases, there is a fatal tendency to follow current national boundaries. AnonMoos 00:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
The first (uppermost) map contains a quite important error. There is no Danish-spoken minority in Scania (the southernmost peninsula of Sweden). The local dialect, “Scanian”, have been claimed to be an own language. However, persons claiming so did not arrive to that conclusion in the ordinary linguistic way. Please don’t accuse me for being a language denier as some nationalistic politicians! Scanian is close enough to standard Swedish to be mutually understandable. Since there is no Scanian writing standard it should be considered a dialect, not a language of its own. (The word “Scanian” was invented by me for this propose. I did not know any English word for the Swedish dialect of Scania.)
2006-11-06 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
There is two ways of defining language. One is language as a social construct: a variety defines itself as language by creating it’s own rules of writing. However, by this definition there would not be any non-written languages. The other way is as a group of mutually understandable dialects. I myself use the first definition for written language and the second for non-written ones. By this definition Scanian is not a language of it's own. Your expression “ Danish minority” is misleading, Scanians does not view themselves as Danish! They might be proud of being Scanian but they don't want independence from Sweden. In other words there is no “Scanian Republican Army” or anything such.
2007-05-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
What did you get that from? My mum is a Scanian an she does NOT perceive herself as a Dane. I have visited Scania at least once a year for 25 years and I can’t remember meeting any locals who call themselves Danes! Furthermore, I have never heard of any groups working for the independence of Scania. According to my mum there is such a group but it is really marginal. About Scanian being a Danish dialect I don’t think all linguists agree with you. I have read an essay by a Swedish one who don’t.
2007-08-11 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
Sorry, but the Jamtlandic Republican Army is not meant to be taken seriously. If Jamtlandic should be considered a Swedish or Norwegian dialect is probably a matter of definition. In this case I don’t know what most linguists would say.
2008-01-19 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
The map previously discussed has been replaced by a more reliable one. However, it does show several minority languages as if they where regional majority languages so it can still be improved upon.
2009-04-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
The current map Image:Languages of Europe no legend.png is unfortunately filled with errors. I must confess to not being an expert on the sociolinguistic situation in every country, but let me mention a few of those I know fairly well. I'll also point out that I started writing this assuming good faith of the creator, but by the time I got to Belgium I found it hard to do so. The driving force behind this map appears to be German nationalism.
Ok, I'm tired and I don't think I have to go on much longer. The point is that this map is just a bad joke combined with German irredentism, it's a complete disgrace for Wikipedia and should be deleted. Sorry if I sound a bit bitter but this map is regularely removed from various articles, only to appear at another article in a while, and I've getting tired of argumenting against all the stupidities in it. While I normally encourage all contributions to Wikipedia, I can't help thinking that it would have bettn better if the creator of this map would have bothered to check the facts before making the whole thing up. JdeJ ( talk) 22:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Why does the current map respects some natural borders and ignore the others? It separates European and Asian territories of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, but includes all of Georgia, Azerbaijan which are only transcontinental like the other three and all of Armenia, Cyprus which have no territory in Europe.
The map should either;
1. use natural borders ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Map_of_Europe_%28political%29.png)
2. include all transcontinental countries totally (possibly along with Cyprus and Armenia)
I'll try to edit and do it 2nd way. -- Mttll ( talk) 23:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
If you want to delete for example the historicaly Alsatian German regions of France than you should also delete the Sorbian area in Eastern Germany - because in Lusatia 95% of the populatian have German as native language and mostly don't know any Sorbian and only 5% are native Sorbian speakers, who all know German on native-level. 195.243.51.34 ( talk) 14:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
This map is a master disaster- German is not spoken in all of Trentino-South Tirol nor all of Alsace-Lorraine but in the northern province of Bozen and most of Alsace along with French and a small part of Lorraine along with French. There is no way the Fruali is spoken by that many people and what about Ladin.. The map is a real disaster... not like this has not been mentioned but nothing has been changed!
Dear linguists, you are the politest bunch of bickerers I have yet seen on Wikipedia. Too bad I have not seen more of it. I've seen some of you in other contexts. Maybe the vicious treatment I received then made you feel guilty. My goodness I am impressed by the high quality of the bickerers. Now the task is to get the article to match the quality of their credentials. The first thing I notice is what someone else above spotted immediately, very few references. Wikipedia is different from your usual publications, my friends. Speaking as linguists your offhand opinions are treasured by crowds of language enthusiasts who can't wait to shower money on you for it. Speaking as Wikipedia editors no one gives a rat's tail just what you may think and you must do it for free. But, here you are, so thank you for being here. You cannot quote yourselves but maybe you can quote each other. If you expect this to be a good article by Wikipedia standards you better start quoting someone. I just happened to drop by here on my way through some Latin articles hoping to correct any obvious weaknesses. That means I basically started with the templates. Now in investigating a dubious-discuss tag I find no discussion. No discussion? What, you can call for a discussion and then forget about it? Oh no. We are going to discuss, at least I am. I see here that some minority languages are strong (not named) and some are weak! But, the section doesn't use any definitions (in addition to the English being bad). I see we are using some German concepts in German. I'm dazzled by their brilliance; if you intended to impress I'm impressed, but I don't understand their use here and I dare say no one else will either. We need to lose our committment to bad language articles, if it would not cut in on your profits too much. But what is THIS I read? The Turks and the Scots are weak? You singled out the two toughest warrior peoples in all of Europe and called them weak? What's the matter with you! You'll be trying to dodge a Turk on the one hand and a Scot on the other. First of all it is very unclear what you mean and why you brought it up. Second, why do you use strong and weak? Are those professional terms? How are they strong, how are they weak? We need some better writing in this section without the dubious implications. Strong and weak verbs I understand, strong and weak minorities I do not at all. I will try to clarify a little but only as a quick fix. That's the problem with Wikipedia, everything you try to quick fix turns into a major project. If you want to be linguist contributors and not linguist cover models you might take a hand here. Dave ( talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC) PS - I just received a message. I did it this way so you wouldn't be overwriting me even as I typed - but you found a way around that, didn't you? I suggest you swiftly take this article in hand to improve it. Dave ( talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
A minority language can be defined as a language used by a group that defines itself as an ethnic minority group, whereby the language of this group is typologically different and not a dialect of the standard language. In Europe some languages are in quite a strong position, in the sense that they are given special status, (e.g. Basque, Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Rhaeto-Romance/Romansh), whereas others are in a rather weak position (e.g. Frisian, Scottish Gaelic, Turkish) dubious – discuss—especially allochthonous minority languages are not given official status in the EU (in part because they are not part of the cultural heritage of a civilization). Some minor languages don’t even have a standard yet, i.e. they have not even reached the level of an ausbausprache yet, which could be changed, e.g., if these languages were given official status. (cf. also next section).
This unsourced paragraph attempts to redefine the council of Europe's document, adding some quasi-linguistic definitions that are not in the document and some personal interpretations such as the strong and the weak minorities and giving personal opinions such as whether some lingustic classification would change if the language were given official status etc. etc. Also I find it a strange mix of conversational and encyclopedic English as though some student were having a linguistic conversation with his buddies while sitting in the cafeteria. I think we should follow the document so I am adding a proper intro to the document, the organization and the minority language issue raised by this subsection. I suppose it is legitimate to raise this issue in this article. It goes a little further than merely listing languages but then the title and intro never said this was a list of European languages. If you can reach a consensus about removing it, fine; meanwhile it is here and should be made acceptable. Dave ( talk) 10:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Early promotion of linguistic diversity is attested at the translation school in Toledo, founded in the 12th century (in medieval Toledo the Christian, the Jewish and the Arab civilizations lived together remarkably peacefully).
I removed this paragraph. For one thing, there was no school, according to some major sources. The whole thing was a myth. See "Charting the future of translation history" By Georges L. Bastin, Paul F. Bandia pp 32-33. The authors chart the growth of this myth. That which was taken to be a school consists of some translations from Arabic into Latin performed in different parts of Spain. So, there was something. One might state a few points of view for and against the school concept at the proper location, but what is that? I don't see how the translation of works from the Arabic promoted linguistic diversity and I can't find anyone who says it does except the editor of this section. These translations promoted knowledge, certainly, but because of them no one had to read the Arabic, no Arabic speakers were being tolerated and encouraged; the Arabs were being thrown out of Spain in large numbers just as the Jews would be. Just because a few Arabs were asked or allowed to do some translations does not mean the society was diversity tolerant. It was not and was growing worse every day. Before long they would be torturing and burning people because they didn't quite fit the mold demanded by the closely knit Christian communities. Already the bishops were railing against the supposed school which clearly indulged in toad-kissing and sexual orgies along with the translating from the Arabic, a devilish activity. I do believe this opinion is Wikipedian opinion not general opinion and not supported by anyone I can find. I don't want to argue the subject matter. I only want to point out that this would need sourcing and development, whch I do not see. Dave ( talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
"Despite previous attempts to achieve national linguistic homogenization, like in France during the Revolution, Franco's Spain and Metaxas's Greece, the “one nation = one language” concept is hard on its way to become obsolete."
Unreferenced and undeveloped mud-slinging. All opinion, no hard facts. Dave ( talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
A more tolerant linguistic attitude is the reason why the EU’s general rule is that every official national language is also an official EU language. However Luxembourgish for instance is not an official EU language, because there are also other (stronger) official languages with “EU status” in the respective nation. dubious – discuss Several concepts for an EU language policy are being debated:
New immigrants in European countries are expected to learn the host nation's language, but are still speaking and reading their native languages (i.e. Arabic, Hindustani/Urdu, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili and Tahitian) in Europe's increasingly multiethnic/multicultural profile. But, those languages aren't native or indigenous to Europe, therefore aren't considered important in the issue of allowing them printed in European countries' official documents.
I'm sorry I know you won't like the removal of this unreferenced material - references, references, you must have seen that caution everywhere on Wikipedia! I will try to do you justice here. This is all your opinion, is it not? You are in essence putting yourself in place of the EU and guessing at its motives. That they are more "tolerant" etc. is your idea alone. And then there is the part about expecting new immigrants to learn official languages. I doubt if the EU officially cares in the slightest whether anyone does that. And then there is whether they are considered important. Looking at the EU documents I see no such value judgements, that is an inference you have made. So, as a serious assessment of your writing here (so that you may get something out of this educationally), I would say, you have to learn to distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion and not present your opinion as fact. Second, you like to make hasty generalizations - unwarranted conclusions from the detail. But then, you don't give any detail, and you don't give any definitions. I know it is satisfying to express yourself but the other half of the equation is the people who have to listen to you. To say something objectively significant in words that are understandable is really hard work. You have to keep critiquing and revising your own material. But, there is one thing about your writing that is correct. You can't write or learn to write without writing, for better or for worse. You have to persist. Eventually you might be able to write the Gettysburg address by inspiration from your first thoughts. Good luck. I'm putting something based on the EU sites in place of the above excised. I don't care at all if goes or stays. Now, if you were thinking of putting what you had back, please support everything you say with references. We might be interested in what the EU says but we are not interested in your personal opinions or in having you put words in their mouths. Whew. This is tough work. Dave ( talk) 09:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
"The proficiency of languages is increasingly related to second or third language learning and has been subject to recent shifts caused by changing popularity and government policy."
This is just about the best example of slick English I ever saw. You have some real talent there. Have you considered going into sales? It is flawlessly correct and in the style of formal English. You read it with the expectation of being able to understand it and of learning something from it. At last, you think, here is some some real information. You reach the end of the sentence as though a blank wall realizing you have understood nothing, nothing at all. After 3 or 4 readings you realize you understood nothing because it says nothing neither by direct statement nor by implication. The goal of Wikipedia is not to say nothing in slick language, although many of the early editors wrote that way. What's the point? You aren't getting paid for this and you remain anonymous, so why do it? You should have an objective reason for writing something on Wikipedia, such as the transmission of certain encyclopedic information for the benefit of the public. We want to steer away from the strange world of creative subjectivity. This is unreferenced so I can take it out. If you want it back make it say something also said by an author you can reference. Dave ( talk) 14:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I've just added Volapük to the list, and am checking Interglossa and Basic English in order to add those. I was surprised not to find them on the list, so I wondered if there was some reason for this. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
What is the justification for including Asian Indo-European languages like Persian and Romany but not Hindi, Marathi, etc.? It should also be noted that languages like Persian cannot really be said to "linguistically belong to European language families" as stated in the first paragraph. While related to European languages, Persian belongs to the Indo-Iranian language family, only found in Asia, which derives from the language of the Proto-Indo-European speakers, whose Urheimat is widely contested but generally believed to be somewhere near the Black and Caspian seas. — Ливай | ☺ 21:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is not quite NPOV: These are languages of non-European origins which are spoken in parts of Europe. Maltese, Turkish, Tatar. Semitic and Turkic languages have been around parts of Europe for some 14 centuries now (in fact long before Hungarian, which no one questions as a European language). And then, Indoeuropean languages originated out of Europe as well. -- User:Perique des Palottes 2005/02/17
About the lenguage map. it shows galician (NW of spain) as a celtic language, however galician is an romanic language, brother of the portugues
Well I just dropped in to fix the things that were marked as needing fixing and standardize the format where it wasn't standard. It seems to me problems have been being fixed regularly. I didn't see any noted in the discussion that were not addressed, some of them quite major. That is what worries me. Despite all this loving care, some by linguists in the field, it hauled down a grade of C! Well really! Can't you do better than that? The things that were left wrong are the major reasons why articles get poor grades: no references, too much editorial opinion, unsubstantiated generalization, overbrief curtailment, inadequate explanation of meaning, just plain gobbledeygook. We aren't trying to look smart, we are trying to inform. I'm going on, but if something was not marked I didn't fix it. And, I didn't touch the graphics. I must say despite its faults I consider this article really quite useful. To be able to see what all the languages of Europe are is quite a valuable intellectual asset. Critical to being able to visualize are the maps. We need those and we need to continue to correct those or get better ones. On Wikipedia I have not yet turned into a graphics person so I'm not doing it. Those sections of writing that still have no references need tham. They are unchecked by me. I have no doubt they will be mainly seen to be wrong once you dig into it. So, we still may have a C article. Feel quite free to bring the level of the article up, Wikipedia certainly encourages you to do that. The more work is required the freer you are to do it. This is quite a place of freedom. Dave ( talk) 00:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Should Hebrew really be listed? Except for Israeli immigrants, the number of speakers seems negligible. 惑乱 Wakuran ( talk) 14:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Why is there maps of alphabet use right at the start? Since this is about languages, not scripts, is there really no map of the languages available to go at the top? Also, why is Georgian described as isolate when it's part of the Kartvelian family? Munci ( talk) 19:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
Turkey is soon to be an EU member state, and in any event 3% of Turkeys land area is within Europe. Can, therefore, Turkish be added by somebody who understands these things ? (Alas, not me). Thanks --jrleighton 13:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
The classification is more or less well-construed. But there should be more about them on this very page. A language is what makes a human human. There should be more data provided here.-- ~::Annie Chung::~ 16:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
TURKEY IS NOT A EUROPEAN COUTRY AND WILL NEVER JOIN THE EU. TURKEY MUST BE DELETED FROM ANY EUROPEAN LIST. 60.48.32.125 ( talk) 04:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)CRISTIAN, ONLY CRISTIANS ARE EUROPEAN
Distribution of the proposed Altaic languages across Eurasia???????
The proposed but controversial Altaic language family is claimed to consist of five branches (Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus, Korean and Japanese) that show similarities in vocabulary, morphological and syntactic structure, and certain phonological features. On the basis of systematic sound correspondences, they are generally considered to be genetically related.???????
WHY NOT TO ADD IN THIS ARTICLE LAFRICAN LANGUAGES AND BANTU, OR OTHER ASIAN LANGUAGES AS JAPANESE, CHINESE, ETC....ISN'T THIS ARTICLE CONCERNING EUROPEAN LANGUAGES?TUKIC, MONGOLIAN, TUNGUS, KOREAN, WHAT'S THE MATTER? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.48.32.125 ( talk) 04:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Several countries which are not members of the European Union are included on some of the maps (EG Iceland on the English map), so why not just add Russia as the native Russian-speaking country? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.163.62.23 ( talk) 15:30, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Isn't Kazakhstan partly in Europe? -- megA ( talk) 14:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
"There are three major groupings of West Germanic languages: Anglo-Frisian, Low Franconian (now primarily modern Dutch) and Low German (Saxon); the latter two include the pluricentric German varieties including Standard German." I don't think so... -- megA ( talk) 10:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Croatian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language Serbian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_language Language and dialect map 2008.; http--www.muturzikin.com-carteseurope-carteeurope1.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.0.35.15 ( talk) 09:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
In the map is shown that around Munich live a Turkish Majority. In 2011 there lived 40.000 Turks in the whole city of Munich-> These are 3% of the population!-- 62.178.209.98 ( talk) 19:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok its an users fault, Maurice07, maybe an turkish nationalist, uploaded his own map, deleted the kurdish language in eastern turkey and invented some new turkish linguistic enclaves -- 62.178.209.98 ( talk) 19:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
An anonymous editor has several times deleted mention of several Italian languages (calling them "dialects"), and Sardinian, which, to my knowledge, no non-politically-motivated Italian nationalist linguist considers to be a dialect [or group of dialects] of the Italian language. The deletion was first made today. I reverted it, but my reinsertion of the text was rapidly reverted. I have re-reverted the deletion and requested clarification. I do not have time to pursue this, so I hope someone is here to defend the integrity of the article in my stead. 96.41.249.21 ( talk) 01:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
User
Ehrenkater has twice edited this article, no doubt with the best intentions, to qualify whether the Celtic languages are spoken in Europe, first saying "more or less"
[6] and then "to various degrees"
[7]. I have reverted both times and would appreciate if Ehrenkater would gain a consensus on the talk page before repeating this edit.
I don't deny that some (one might even say all) Celtic languages are in a weak position. Then again, that is the case for many other languages mentioned in the article, such as the
Arbëresh language,
Arvanitika,
North Frisian,
Saterlandic,
Low Saxon,
Griko,
Occitan,
Romansh and many many more. Several of these are in a weaker position than some, or even all, Celtic languages. That being the case, I see no reason why the article should single out the Celtic languages as being in a particularly weak positions, when there would be about fifty other languages for which the same claim could be made. If we want to comment on the viability of the languages, we should be consistent and do so for all languages. Obviously that would need good sources.
Jeppiz (
talk)
15:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
I seriously doubt that Czech was a lingua franca at any time in history ever. Latin and German would have been the lingua franca of the Holy Roman Empire at the time of Emporer Charles. There is no doubt that Charles supported the use of the local Slavic language used in the surroundings of Prague when the city was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, but as a Historian and Linguistic I have never heard of Czech being any type of lingua franca spoken by people outside of Bohemia, nor was Czech a codified language at the time. I think this should be removed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poettchen ( talk • contribs) 09:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
First of all, the correct plural of "lingua franca" is "lingue franche". Second, why is this section even here? For that matter, what's the purpose of the "General Issues" section at all? I can understand the "treatment of minority languages" section, and maybe "language and identity", but the other two sections don't seem to be adding anything of value to the article. Sectori ( talk) 19:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
76.104.198.129 (
talk)
22:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to add that even if the proper plural of "lingua franca" is not going be used, in what circumstance does English ever have adjectives agree in the plural? Wouldn't "Linguas franca be more appropriate?
Don't we look things up in the dictionary any more or do we just get petulent on Wikepedia discussion? There are actually paper dictionaries out there and they actually are of some value and they are not going to be replaced by Wikipedia or any other Internet forum in the near future, probably not ever. Some pocket dictionaries avoid the question of the plural. Webster's Third International faces it squarely and probably so does the Oxford unabridged but I don't have one of those on my shelf. If necessary I can go to the library. Well sectori, what you would actually consider actually comes right out of the dictionary. Lingua franca is treated as a single word as though it had a hyphen. It does not (but should have) but the plural is lingua francas. Unless, you want to treat it as two Latin words. English uses Latin plurals in parallel with English plurals for Latin words depending on current usage. So, Webby gives us the alternative of linguae francae, two plural words. Linguas francas is unheard, unknown. Look it up in the dictionary; let that be your guide. If you give me any flak about it I will put in a ref to Webby. So, make sure you have your own ref handy as refed material take precedence over unrefed.
Now for the great six, justly someone wants to know, where did you get that? Not tatooed under your hairline I hope. I can't find any sign of it. Would it not be better to leave the matter open? So I changed the wording slightly. If you can find someone credible who is willing to state it was six, just six, no more, no less -six, precisely six - do change it back. Dave ( talk) 14:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
There are basically two philosophic confusions in the lingua francas section. For one thing, it does not distinguish between a lingua franca and the rise of a national language. For example, Spanish came from Castilian and French from Paris and northward. Those languages expanded their ranges to become the extensive national languages they are. Until they did and while they were doing so they were lingua francas over those ranges. After they had a firm foothold the other languages were demoted in status to second languages or else disappeared. However there was always a range where the native language continued to be the first language. In cases like this, just when did the national language cease to be a lingua franca? If you go by the definition in our article every national language of earth is and always has been a lingua franca except in the phase before it expanded from the locality of its origin. If you go by political boundaries then lingua francas are only between sovereign nations and hence have a political definition. However, in many regions of Europe a language of another nation is used as a lingua franca. And what on earth do you do with Switzerland or Alsace? "Lingua franca" is a vague and analogous term and you have to define carefully what you mean by it. Is English in the states the lingua franca of the native american tribes, many of whom still speak a native language, or is it their national language, or just exactly what is it? We don't really address the philosophy of lingua franca on Wikipedia. So here we are blithely stating that this or that national language was a lingua franca between time x and time y and that Europe had 6 lingua francas, which leads to the second problem, the distinction between lingua francas and partial lingua francas in Europe. I don't know of any 3rd-party language used in all Europe at any time. I wouldn't even pick Latin as the general population of all Europe never communicated in Latin. Even the original lingua franca never had that range. So, Europe has had no lingua francas. Whoever put the tag on Spanish might just as well have put it on every single languge in the list. And if we are going to start listing national languages at some phase in their nation-building, then every language in Europe ought to be listed. I don't really know how to fix this section. It either says too little or too much. You have to start with the lingua franca article. So for the time being I am going to obliterate the blithe distinction between total and partial lingua francas. There aren't any total. Then I think they should be arranged by date and some comment made about whether this phase represents the formation of a national language. Now I can supply the requested ref on Spanish but the phase mentioned is actually the rise of Castilian in Spain and meso-America. It is still spoken there; moreover, many of the minority languages are still spoken there as well. Just when did it stop being a lingua franca? Let me ask you a question - what is Spanish to the Basques? National language? Lingua franca? First language? Second language? If it was ever a lingua franca, just when did it stop being so? Why isn't modern Spanish listed as a lingua franca for all of its history? Did the Poles or the Lithuanians ever communicate with the Russians in it? If not, why is it listed as a European lingua franca at all? If we are going to be shallow, let's keep it shallow and not make pretenses; if deep, then this section falls far short. I'm going to abolish some of the pretenses. Those of you with more of an interest in linguistics should definitely take the lingua franca concept in hand. Dave ( talk) 08:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
1867 is only the year of the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. They were stil debating whether to have Latin as the official language or Hungarian in the 19th century. This "officialdom" was strictly ornamental I am sure. The real issue was, German or Hungarian. So, the lingua franca would have been German. In general this item is unsat so I will have to rewrite it. If you want to check me see "Language planning and policy in Europe" By Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf, page 72. Dave ( talk) 10:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
The text on English as a European lingua franca explains the current status of English as a European lingua franca with references to American 'inventions', such as television and the internet, and to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These references should be further explained or removed. In addition, it is highly questionable whether television and the Internet are American inventions (see for example history of television). I have therefore removed the references to American 'inventions' and the First Amendment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.93.180.114 ( talk) 15:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I took this item out. The reason is that I could find no one at all to vouch for its use as a lingua franca. True, it is spread about in pockets through southern Europe in different countries. But, those are pockets of native language speakers. True, the original lingua franca contained elements of provencal. But, the lingua franca was lingua franca, not provencal. True, the songs and styles of the troubadors were spread about quite a bit. But, outside of the native range, song writers did not write in provencal or speak provencal to be understood, they imitated the genre in their own languages. No one in Valencia burst into Provencal to make himself understood by a visiting Sicilian. Dante wrote in Italian not Provencal. So, I took this item out. If you can find a ref for it, put in back in proper order. This gets us into the problem of defining a lingua franca. All the books I can find on it say it started as a pigin language. But, later it was expanded to mean any third-party language - not mine, not yours, but someone else's which we both understand, and not just for a few individuals but customarily. That is as far as it goes. It does not as far as I know apply to non-language items such as musical genres. Well, I can see why you might want to take this whole section out. But, isn't that not facing up to the task at hand, which is to fix a bad section? Modern languages do have heavy use as lingua francas, especially English. Dave ( talk) 03:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
About Dante and provençal, we should remeber that in "De vulgari eloquentia" Dante regards French, Provençal and Tuscan as the three important vernaculars; moreover, Arnaud Daniel in Purgatory, XXVI, 140-147, is the only character in the Comedy who speaks in mothertongue, different from Italian, because Dante knew Provençal well. Lele giannoni ( talk) 16:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, "lingua franca" is an Italian expression, not a Latin one: so, the original plural is "lingue franche". Moreover, Lingua Franca was mainly based on Italian and Italian dialects, mostly Venetian. See The "Online Etimology Dictionary". Lingua Franca was confused with Italian: e.g. John Reed in "The war in Eastern Europe" writes that in Thessalonika the different communities spoke each other in Italian. Likely, he mistook Lingua Franca for Italian. In fact in the Levant Lingua Franca was still used until Balcanic wars and First World War created national states which forbade Lingua Franca. If you put languages which are or were region-wide lingua franca, like Spanish and German, you should also put Italian, which was commonly spoken in an area wider than today (Monaco, Nizza, Corsica, Malta, Dalmatia, Ionian Isles) also before Italian became an official language in the XVIth century. Finally, I think you should explain that every class and field had a different common language: Latin was the language of the Catholic Church and the Universities; French was the language of aristocracy and diplomacy (e.g. the Almanach of Gotha); Lingua Franca was the language of Mediterranean merchants; Italian was the language of music. Only in recent times English has became a lingua franca for every purpose. Lele giannoni ( talk) 16:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
The name of this language is spelled wrongly on the map - it should be Breton. (Actually, I'm not sure it should really be on the map at all given that only around 5% of the population of Brittany speaks it nowadays, but that's another issue.) 108.254.160.23 ( talk) 05:21, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
It's still widely spoken in northern Italy with about a half million speakers according to its own article in Wikipedia.
Ok, I'm having another warning so lets discuss it as semi-decent humans. At least starting with Sardinian. Sardinian is a Romance language, noted for its conservatism and lack of particularly close genetic ties to Italian. It is widely recognized as a separate language, regulated, has a written standard and a co-official status. And yet, it is deleted along with the rest of Italian vernaculars as a "dialect". It can be labeled as such only for political reasons, if at all. I dare anyone to prove otherwise. 178.94.56.243 ( talk) 01:05, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
(ENG)Hello to everyone, I am a Sardinian speaker and, upon the invitation of a user, whom I thank for the thought, to read the discussion between the two anonymous users, I think the former has done the right thing to raise this issue. Replying briefly to the latter, instead, actually everybody agrees that Sardinian *is* a language, which, unlike the Italian dialects, pertains to the western branch of the Romance languages and is made up of two dialectal groups (just like many other languages which present some differentiations, mostly phonogical, within them) whose definition, if it weren't for the fact that they've already passed through a process of standardization, may be even called into question; plus, the point of the anonymous regarding the supposed non-existence of the language based on the lack of consensus for an accepted standard form is flawed, since it refers to *written* conventions which apply only to bureaucratic and extremly formal contexts and, being it considered as such, is obviously *not* meant to be spoken by anyone. Anyway, the policentric nature of Sardinian is, truth be told, a common problem faced by many minority languages across Europe, but that doesn't mean that they are not languages at all: Sardinian is and will be regarded as a language, whether it will not make it and perish or not, whether there is a standard or not. That being said, I am of the opinion that, just like the first anonymous asserted, Sardinian should be added to the number of European languages already present.
(SC)Salude a tottus, deo soe unu chi su sardu lu faeddat e, gràtzias a un'utente chi mi at cumbidadu a lèzere s'arresonu tra sos duos anonimos (e pro custu li torro gràtzia), penso chi su primu apat tottu sa resone de custu mundu a che pesàre su problema. Torrànde impòsta a s'atteru, imbètzes, a nàrrer sa veridade tottus sun de accordu chi su sardu *est* una limba, chi, a s'imbèsse de sos limbàzos (dialettos) italianos, pertènet a s'ala noulatìna de Ponente e lu fàchen duos grupos dialettales (comente a medas atteras limbas chi diffèrin, pro su prus fonologicamente, in intro) e sa definitzione issoro, si non fit pro su fattu chi sun issos etottu giai istandarditzàdos, podet èsser posta in dùda; in prus, su chi narat s'anonimu in meritu a sa supposta non esistentzia de su sardu ca non b'est accordu pro unu istandard ebbìa non bàlet, ca cussu sun regulas chi sèrbin a un'imprèu pètzi (solu) burocraticu e formale e, de custa manèra, non si chistiònat. Comùncas, sa natura policentrica de su sardu est unu problema chi tènen medas limbas de minorìa pèri tottu s'Europa, ma custu non bòlet nàrrer chi non sìan limbas: su sardu est e at a èsser tentu in cunsìderu comente una limba, chi non bi la podat fàcher e si estìngat o nono, chi bi apat unu istandard o nono. Nàu custu, deo soe de su pàrrer chi, comente su primu anonimu at affirmàdu, su sardu si depat pònner a costàzu (fiancu) de sas limbas europeas chi giai bi sun.
(If this, in your opinion, resembles an "Italian" dialect not even worthy to be mentioned, then it is clear that I have just wasted my time since 2009, and so have many users trying to make this encyclopedia a little more reliable. Have a nice day.)-- Dk1919 ( talk) 12:57, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Shouldn't the Sami language be in here?
How about Provencal (or is it included in catala) ? Pagan 07:34, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In the last section 8.10 'Issues in language politics', the word 'relais' seems to be used in the sense of 'relay'. Is this a simple typo or has a new word been created to denote the translation of one language into another and then into another (as the European Union is considering doing in future)?
The Image "Knowledge of French" makes French look more spread than it really is. The different percentages of French-speakers aren't distinguishable because even areas with about 10% French-knowers are coloured with a rather dark blue colour (compare this with the "Knowledge of German" image). The whole image seems a bit politically motivated to me, its creator might well be a part of the French-lobby. 'Knowledge' is a very broad term as well: I doubt that every 10th Swede, for instance, could read a French book. --Fennicus
Some language suggestions to add to the list of languages, that came up when I used this list for my Sporcle Quiz: Scots, Kurdish, Arabic, (West) Flemish, Lombard, Sicilian, Bashkir, Chechen, Avar, Kabardian, Dargwa, Udmurt, Kumyk, Mari, Lezgian, Karachay-Balkar, Komi-Zyrian, Kalmyk Oirat, Lak, Adyghe, Tabassaran. I suppose some of these are sometimes or often considered to be dialects. But especially those languages spoken in Russia seems to be quite distinct. Is Russia not considered to be European? Should I just add those to the list, or is there some reason they're missing? Bawm79 ( talk) 08:26, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
When I try to sort the number of speakers table by number of speakers, it sorts it alphabetically rather than numerically (i.e. 9,000,000 is above 700,000 is above 70,000 is above 5,000,000). — Preceding unsigned comment added by R160K ( talk • contribs) 00:36, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Scots, Scottish Gaelic, English and Cornish do not have any "official" status anywhere in the UK - R160K ( talk) 00:48, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I removed the expression "On the crossroads of Europe and Asia" related to the transcaucasic countries. As written on the talk page, this article deals with countries in Europe according to a certain, pre-discussed definition of Europe, which can be either geographical or political. In the first case, the right term is "transcontinental" and does not apply to Armenia (see Archives on Talk:Armenia about reached consensus about its geographic location, which is in Asia), in the second, we don't need it, since all three countries are fully European. I hope that this concept is clear. Alex2006 ( talk) 05:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
I would like to add this link to the page as it contains a detailed map of languages which this page does not have. There should be a detailed alternative to the basic map. I am certainly not saying we should clog the article with unimportant details I just suggest he addition od a furtherly detailed map as n alternative to the current one
(Link in question: [8])
Thanks 86.128.208.209 ( talk) 21:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
This article includes maps on how many people speak a number of different European languages. The data for this comes from the Eurobarometer, a survey in the European Union. I removed the maps for Polish and German, as they clearly did not represent the data, thus violating WP:OR. I hope they can be re-added, but then in correct format, corresponding to the maps for other languages. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is about sourced facts, not about truth. Jeppiz ( talk) 16:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
The data is irritatingly wrong. E.g. french is reported with 60 million speakers, whereas the source said 60 million in France, adding another 6 mio in Belgium and Switzerland further down the same page. This error seams to be systematically and concerns all/many languages. Before starting to change, let me ask, whether any reasoning about this issue has already been made? Nillurcheier ( talk) 15:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
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European Russia has 110 million people. How it comes that Europe has only 95 million Russian speakers? Also Ukraine has 40 million people all of whom speak Russian.-- 2A02:2168:83F:8428:0:0:0:1 ( talk) 21:19, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Why Malta is painted green on the map?-- 5.228.254.180 ( talk) 10:12, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I have tagged the "Number of speakers" table with {{ Refimprove}} and {{ Original research}}. This is because, although the table claims to display "the number of speakers of a given European language in Europe only", most of the figures have one or more of the following problems:
I suggest it would be better to simply remove all the unreferenced figures from the table until such time as they can be replaced with referenced figures. No information is better than obviously false information or wild-assed guessing. Another temporary solution would be to use the (referenced) global speaker populations to give upper bounds on the number of speakers, and to clearly mark them as such (using < or ≪). — Psychonaut ( talk) 08:10, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
The table is still bad. Using Ethnologue is never ideal, especially not for Europe (Ethnologue is open in saying that Europe is not a prioritised area and some of its information for Europe has not been updated for decades) so it's a bit shaky as WP:RS. Still, if the idea is to use Ethnologue, then why are different sources used for a few languages while 90% go by Ethnologue data. Given that those that use different sources always use sources that report higher numbers than Ethnologue, it looks very much like a POV-push to inflate these languages (Catalan, for instance). If the source is Ethnologue, then the logic thing is to use that source for all languages, not just some. Jeppiz ( talk) 19:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
This one is the most urgent - let's say Azerbaijan and the Russian Caucasus are in Europe, sure. But most of the 24,000,000+ speakers as given live in Iran, and plenty live in Central Asia, Anatolia, the US and elsewhere. This puts Azerbaijani as one of the most spoken languages in Europe... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.198.68 ( talk) 00:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
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I think diaspora languages from the Middle East (Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Aramaic, etc.) should be removed, if not have any legal status in EU. Because there are so many diaspora people in the EU from different regions of the world: East Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, North Africa...Either we should mention all the diaspora languages, or we should remove Middle Eastern diaspora ones. Because it is grossy misleading. 52.66.254.71 ( talk) 09:42, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
References
Well, first of all, this is not about the EU. There is a separate article Languages of the European Union for that. This is just about the de facto languages spoken in Europe. But I agree that it is very difficult to find reliable data on immigrant languages in Europe. There is some census data, but community sizes are systematically underestimated due to the gigantic scale of illegal immigration to Europe. Nobody knows how many people even are in Europe, and authorities have little incentive to invest any effort in this because it would just serve to enrage their citizens and destabilize their countries.
But of course this doesn't excuse us from citing such sources as we have, we just need to present them with the proper caveats. E.g. the Russian census cites 830k Armenian speakers, but the true number is likely closer to 2 million, nobody can be sure. France cites about 4 million Arabic speakers, but the number might just as likely be twice that, not to mention Germany, where there are now probably millions of Arabic speakers too, but nobody is willing to count them. The best estimate we can give on Arabic in Europe is "millions", Arabic is very likely in the top 20 languages in Europe by number of speakers, so I guess this makes it relevant to the article topic.
The only other immigrant language with > 1 million speakers is probably Armenian, perhaps also Kurdish, and Hindi+Urdu if you count it as a single language. After that, there are lots of languages with several 100k speakers scattered all over Western Europe and/or Russia.
Obviously, every language in the world will have some scattered speakers in Europe, the point isn't to list them all, but to get a decent impression of which immigrant languages are the most significant, say with communities of several 100k speakers. -- dab (𒁳) 07:07, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
After cleaning up the "list of languages", I note that the Italian dialects (Venetian, Sicilian, etc.) are listed as separate languages, even though their speakers are also included in the L1 sum total for Italian. At the same time, the German dialects (Bavarian, Swabian, etc.) are not listed separately (I just added a note to their being included in the German L1 total [exceptions: Luxembourgish and Yiddish are High German variants listed as separate entries]).
I have no preference as to how to handle this, but it should be handled consistently. If we treat as a separate "language" anything with an ISO 639-3 code, we will have to list the German dialects just as well as the Italian ones. These speakers will still all be included in figures of German and Italian speakers, and we would just have to add a caveat to this effect. -- dab (𒁳) 07:10, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
First, this is not a discussion to change anything, rather a discussion to first discover if change is needed and only then to discuss how to change. There is a pretty clear problem with the article, though not a clear solution. The problem is that the table is so wrong it's absurd. To take a few examples:
These examples are just some of the more obvious errors. I doubt anyone familiar with any of the languages I mention will dispute that the figures are completely disconnected from reality. Part of the problem, of course, is that we use the notoriously unreliable source of Ethnologue, but here is also where it gets tricky. Ethnologue has one big advantage and one big disadvantage.
So the problem is obvious, in that we have a table with some accurate figures, of course, but also lots of highly inaccurate claims. The solution is less obvious. I don't know of any other source with data for all languages. Without a source, it's just OR. One option might be to delete the column with number of speakers, but that's hardly ideal either. So what should we do? Pretend all is well even though we know it's not? Try to find another source? Insert a small paragraph pointing out that the table is imperfect? Jeppiz ( talk) 19:32, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
The errors need to be fixed, of course. References should be impooved, and problems should be explained to the reader. The Armenian thing was just vandalism and should have been reverted. The Celtic claims, I understand, concern children who have been painstakingly socialized in these languages and are now claimed as native speakers. Details and criticism of such claims are welcome. The dialectal demography is woefully fuzzy and better references are welcome, the rough SIL figures are just a minimal placeholder. We can improve this but it needs to happen carefully, and step by laborious step. -- dab (𒁳) 13:08, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Great care has been taken to only list speakers geographically in Europe. This is complicated by diaspora populations due to recent migration, which have their own section. Yes, tehre are about 10 million native speakers of Arabic in Europe Nevertheless, Arabic does not get an entry in the "list of languages" because these communities are dispersed migrant communities with no homeland in Europe. (this may change in the future, e.g. if France or Belgium give Arabic official regional status in heavily Arabic-dominated parts of their territory, but the list is supposed to represent the situation now, not at some hypothetical future time).
Exactly the same situation holds for Armenian, Georgian, Tamil, etc. etc. Please don't cite "total number of speakers" in the list. Yes, Armenian has "7 million native speakers", but then English has "400 million native speakers", i.e. worldwide. Native speakers of English in Europe number 60 million, in the UK and Ireland. Armenian speakers in Europe number about 1 million, and consist almost entirely of the Armenian diaspora of migrant workers in the Russian Federation.
Turkish is the most difficult case, as it has both 12 million native speakers in European Turkey, and 3 million native speakers in non-European immigrant communities in Western Europe (mostly Germany).
Please respect the scope of this list, and use list of languages by number of speakers to cover worldwide number of speakers. -- dab (𒁳) 10:37, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
User:JJ 25, you cite Ethnologue for a number of 12 million L1 speakers of Armenian in Europe. However, the source in question has "3,140,000 in Armenia (2001 census). Population total all countries: 5,900,080." [9], it follows that at most 2.8 million Armenian speakers can be in Europe. In reality, there is about 1 million, i.e. the disaspora community in Russia and Ukraine, which is duly mentioned under "immigrant languages".
Misrepresenting the content of references is quite serious misbehaviour if done on purpose. Please be more careful. You cite, without reference, that "Armenian is an official minority language in the following countries: Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Ukraine". I would be interested in this claim, please feel free to cite appropriate references for this. Please also note that "Europe" is a geographical term, while "Indo-European" is a linguistic one. Hindi is not a "language of Europe", but Kalmyk is, because India is not geographically in Europe, while Kalmykia is. Please do not re-insert your unreferenced material, or misrepresentation of the content of SIL Ethnologue. If this was an honest mistake, please learn from it and try to research and discuss your contributions. -- dab (𒁳) 11:20, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
The map with the isocodes is not an improvement in any way over the other map (well, apart from showing iso codes). It's less accurate in many regions (Brittany is French speaking, not Breton speaking; Irish Gaelic is not nearly as widespread; indicating that Russian speakers are spread throughout Estonia is just plain wrong etc.) The other map is by far more accurate for current language use in Europe. Jeppiz ( talk) 23:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
It is an improvement in almost every way, because the map you keep restoring is unreferenced. You may want to review the image page and see exactly how much effort went into making it fully based on actual references. The map uses hatching to represent the presence of significant bilingualism. The hatching doesn't indicate a specific percentage, so it isn't clear how you would gauge just how "widespread" Breton is being represented as in the map. The hatching in the map has been hand-crafted following File:Percentage of breton speakers in the breton countries in 2004.png. Etc. You are perfectly free to further improve it, e.g. by introducing various types of hatching based on percentage. You will find that you will spend a week of work on improving the granularity of information represented, only to face increased criticism because increased density of information in the map will mean more details will be open to criticism.
While we do not have any linguistic map that is "perfect", the map you seem to prefer, File:Languages1.svg, is completely unreferenced. It originated as a rough paint job in 2008 [10]. In 2015, someone added a sprinkling of minority languages [11]. Then in 2017, someone else added "Detailization and corrections on most countries", without any tractable references.
We now end up with a highly detailed map of Europe that would be completely unable to withstand any kind of criticism remotely similar to the kind you apply to the map that replaces insanely accurate division of terrain by hatching and bases this on actual references listed on the image talkpage. -- dab (𒁳) 09:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
@ Nonemansland: Could you help us in this discussion by sharing with us the sources you used in the compilation of your splendid language map File:Languages1.svg? Batternut ( talk) 22:29, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Some ad hominem remarks |
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Hi, Dartsss. Before adding again the map in Europe#Languages, we should have a consensus here.
You added references in the map description about the Catalan language, but they don't match with the map. For example, why did you mark Garrotxa as Spanish-speaking when everyone there knows that is one of the most Catalan-speaking regions? Your regions seem to be completely invented and they don't have nothing to do with the sources you provided later.
As Jeppiz said a year ago, the map should be removed, until this point and the last year points are sourced. -- FogueraC ( talk) 15:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
As FogueraC says, and as I pointed out a year ago, there are numerous errors with the maps. There is absolutely no consistency whatsoever. In some countries, only one language is show even though many are spoken. In others, the opposite is true. To take but one (of many) examples: why do we not show the Hungarian minority in Romania (a regional majority, large area, lots of speakers) while we do show speakers of Gaelic in the Scottish Highlands (below 10% even in the Highlands). It just doesn't make any sense at all. And why on earth do we claim that the area around St Petersburg isn't Russian speaking? Some of my ancestors came from there, and they spoke Ingrian and Finnish - 120 years ago. Today it's completely Russian. For now, I'm removing the first two maps. The rest of the maps are a bit better, but the first two are misleading to the point of no maps at all being preferable. Jeppiz ( talk) 14:16, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Whether the Caucasus is in Europe or not is one matter... but why are the North Caucasian languages included in the non-Indo-European section whereas Kartvelian languages are not? Is there a specific reason? 81.156.88.100 ( talk) 23:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
I'm a little confused with the last column of the table (Official Status > Regional), since contrary to its name it contains a very mixed bag of entries, including regional languages (i.e. official in a specific administrative region/municipality), minority languages (i.e. recognised/protected languages of minorities) and even languages with no official status at all. Although some minority languages are also official/co-official in a regional level (or sometimes just in municipal level), that's not always the case and that's definitely not clear in the table. I think that we should either update the name of the column, or be more consistent in the entries included. Any opinions? -- Argean ( talk) 09:01, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
@ TU-nor and KIENGIR: let's start with this -- the table says 23 million Azeris. There are only 10 million inhabitants of Azerbaijan, not all of whom are ethnic Azeris as we also have Lezgins, Juhuris, Talysh, etc etc. Most of the rest are in Iran. Okay some expansive definitions of Europe include all of Azerbaijan, not just the 1/3 of it north of the Greater Caucasus -- sure. Side note: I take issue with the fact that we are using the most possibly expansive definition with regard to the South Caucasus so as to include Armenia, yet somehow this does not apply to Turkey -- I don't think there is any definition of Europe that includes Armenia but not Anatolian Turkey. That aside, I also don't think there is a single definition of Europe that includes Iranian Azerbaijan in Europe. But correct me if I'm wrong?-- Calthinus ( talk) 05:07, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
I am currently able to access Internet only periodically, but just now I have a very limited "window". I agree that the traditional geographical definition currently used in the article is not necessarily the best (and certainly not the only) possible definition. It gives, however, well-defined inclusion criteria. I have nothing against including countries or parts of countries outside the current definition, but only if it can be done according to a new definition (or new inclusion criteria) that is supported by reliable sources. "I think country X should be included" is not an acceptable argument. We should not be discussing which countries or parts of countries to include, but the criteria themselves. -- T*U ( talk) 16:07, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
Today, Europe is home to the citizens of Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and Vatican City.-- so, for Nat Geographic, which is honestly a less controversial source than political organizations, Turkey, Cyprus and Russia are in, South Caucasus is out. I'm not saying this is what we should do. I'm demonstrating how RS ... go both ways.-- Calthinus ( talk) 00:46, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
"Europe" is taken as a geographical term, defined by the conventional Europe-Asia boundary along the Caucasus and the Urals..... and then the two Armenian lines and the inclusion of Azeris all the way into Iran pretty flagrantly violated that. Long standing is more of an embarrassment in that case. If you state a policy on a page, you follow it.-- Calthinus ( talk) 01:04, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Before my edit, no, the page was not consistent with pages like Geography of Europe because it excluded Turkey. I am not unambiguously calling for the S Caucasus to be excluded. What I was disputing here was KIENGIR's assertion that relevant RS widely do not consider Turkey to be "European" while applying the term to the S Cauc-- apolitical Nat Geo does the opposite and it is apolitical National Geographic-- unlike CoE, as TU-nor pointed out. Nevertheless I have indicated that I can support a position where we do use a geopolitical definition which broadly includes the S Cauc, Turkey and Cyprus (but on no grounds whatsoever Iranian Azerbaijan) -- this I believe is where I diverge from TUnor who doesn't want us changing definitions for convenience, and from KIENGIR on Turkey specifically. What I cannot accept is this hybrid gerrymandered definition where clearly non-geographic considerations are applied for 4 countries but not the one enormous country that separates all 4 of them from the bulk of Europe-- and worse, even East Thrace appears excluded for calculating speakers of Bulgarian, Bosniak, etc. As I have demonstrated, RS dont actually back this weird gerrymander -- and Nat Geo does the inverse. We either use a broad geopolitical definition ( all 5 in), geographic (all 5 out except for E Thrace, Quba/etc, and Tusheti/Svaneti/etc), a consistent geographic+RS "acceptance" (Cyprus in, the other 4 are disputed), or a narrow geopolitical definition (again only Cyprus is in). No double standards, no gerrymandered "continents". Id like to point out that in linguistic typology -- since this is a language page -- there is again an argument for specifically Cyprus being in "Europe" (specifically Greek being part of the Balkan sprachbund) and none of the others (the Caucasus has it's own speech area which is quite different typologically from both the Near East and from Europe). Also, I'd be willing to consider a separate table for these 5 states (again, not grouping them with Siberia and Kazakhstan, which they have obviously nothing to do with) as a sort of compromise.-- Calthinus ( talk) 17:44, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
of course I am open to help Archives908. I did forget about this. -- Calthinus ( talk) 23:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Name |
ISO- 639 |
Classification | Speakers in expanded geopolitical Europe | Official status | ||
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L1 | L1+L2 | National [nb 1] | Regional | |||
Abkhaz | ab | Northwest Caucasian, Abazgi | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Adyghe (West Circassian) | ady | Northwest Caucasian, Circassian | ![]() |
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Albanian | sq | Indo-European, Albanian | ![]() |
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Arabic | ar | Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, West | ![]() |
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Armenian | hy | Indo-European, Armenian | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Azerbaijani | az | Turkic, Oghuz | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Batsbi | bbl | Northeast Caucasian, Nakh | ![]() |
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Bulgarian | bg | Indo-European, Slavic, South | ![]() |
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Crimean | crh | Turkic, Kipchak | ![]() |
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Georgian | ka | Kartvelian, Karto-Zan | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Greek | el | Indo-European, Hellenic | ![]() ![]() |
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Juhuri | jdt | Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Southwest | ![]() |
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Kurdish | kur | Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Northwest | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Laz | lzz | Kartvelian, Karto-Zan, Zan | ![]() ![]() |
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Meglenian | ruq | Indo-European, Italic, Romance, East | ![]() |
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Mingrelian | xmf | Kartvelian, Karto-Zan, Zan | ![]() ![]() |
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Pontic Greek | pnt | Indo-European, Hellenic | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Romani language and Domari language | rom, dmt | Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indic | ![]() |
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Russian | ru | Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Slavic | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Svan | sva | Kartvelian, Svan | ![]() ![]() |
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Tat | ttt | Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Southwest | ![]() |
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Turkish | tr | Turkic, Oghuz | ![]() ![]() |
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I'm confused. Wikipedia usually treats Serbo-Croatian as one language, but in this article, section List of languages to be exact, treats Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin as separate languages and lists only number of speakers of those languages, for which Wikipedia says are only "dialects" or "standardized varieties" of Serbo-Croatian, but there is no Serbo-Croatian in this list. Is there a specific reason for this? Should Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin be treated as separate languages or be under Serbo-Croatian as it is common on Wikipedia and among Western linguists? -- Thebeon ( talk) 19:56, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Hello. Information about Oghuz languages is incomplete. My suggestion is:
What would be your opinions? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meurglys8 ( talk • contribs) 12:02, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
@ L2212: According to Glottolog, Ethnologue, and the Endangered Languages Project, Campidanese and Logudorese Sardinian are considered separate (though related) languages, at least from a linguistic standpoint. ~Red of Arctic Circle System ( talk) 03:08, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
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![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
I don't see it... 65.101.174.47 23:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
In the list, Why is galician show as "son" of the portuguese? although both have the same origin ( Galician-Portuguese), they are diferent languages. Also, the Fala language is often considerated a galician dialect, not portuguese -- Alyssalover (talk) 08:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
1. ...Croatian (e.g. léta he flies, is flying with long rising accent vs. lêta years with long falling accent) and Slovenian (e.g. sûda of the vessel with long falling accent vs. súda of the court with long rising accent)... — words used in these examples are wrong. The supposed Slovene words are definitely not Slovene (vessel = posoda, genitive: posode; court = sodišče, genitive: sodišča). They probably aren't correct Croatian either (vessel = posuda, posuđe, genitive: posude, posuđa (should be verified with a native speaker of Croatian); court = sud, genitive: suda). In the first Croatian example: 'to fly' is leteti, 'he flies' would be (on) leti. I don't think leto exists in Croatian, 'year' is godina and 'summer' is ljeto (leto means year in Slovene and 'summer' in Serbian).
2. ...Cz. restaurace, Slow. Slovenian reštaurácia, ... — is Slow. intended for Slovak? Slovenian 'restaurant' is restavracija and it probably isn't same as in Slovak. NikNovi 15:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Since this is a geographical grouping, I don't see why languages that belong to so-called "European language families" but are spoken outside Europe are included. This includes the three examples given in the opening paragraph, Afrikaans, Pennsylvania German and Persian (Persian is there because of the migration of the Ossetians into the Caucasus, but that doesn't make Persian a European language; Afrikaans etc. because of migrations out of Europe, but, again, Afrikaans is not a European language). The relationships of these languages with European languages are important but they are dealt with in articles such as Iranian languages, Germanic languages.
There is a second question: does a modern migration make a language into a European language, or are languages brought to Europe by modern migrations excluded? Something needs to be said about this. Andrew Dalby 12:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
"Most of the many indigenous languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family."
Wikipedia article on indigenous languages says that: "An indigenous language is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples"
Is there any indigenous Indo-European languages (in Europe)? There are of course several Finno-Ugric indigenous languages and Basque might be one too, so the sentence seems to be just plain wrong. Even if indigenous meens something else, why shouldn't other language groups and Basque not be in the introduction? 213.243.181.212 21:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Which is the context? Merge with what? It is possible that someone removed the 1st line. -- Antonielly 13:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Why is Norwegian Bokmål mentioned specifically and not Norwegian Nynorsk? I know that there is some discussion about which category Norwegian Nynorsk should be in, but it looks very odd to just leave it out. - Nidator 16:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC) -
This is an interesting idea, but the "cultural-anthropological definition of Europe" with which this section begins is unreferenced. Since it excludes more than half of geographical Europe it appears to be a bad definition. In fact it looks more like a definition of "the parts of western Europe that we like", therefore none too neutral. Am I being unfair? Andrew Dalby 20:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
This page is a disgrace for Wikipedia, an article of such relative importance as the languages of Europe should not be allowed to look this bad. The second half of the article may very well be a copyright violation, it reads exactly as if it was taken from a book - note in particular the frequent use of "we may assume" and similar sentences. The only thing that speaks against the article being a copyright violation is the wast amount of errors. Saying that the Irish alphabet is still used in many books is completely wrong, it has hardly been used in any new books for the last 40 years.
The author even appears to be unaware of the fact that all Slavic Orthodox nations are Europeans
- he talks about features being common to European cultures, but then points out that they also appear among Orthodox Slavic nations. Neither does the author seem to have any insight into European minority languages. Frisian is listed as being in a weak position while many much weaker languages are listed as being in a strong position.
The author also implies that Flemish would be a weak language in Belgium.
These are only some of the countless errors, and then I haven't even begun to list the statements without sources. If not major improvements to the text is made, the second half of the article, starting with Common Features of European Languages, should be deleted. JdeJ 15:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I've tried to reorganize the contributions on languages in Europe a little bit: see European languages. I added the various definitions used for Europe and put the list of languages in a separate article. I also deleted the information in the article Eurolinguistics, so that it doesn't occur in the Wikipedia twice. I hope everybody is happy with this. -- Sinatra 12:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I was bold and restored the page to a version before the edits by User:Sinatra. IMHO, the article "Languages of Europe" should really describe the languages of Europe, and not the languages of Central and Western Europe. Btw, does the redirect American languages refer to Indigenous languages of the Americas or to Indigenous languages in the United States of America? -- zeno 21:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Dear Sinatra, I generally appreciate if specialists in certain fields contribute to Wikipedia. But sometimes they are biased and try to present their views as the generally valid views on a certain topic. I have the feeling that while you may have worked a lot in the research of European languages, you try to push a certain view into Wikipedia which is not at all shared by the majority of linguistic researchers. I think it is a little bit problematic to rely on and cite one's own work that much in a Wikipedia article. Are you sure your book is so relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe? Hint: You may be biased.
I have no problems with mentioning relevant minority views in articles (that should generally be the case in Wikipedia!), however, they should be presented as such. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. I would also like to point out that the approach of Eurolinguistics, especially your interpretation of it, is not shared by most linguists. As I have heard, many linguists have not even heard that the "discipline" of Eurolinguistics exists.
For example, mentioning it in the first sentence of an article about the languages of Europe is not in the interest of our readers, who want to learn about European languages, and not about a rather obscure branch of linguistics.
If you want to elaborate on the opinions shared by the people who work under the label of Eurolinguistics, it might the best to do it in the article " Eurolinguistics", but not here. But be prepared that also there you may have to live with the fact that other people may have different opinions on the matter.
With kind regards, -- zeno 12:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
If we followed this logic, then we would have to mention several different definitions of "Europe" in every article that covers some European topic.
The crucial point here is: The two reviews were not published in a widely accepted linguistic journal, but in an online journal of which you are (1) the editor and (2) the author of about 50 % of articles. To put it in other words: Your own, private publication.
The eurolinguists you cite may be prominent in the small community that operates under the label " Eurolinguistics", but I am not sure whether this makes your book relevant to the topic "European languages"/"Languages of Europe".
As I see the matter, it is disputable whether Eurolinguistics is to be considered a proper branch of linguistics. Maybe "Eurolinguistics" is better described as a small community of researchers.
Best regards, -- zeno 15:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Who are they? Using Google, I could not find any. Please give me their names, either here, or via WP-E-Mail. With kind regards, -- zeno 10:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
It has been suggested that List of languages in Europe and Alphabetic list of living languages in Europe be merged into this article or section.
Reasoning: the other two lists make assertions that aren't supported, mainly in regards to numbers of people using them. Since this article is almost completely formatted as a list already, they seem redundant and easy targets to POV pushing. Since it's not very likely that they will be sourced, the best solution is to simply redirect them here and find citations for this article to support any claims about usage numbers. 24.4.253.249 20:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I recently cleaned up Category:Romance languages and List of Romance languages. I am going to move all correct information from this list to List of Romance languages and then i'll put back whatever is relevant for Europe. -- Amir E. Aharoni 17:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe the proper term should be "Romance" and not "Romanic." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Facial ( talk • contribs) 07:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
What about the 140,000 chinese speakers in Ireland alone? There are more people speaking Chinese than Gaelic in Ireland yet they are not even mentioned in this article. 83.70.219.91 00:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
-hardly, in the latest Irish census, 1,650,000 Irish people claimed to be fluent in Irish, and over 500,000 claimed to use the language daily. (I don't know how to do these things, but I'll put the date and my name if it helps. (10/9/2007 - Paul) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.176.93 ( talk) 03:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Section General issues - Issues in language politics Sorry, but that's laughable. Esperanto was and is never seriously debated as an official language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.46.30 ( talk) 19:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
After the war in Kosovo, a large number of primarily Serbian speaking people have left the region. I recommend someone look at Wikipedia's own web page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Kosovo so that a more accurate mapping of the region can be made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.149.235 ( talk) 04:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The area for Catalan in the main map is wrong, as well as its merging with provençal. The map that represents only the romance languages is right and very good. I don't know how to change the main map, but someone who knows should do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.159.136.238 ( talk) 07:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I am removing this map from the page and moving it here for the moment because it is misleading. A map is of course useful, but this one is misleading. If only a single map is used, it should show the *predominant*, not minority languages for each area. Therefore, the language for the entirety of the British Isles should be shown as English - the *majority* of people in Wales, Scotland and Ireland speak English as their first and (in most cases) only language.
And this is just the area I am familiar with - if this is anything to go by the entire map is unreliable.
On the flip side, the map also suggests stark boundaries that simply don't exist in multi-lingual countries where two or more languages are either the official languages or are widely spoken.
TO summarise: good idea, but the data used is wildy innacurate. Perhaps it would be better to have a series of smaller maps showing the spread of each language, with gradations of colour/tone for what percentage of people speak that language in that particular zone (ie a high percentage (dark) blue for German-speaking people in germany, a lighter blue for German-speaking people in Switzerland, since it is only one of serveral official languages there, and not everyone speaks it)
Thanks - PocklingtonDan 16:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
What the map appears to represent is a classification of 'native dialects' in a simplified taxonomy. The part classified as Dutch in northwestern France is for instance accurate as a classification of original native dialects, which are dialects of Dutch, but these dialects have nearly completely been replaced by standard French in public life over the last century. Furthermore the Dutch taxon subsumes language cousins (Low Saxon, Limburgish) not generally considered 'Dutch' by their speakers (or by the Dutch for that matter). Same with the English, Italian language area, and probably many others. In most cases of argued language overlap we find local dialects belonging to one language group overlapped by a standard administrative language taught in schools from another one. There is merit in having a map based on the classification of native dialects, even if these have largely disappeared in public life in favour of a standard language from another group, but to make the classification principle more obvious it would be nice to add a map representing the dominant language in public life. In this map Dutch would for instance not appear in France, while Frisian would be reduced to the province of Fryslan in the Netherlands, where it is an administrative language and taught in schools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.18.192.124 ( talk) 10:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The main map is false-in Poland the Upper Silesian region has minority languages and dialects, not the Lower Silesia one, also in both Ukraine and Poland Polish language areas are missing.-- Molobo ( talk) 14:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
The map showing Spanish should be removed at it is not accurate. Russian is more widely spoken than Spanish so I have no idea why Spanish was included next the three working languages of the E.U. (English, French, German). Including a map makes Spanish look more important than it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 ( talk) 10:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I've added Russian and Italian to make this article less bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 ( talk) 12:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
If changes are being made to the map, I would request that Maltese be displayed as a distinct language (as befits its position as an official language within the European Union and national language of a sovereign state). Thanks ^_^ the roof of this court is too high to be yours ( talk) 09:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
The recently added map suffers from several problems. What's the idea behind coloring some areas in a single color and using stripes for other areas? I guess it's to give the idea of more than one language being spoken in some areas, but in that case I must call for major revisions. Let me give a few examples
I think the map is a foundation to build on, but the present version needs to be revised. The most important thing is to have proper definitions for when using one color, when using stripes and to define which languages should or should not be market. All of that is lacking at the moment, making the map a bit confusing. JdeJ ( talk) 10:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The map Image:CelGerLatSla europe.PNG is stupid. What is the green area labeled "Celtic" supposed to represent??? It certainly doesn't represent the area in which the main language spoken is Celtic! The creator of this map seems to be deeply confused about the status of Gallego... In other cases, there is a fatal tendency to follow current national boundaries. AnonMoos 00:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
The first (uppermost) map contains a quite important error. There is no Danish-spoken minority in Scania (the southernmost peninsula of Sweden). The local dialect, “Scanian”, have been claimed to be an own language. However, persons claiming so did not arrive to that conclusion in the ordinary linguistic way. Please don’t accuse me for being a language denier as some nationalistic politicians! Scanian is close enough to standard Swedish to be mutually understandable. Since there is no Scanian writing standard it should be considered a dialect, not a language of its own. (The word “Scanian” was invented by me for this propose. I did not know any English word for the Swedish dialect of Scania.)
2006-11-06 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
There is two ways of defining language. One is language as a social construct: a variety defines itself as language by creating it’s own rules of writing. However, by this definition there would not be any non-written languages. The other way is as a group of mutually understandable dialects. I myself use the first definition for written language and the second for non-written ones. By this definition Scanian is not a language of it's own. Your expression “ Danish minority” is misleading, Scanians does not view themselves as Danish! They might be proud of being Scanian but they don't want independence from Sweden. In other words there is no “Scanian Republican Army” or anything such.
2007-05-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
What did you get that from? My mum is a Scanian an she does NOT perceive herself as a Dane. I have visited Scania at least once a year for 25 years and I can’t remember meeting any locals who call themselves Danes! Furthermore, I have never heard of any groups working for the independence of Scania. According to my mum there is such a group but it is really marginal. About Scanian being a Danish dialect I don’t think all linguists agree with you. I have read an essay by a Swedish one who don’t.
2007-08-11 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
Sorry, but the Jamtlandic Republican Army is not meant to be taken seriously. If Jamtlandic should be considered a Swedish or Norwegian dialect is probably a matter of definition. In this case I don’t know what most linguists would say.
2008-01-19 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
The map previously discussed has been replaced by a more reliable one. However, it does show several minority languages as if they where regional majority languages so it can still be improved upon.
2009-04-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
The current map Image:Languages of Europe no legend.png is unfortunately filled with errors. I must confess to not being an expert on the sociolinguistic situation in every country, but let me mention a few of those I know fairly well. I'll also point out that I started writing this assuming good faith of the creator, but by the time I got to Belgium I found it hard to do so. The driving force behind this map appears to be German nationalism.
Ok, I'm tired and I don't think I have to go on much longer. The point is that this map is just a bad joke combined with German irredentism, it's a complete disgrace for Wikipedia and should be deleted. Sorry if I sound a bit bitter but this map is regularely removed from various articles, only to appear at another article in a while, and I've getting tired of argumenting against all the stupidities in it. While I normally encourage all contributions to Wikipedia, I can't help thinking that it would have bettn better if the creator of this map would have bothered to check the facts before making the whole thing up. JdeJ ( talk) 22:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Why does the current map respects some natural borders and ignore the others? It separates European and Asian territories of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, but includes all of Georgia, Azerbaijan which are only transcontinental like the other three and all of Armenia, Cyprus which have no territory in Europe.
The map should either;
1. use natural borders ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Map_of_Europe_%28political%29.png)
2. include all transcontinental countries totally (possibly along with Cyprus and Armenia)
I'll try to edit and do it 2nd way. -- Mttll ( talk) 23:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
If you want to delete for example the historicaly Alsatian German regions of France than you should also delete the Sorbian area in Eastern Germany - because in Lusatia 95% of the populatian have German as native language and mostly don't know any Sorbian and only 5% are native Sorbian speakers, who all know German on native-level. 195.243.51.34 ( talk) 14:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
This map is a master disaster- German is not spoken in all of Trentino-South Tirol nor all of Alsace-Lorraine but in the northern province of Bozen and most of Alsace along with French and a small part of Lorraine along with French. There is no way the Fruali is spoken by that many people and what about Ladin.. The map is a real disaster... not like this has not been mentioned but nothing has been changed!
Dear linguists, you are the politest bunch of bickerers I have yet seen on Wikipedia. Too bad I have not seen more of it. I've seen some of you in other contexts. Maybe the vicious treatment I received then made you feel guilty. My goodness I am impressed by the high quality of the bickerers. Now the task is to get the article to match the quality of their credentials. The first thing I notice is what someone else above spotted immediately, very few references. Wikipedia is different from your usual publications, my friends. Speaking as linguists your offhand opinions are treasured by crowds of language enthusiasts who can't wait to shower money on you for it. Speaking as Wikipedia editors no one gives a rat's tail just what you may think and you must do it for free. But, here you are, so thank you for being here. You cannot quote yourselves but maybe you can quote each other. If you expect this to be a good article by Wikipedia standards you better start quoting someone. I just happened to drop by here on my way through some Latin articles hoping to correct any obvious weaknesses. That means I basically started with the templates. Now in investigating a dubious-discuss tag I find no discussion. No discussion? What, you can call for a discussion and then forget about it? Oh no. We are going to discuss, at least I am. I see here that some minority languages are strong (not named) and some are weak! But, the section doesn't use any definitions (in addition to the English being bad). I see we are using some German concepts in German. I'm dazzled by their brilliance; if you intended to impress I'm impressed, but I don't understand their use here and I dare say no one else will either. We need to lose our committment to bad language articles, if it would not cut in on your profits too much. But what is THIS I read? The Turks and the Scots are weak? You singled out the two toughest warrior peoples in all of Europe and called them weak? What's the matter with you! You'll be trying to dodge a Turk on the one hand and a Scot on the other. First of all it is very unclear what you mean and why you brought it up. Second, why do you use strong and weak? Are those professional terms? How are they strong, how are they weak? We need some better writing in this section without the dubious implications. Strong and weak verbs I understand, strong and weak minorities I do not at all. I will try to clarify a little but only as a quick fix. That's the problem with Wikipedia, everything you try to quick fix turns into a major project. If you want to be linguist contributors and not linguist cover models you might take a hand here. Dave ( talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC) PS - I just received a message. I did it this way so you wouldn't be overwriting me even as I typed - but you found a way around that, didn't you? I suggest you swiftly take this article in hand to improve it. Dave ( talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
A minority language can be defined as a language used by a group that defines itself as an ethnic minority group, whereby the language of this group is typologically different and not a dialect of the standard language. In Europe some languages are in quite a strong position, in the sense that they are given special status, (e.g. Basque, Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Rhaeto-Romance/Romansh), whereas others are in a rather weak position (e.g. Frisian, Scottish Gaelic, Turkish) dubious – discuss—especially allochthonous minority languages are not given official status in the EU (in part because they are not part of the cultural heritage of a civilization). Some minor languages don’t even have a standard yet, i.e. they have not even reached the level of an ausbausprache yet, which could be changed, e.g., if these languages were given official status. (cf. also next section).
This unsourced paragraph attempts to redefine the council of Europe's document, adding some quasi-linguistic definitions that are not in the document and some personal interpretations such as the strong and the weak minorities and giving personal opinions such as whether some lingustic classification would change if the language were given official status etc. etc. Also I find it a strange mix of conversational and encyclopedic English as though some student were having a linguistic conversation with his buddies while sitting in the cafeteria. I think we should follow the document so I am adding a proper intro to the document, the organization and the minority language issue raised by this subsection. I suppose it is legitimate to raise this issue in this article. It goes a little further than merely listing languages but then the title and intro never said this was a list of European languages. If you can reach a consensus about removing it, fine; meanwhile it is here and should be made acceptable. Dave ( talk) 10:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Early promotion of linguistic diversity is attested at the translation school in Toledo, founded in the 12th century (in medieval Toledo the Christian, the Jewish and the Arab civilizations lived together remarkably peacefully).
I removed this paragraph. For one thing, there was no school, according to some major sources. The whole thing was a myth. See "Charting the future of translation history" By Georges L. Bastin, Paul F. Bandia pp 32-33. The authors chart the growth of this myth. That which was taken to be a school consists of some translations from Arabic into Latin performed in different parts of Spain. So, there was something. One might state a few points of view for and against the school concept at the proper location, but what is that? I don't see how the translation of works from the Arabic promoted linguistic diversity and I can't find anyone who says it does except the editor of this section. These translations promoted knowledge, certainly, but because of them no one had to read the Arabic, no Arabic speakers were being tolerated and encouraged; the Arabs were being thrown out of Spain in large numbers just as the Jews would be. Just because a few Arabs were asked or allowed to do some translations does not mean the society was diversity tolerant. It was not and was growing worse every day. Before long they would be torturing and burning people because they didn't quite fit the mold demanded by the closely knit Christian communities. Already the bishops were railing against the supposed school which clearly indulged in toad-kissing and sexual orgies along with the translating from the Arabic, a devilish activity. I do believe this opinion is Wikipedian opinion not general opinion and not supported by anyone I can find. I don't want to argue the subject matter. I only want to point out that this would need sourcing and development, whch I do not see. Dave ( talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
"Despite previous attempts to achieve national linguistic homogenization, like in France during the Revolution, Franco's Spain and Metaxas's Greece, the “one nation = one language” concept is hard on its way to become obsolete."
Unreferenced and undeveloped mud-slinging. All opinion, no hard facts. Dave ( talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
A more tolerant linguistic attitude is the reason why the EU’s general rule is that every official national language is also an official EU language. However Luxembourgish for instance is not an official EU language, because there are also other (stronger) official languages with “EU status” in the respective nation. dubious – discuss Several concepts for an EU language policy are being debated:
New immigrants in European countries are expected to learn the host nation's language, but are still speaking and reading their native languages (i.e. Arabic, Hindustani/Urdu, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili and Tahitian) in Europe's increasingly multiethnic/multicultural profile. But, those languages aren't native or indigenous to Europe, therefore aren't considered important in the issue of allowing them printed in European countries' official documents.
I'm sorry I know you won't like the removal of this unreferenced material - references, references, you must have seen that caution everywhere on Wikipedia! I will try to do you justice here. This is all your opinion, is it not? You are in essence putting yourself in place of the EU and guessing at its motives. That they are more "tolerant" etc. is your idea alone. And then there is the part about expecting new immigrants to learn official languages. I doubt if the EU officially cares in the slightest whether anyone does that. And then there is whether they are considered important. Looking at the EU documents I see no such value judgements, that is an inference you have made. So, as a serious assessment of your writing here (so that you may get something out of this educationally), I would say, you have to learn to distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion and not present your opinion as fact. Second, you like to make hasty generalizations - unwarranted conclusions from the detail. But then, you don't give any detail, and you don't give any definitions. I know it is satisfying to express yourself but the other half of the equation is the people who have to listen to you. To say something objectively significant in words that are understandable is really hard work. You have to keep critiquing and revising your own material. But, there is one thing about your writing that is correct. You can't write or learn to write without writing, for better or for worse. You have to persist. Eventually you might be able to write the Gettysburg address by inspiration from your first thoughts. Good luck. I'm putting something based on the EU sites in place of the above excised. I don't care at all if goes or stays. Now, if you were thinking of putting what you had back, please support everything you say with references. We might be interested in what the EU says but we are not interested in your personal opinions or in having you put words in their mouths. Whew. This is tough work. Dave ( talk) 09:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
"The proficiency of languages is increasingly related to second or third language learning and has been subject to recent shifts caused by changing popularity and government policy."
This is just about the best example of slick English I ever saw. You have some real talent there. Have you considered going into sales? It is flawlessly correct and in the style of formal English. You read it with the expectation of being able to understand it and of learning something from it. At last, you think, here is some some real information. You reach the end of the sentence as though a blank wall realizing you have understood nothing, nothing at all. After 3 or 4 readings you realize you understood nothing because it says nothing neither by direct statement nor by implication. The goal of Wikipedia is not to say nothing in slick language, although many of the early editors wrote that way. What's the point? You aren't getting paid for this and you remain anonymous, so why do it? You should have an objective reason for writing something on Wikipedia, such as the transmission of certain encyclopedic information for the benefit of the public. We want to steer away from the strange world of creative subjectivity. This is unreferenced so I can take it out. If you want it back make it say something also said by an author you can reference. Dave ( talk) 14:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I've just added Volapük to the list, and am checking Interglossa and Basic English in order to add those. I was surprised not to find them on the list, so I wondered if there was some reason for this. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
What is the justification for including Asian Indo-European languages like Persian and Romany but not Hindi, Marathi, etc.? It should also be noted that languages like Persian cannot really be said to "linguistically belong to European language families" as stated in the first paragraph. While related to European languages, Persian belongs to the Indo-Iranian language family, only found in Asia, which derives from the language of the Proto-Indo-European speakers, whose Urheimat is widely contested but generally believed to be somewhere near the Black and Caspian seas. — Ливай | ☺ 21:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is not quite NPOV: These are languages of non-European origins which are spoken in parts of Europe. Maltese, Turkish, Tatar. Semitic and Turkic languages have been around parts of Europe for some 14 centuries now (in fact long before Hungarian, which no one questions as a European language). And then, Indoeuropean languages originated out of Europe as well. -- User:Perique des Palottes 2005/02/17
About the lenguage map. it shows galician (NW of spain) as a celtic language, however galician is an romanic language, brother of the portugues
Well I just dropped in to fix the things that were marked as needing fixing and standardize the format where it wasn't standard. It seems to me problems have been being fixed regularly. I didn't see any noted in the discussion that were not addressed, some of them quite major. That is what worries me. Despite all this loving care, some by linguists in the field, it hauled down a grade of C! Well really! Can't you do better than that? The things that were left wrong are the major reasons why articles get poor grades: no references, too much editorial opinion, unsubstantiated generalization, overbrief curtailment, inadequate explanation of meaning, just plain gobbledeygook. We aren't trying to look smart, we are trying to inform. I'm going on, but if something was not marked I didn't fix it. And, I didn't touch the graphics. I must say despite its faults I consider this article really quite useful. To be able to see what all the languages of Europe are is quite a valuable intellectual asset. Critical to being able to visualize are the maps. We need those and we need to continue to correct those or get better ones. On Wikipedia I have not yet turned into a graphics person so I'm not doing it. Those sections of writing that still have no references need tham. They are unchecked by me. I have no doubt they will be mainly seen to be wrong once you dig into it. So, we still may have a C article. Feel quite free to bring the level of the article up, Wikipedia certainly encourages you to do that. The more work is required the freer you are to do it. This is quite a place of freedom. Dave ( talk) 00:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Should Hebrew really be listed? Except for Israeli immigrants, the number of speakers seems negligible. 惑乱 Wakuran ( talk) 14:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Why is there maps of alphabet use right at the start? Since this is about languages, not scripts, is there really no map of the languages available to go at the top? Also, why is Georgian described as isolate when it's part of the Kartvelian family? Munci ( talk) 19:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
Turkey is soon to be an EU member state, and in any event 3% of Turkeys land area is within Europe. Can, therefore, Turkish be added by somebody who understands these things ? (Alas, not me). Thanks --jrleighton 13:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
The classification is more or less well-construed. But there should be more about them on this very page. A language is what makes a human human. There should be more data provided here.-- ~::Annie Chung::~ 16:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
TURKEY IS NOT A EUROPEAN COUTRY AND WILL NEVER JOIN THE EU. TURKEY MUST BE DELETED FROM ANY EUROPEAN LIST. 60.48.32.125 ( talk) 04:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)CRISTIAN, ONLY CRISTIANS ARE EUROPEAN
Distribution of the proposed Altaic languages across Eurasia???????
The proposed but controversial Altaic language family is claimed to consist of five branches (Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus, Korean and Japanese) that show similarities in vocabulary, morphological and syntactic structure, and certain phonological features. On the basis of systematic sound correspondences, they are generally considered to be genetically related.???????
WHY NOT TO ADD IN THIS ARTICLE LAFRICAN LANGUAGES AND BANTU, OR OTHER ASIAN LANGUAGES AS JAPANESE, CHINESE, ETC....ISN'T THIS ARTICLE CONCERNING EUROPEAN LANGUAGES?TUKIC, MONGOLIAN, TUNGUS, KOREAN, WHAT'S THE MATTER? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.48.32.125 ( talk) 04:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Several countries which are not members of the European Union are included on some of the maps (EG Iceland on the English map), so why not just add Russia as the native Russian-speaking country? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.163.62.23 ( talk) 15:30, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Isn't Kazakhstan partly in Europe? -- megA ( talk) 14:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
"There are three major groupings of West Germanic languages: Anglo-Frisian, Low Franconian (now primarily modern Dutch) and Low German (Saxon); the latter two include the pluricentric German varieties including Standard German." I don't think so... -- megA ( talk) 10:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Croatian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language Serbian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_language Language and dialect map 2008.; http--www.muturzikin.com-carteseurope-carteeurope1.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.0.35.15 ( talk) 09:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
In the map is shown that around Munich live a Turkish Majority. In 2011 there lived 40.000 Turks in the whole city of Munich-> These are 3% of the population!-- 62.178.209.98 ( talk) 19:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Ok its an users fault, Maurice07, maybe an turkish nationalist, uploaded his own map, deleted the kurdish language in eastern turkey and invented some new turkish linguistic enclaves -- 62.178.209.98 ( talk) 19:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
An anonymous editor has several times deleted mention of several Italian languages (calling them "dialects"), and Sardinian, which, to my knowledge, no non-politically-motivated Italian nationalist linguist considers to be a dialect [or group of dialects] of the Italian language. The deletion was first made today. I reverted it, but my reinsertion of the text was rapidly reverted. I have re-reverted the deletion and requested clarification. I do not have time to pursue this, so I hope someone is here to defend the integrity of the article in my stead. 96.41.249.21 ( talk) 01:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
User
Ehrenkater has twice edited this article, no doubt with the best intentions, to qualify whether the Celtic languages are spoken in Europe, first saying "more or less"
[6] and then "to various degrees"
[7]. I have reverted both times and would appreciate if Ehrenkater would gain a consensus on the talk page before repeating this edit.
I don't deny that some (one might even say all) Celtic languages are in a weak position. Then again, that is the case for many other languages mentioned in the article, such as the
Arbëresh language,
Arvanitika,
North Frisian,
Saterlandic,
Low Saxon,
Griko,
Occitan,
Romansh and many many more. Several of these are in a weaker position than some, or even all, Celtic languages. That being the case, I see no reason why the article should single out the Celtic languages as being in a particularly weak positions, when there would be about fifty other languages for which the same claim could be made. If we want to comment on the viability of the languages, we should be consistent and do so for all languages. Obviously that would need good sources.
Jeppiz (
talk)
15:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
I seriously doubt that Czech was a lingua franca at any time in history ever. Latin and German would have been the lingua franca of the Holy Roman Empire at the time of Emporer Charles. There is no doubt that Charles supported the use of the local Slavic language used in the surroundings of Prague when the city was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, but as a Historian and Linguistic I have never heard of Czech being any type of lingua franca spoken by people outside of Bohemia, nor was Czech a codified language at the time. I think this should be removed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poettchen ( talk • contribs) 09:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
First of all, the correct plural of "lingua franca" is "lingue franche". Second, why is this section even here? For that matter, what's the purpose of the "General Issues" section at all? I can understand the "treatment of minority languages" section, and maybe "language and identity", but the other two sections don't seem to be adding anything of value to the article. Sectori ( talk) 19:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
76.104.198.129 (
talk)
22:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to add that even if the proper plural of "lingua franca" is not going be used, in what circumstance does English ever have adjectives agree in the plural? Wouldn't "Linguas franca be more appropriate?
Don't we look things up in the dictionary any more or do we just get petulent on Wikepedia discussion? There are actually paper dictionaries out there and they actually are of some value and they are not going to be replaced by Wikipedia or any other Internet forum in the near future, probably not ever. Some pocket dictionaries avoid the question of the plural. Webster's Third International faces it squarely and probably so does the Oxford unabridged but I don't have one of those on my shelf. If necessary I can go to the library. Well sectori, what you would actually consider actually comes right out of the dictionary. Lingua franca is treated as a single word as though it had a hyphen. It does not (but should have) but the plural is lingua francas. Unless, you want to treat it as two Latin words. English uses Latin plurals in parallel with English plurals for Latin words depending on current usage. So, Webby gives us the alternative of linguae francae, two plural words. Linguas francas is unheard, unknown. Look it up in the dictionary; let that be your guide. If you give me any flak about it I will put in a ref to Webby. So, make sure you have your own ref handy as refed material take precedence over unrefed.
Now for the great six, justly someone wants to know, where did you get that? Not tatooed under your hairline I hope. I can't find any sign of it. Would it not be better to leave the matter open? So I changed the wording slightly. If you can find someone credible who is willing to state it was six, just six, no more, no less -six, precisely six - do change it back. Dave ( talk) 14:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
There are basically two philosophic confusions in the lingua francas section. For one thing, it does not distinguish between a lingua franca and the rise of a national language. For example, Spanish came from Castilian and French from Paris and northward. Those languages expanded their ranges to become the extensive national languages they are. Until they did and while they were doing so they were lingua francas over those ranges. After they had a firm foothold the other languages were demoted in status to second languages or else disappeared. However there was always a range where the native language continued to be the first language. In cases like this, just when did the national language cease to be a lingua franca? If you go by the definition in our article every national language of earth is and always has been a lingua franca except in the phase before it expanded from the locality of its origin. If you go by political boundaries then lingua francas are only between sovereign nations and hence have a political definition. However, in many regions of Europe a language of another nation is used as a lingua franca. And what on earth do you do with Switzerland or Alsace? "Lingua franca" is a vague and analogous term and you have to define carefully what you mean by it. Is English in the states the lingua franca of the native american tribes, many of whom still speak a native language, or is it their national language, or just exactly what is it? We don't really address the philosophy of lingua franca on Wikipedia. So here we are blithely stating that this or that national language was a lingua franca between time x and time y and that Europe had 6 lingua francas, which leads to the second problem, the distinction between lingua francas and partial lingua francas in Europe. I don't know of any 3rd-party language used in all Europe at any time. I wouldn't even pick Latin as the general population of all Europe never communicated in Latin. Even the original lingua franca never had that range. So, Europe has had no lingua francas. Whoever put the tag on Spanish might just as well have put it on every single languge in the list. And if we are going to start listing national languages at some phase in their nation-building, then every language in Europe ought to be listed. I don't really know how to fix this section. It either says too little or too much. You have to start with the lingua franca article. So for the time being I am going to obliterate the blithe distinction between total and partial lingua francas. There aren't any total. Then I think they should be arranged by date and some comment made about whether this phase represents the formation of a national language. Now I can supply the requested ref on Spanish but the phase mentioned is actually the rise of Castilian in Spain and meso-America. It is still spoken there; moreover, many of the minority languages are still spoken there as well. Just when did it stop being a lingua franca? Let me ask you a question - what is Spanish to the Basques? National language? Lingua franca? First language? Second language? If it was ever a lingua franca, just when did it stop being so? Why isn't modern Spanish listed as a lingua franca for all of its history? Did the Poles or the Lithuanians ever communicate with the Russians in it? If not, why is it listed as a European lingua franca at all? If we are going to be shallow, let's keep it shallow and not make pretenses; if deep, then this section falls far short. I'm going to abolish some of the pretenses. Those of you with more of an interest in linguistics should definitely take the lingua franca concept in hand. Dave ( talk) 08:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
1867 is only the year of the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. They were stil debating whether to have Latin as the official language or Hungarian in the 19th century. This "officialdom" was strictly ornamental I am sure. The real issue was, German or Hungarian. So, the lingua franca would have been German. In general this item is unsat so I will have to rewrite it. If you want to check me see "Language planning and policy in Europe" By Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf, page 72. Dave ( talk) 10:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
The text on English as a European lingua franca explains the current status of English as a European lingua franca with references to American 'inventions', such as television and the internet, and to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These references should be further explained or removed. In addition, it is highly questionable whether television and the Internet are American inventions (see for example history of television). I have therefore removed the references to American 'inventions' and the First Amendment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.93.180.114 ( talk) 15:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I took this item out. The reason is that I could find no one at all to vouch for its use as a lingua franca. True, it is spread about in pockets through southern Europe in different countries. But, those are pockets of native language speakers. True, the original lingua franca contained elements of provencal. But, the lingua franca was lingua franca, not provencal. True, the songs and styles of the troubadors were spread about quite a bit. But, outside of the native range, song writers did not write in provencal or speak provencal to be understood, they imitated the genre in their own languages. No one in Valencia burst into Provencal to make himself understood by a visiting Sicilian. Dante wrote in Italian not Provencal. So, I took this item out. If you can find a ref for it, put in back in proper order. This gets us into the problem of defining a lingua franca. All the books I can find on it say it started as a pigin language. But, later it was expanded to mean any third-party language - not mine, not yours, but someone else's which we both understand, and not just for a few individuals but customarily. That is as far as it goes. It does not as far as I know apply to non-language items such as musical genres. Well, I can see why you might want to take this whole section out. But, isn't that not facing up to the task at hand, which is to fix a bad section? Modern languages do have heavy use as lingua francas, especially English. Dave ( talk) 03:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
About Dante and provençal, we should remeber that in "De vulgari eloquentia" Dante regards French, Provençal and Tuscan as the three important vernaculars; moreover, Arnaud Daniel in Purgatory, XXVI, 140-147, is the only character in the Comedy who speaks in mothertongue, different from Italian, because Dante knew Provençal well. Lele giannoni ( talk) 16:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, "lingua franca" is an Italian expression, not a Latin one: so, the original plural is "lingue franche". Moreover, Lingua Franca was mainly based on Italian and Italian dialects, mostly Venetian. See The "Online Etimology Dictionary". Lingua Franca was confused with Italian: e.g. John Reed in "The war in Eastern Europe" writes that in Thessalonika the different communities spoke each other in Italian. Likely, he mistook Lingua Franca for Italian. In fact in the Levant Lingua Franca was still used until Balcanic wars and First World War created national states which forbade Lingua Franca. If you put languages which are or were region-wide lingua franca, like Spanish and German, you should also put Italian, which was commonly spoken in an area wider than today (Monaco, Nizza, Corsica, Malta, Dalmatia, Ionian Isles) also before Italian became an official language in the XVIth century. Finally, I think you should explain that every class and field had a different common language: Latin was the language of the Catholic Church and the Universities; French was the language of aristocracy and diplomacy (e.g. the Almanach of Gotha); Lingua Franca was the language of Mediterranean merchants; Italian was the language of music. Only in recent times English has became a lingua franca for every purpose. Lele giannoni ( talk) 16:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
The name of this language is spelled wrongly on the map - it should be Breton. (Actually, I'm not sure it should really be on the map at all given that only around 5% of the population of Brittany speaks it nowadays, but that's another issue.) 108.254.160.23 ( talk) 05:21, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
It's still widely spoken in northern Italy with about a half million speakers according to its own article in Wikipedia.
Ok, I'm having another warning so lets discuss it as semi-decent humans. At least starting with Sardinian. Sardinian is a Romance language, noted for its conservatism and lack of particularly close genetic ties to Italian. It is widely recognized as a separate language, regulated, has a written standard and a co-official status. And yet, it is deleted along with the rest of Italian vernaculars as a "dialect". It can be labeled as such only for political reasons, if at all. I dare anyone to prove otherwise. 178.94.56.243 ( talk) 01:05, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
(ENG)Hello to everyone, I am a Sardinian speaker and, upon the invitation of a user, whom I thank for the thought, to read the discussion between the two anonymous users, I think the former has done the right thing to raise this issue. Replying briefly to the latter, instead, actually everybody agrees that Sardinian *is* a language, which, unlike the Italian dialects, pertains to the western branch of the Romance languages and is made up of two dialectal groups (just like many other languages which present some differentiations, mostly phonogical, within them) whose definition, if it weren't for the fact that they've already passed through a process of standardization, may be even called into question; plus, the point of the anonymous regarding the supposed non-existence of the language based on the lack of consensus for an accepted standard form is flawed, since it refers to *written* conventions which apply only to bureaucratic and extremly formal contexts and, being it considered as such, is obviously *not* meant to be spoken by anyone. Anyway, the policentric nature of Sardinian is, truth be told, a common problem faced by many minority languages across Europe, but that doesn't mean that they are not languages at all: Sardinian is and will be regarded as a language, whether it will not make it and perish or not, whether there is a standard or not. That being said, I am of the opinion that, just like the first anonymous asserted, Sardinian should be added to the number of European languages already present.
(SC)Salude a tottus, deo soe unu chi su sardu lu faeddat e, gràtzias a un'utente chi mi at cumbidadu a lèzere s'arresonu tra sos duos anonimos (e pro custu li torro gràtzia), penso chi su primu apat tottu sa resone de custu mundu a che pesàre su problema. Torrànde impòsta a s'atteru, imbètzes, a nàrrer sa veridade tottus sun de accordu chi su sardu *est* una limba, chi, a s'imbèsse de sos limbàzos (dialettos) italianos, pertènet a s'ala noulatìna de Ponente e lu fàchen duos grupos dialettales (comente a medas atteras limbas chi diffèrin, pro su prus fonologicamente, in intro) e sa definitzione issoro, si non fit pro su fattu chi sun issos etottu giai istandarditzàdos, podet èsser posta in dùda; in prus, su chi narat s'anonimu in meritu a sa supposta non esistentzia de su sardu ca non b'est accordu pro unu istandard ebbìa non bàlet, ca cussu sun regulas chi sèrbin a un'imprèu pètzi (solu) burocraticu e formale e, de custa manèra, non si chistiònat. Comùncas, sa natura policentrica de su sardu est unu problema chi tènen medas limbas de minorìa pèri tottu s'Europa, ma custu non bòlet nàrrer chi non sìan limbas: su sardu est e at a èsser tentu in cunsìderu comente una limba, chi non bi la podat fàcher e si estìngat o nono, chi bi apat unu istandard o nono. Nàu custu, deo soe de su pàrrer chi, comente su primu anonimu at affirmàdu, su sardu si depat pònner a costàzu (fiancu) de sas limbas europeas chi giai bi sun.
(If this, in your opinion, resembles an "Italian" dialect not even worthy to be mentioned, then it is clear that I have just wasted my time since 2009, and so have many users trying to make this encyclopedia a little more reliable. Have a nice day.)-- Dk1919 ( talk) 12:57, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Shouldn't the Sami language be in here?
How about Provencal (or is it included in catala) ? Pagan 07:34, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In the last section 8.10 'Issues in language politics', the word 'relais' seems to be used in the sense of 'relay'. Is this a simple typo or has a new word been created to denote the translation of one language into another and then into another (as the European Union is considering doing in future)?
The Image "Knowledge of French" makes French look more spread than it really is. The different percentages of French-speakers aren't distinguishable because even areas with about 10% French-knowers are coloured with a rather dark blue colour (compare this with the "Knowledge of German" image). The whole image seems a bit politically motivated to me, its creator might well be a part of the French-lobby. 'Knowledge' is a very broad term as well: I doubt that every 10th Swede, for instance, could read a French book. --Fennicus
Some language suggestions to add to the list of languages, that came up when I used this list for my Sporcle Quiz: Scots, Kurdish, Arabic, (West) Flemish, Lombard, Sicilian, Bashkir, Chechen, Avar, Kabardian, Dargwa, Udmurt, Kumyk, Mari, Lezgian, Karachay-Balkar, Komi-Zyrian, Kalmyk Oirat, Lak, Adyghe, Tabassaran. I suppose some of these are sometimes or often considered to be dialects. But especially those languages spoken in Russia seems to be quite distinct. Is Russia not considered to be European? Should I just add those to the list, or is there some reason they're missing? Bawm79 ( talk) 08:26, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
When I try to sort the number of speakers table by number of speakers, it sorts it alphabetically rather than numerically (i.e. 9,000,000 is above 700,000 is above 70,000 is above 5,000,000). — Preceding unsigned comment added by R160K ( talk • contribs) 00:36, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Scots, Scottish Gaelic, English and Cornish do not have any "official" status anywhere in the UK - R160K ( talk) 00:48, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I removed the expression "On the crossroads of Europe and Asia" related to the transcaucasic countries. As written on the talk page, this article deals with countries in Europe according to a certain, pre-discussed definition of Europe, which can be either geographical or political. In the first case, the right term is "transcontinental" and does not apply to Armenia (see Archives on Talk:Armenia about reached consensus about its geographic location, which is in Asia), in the second, we don't need it, since all three countries are fully European. I hope that this concept is clear. Alex2006 ( talk) 05:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
I would like to add this link to the page as it contains a detailed map of languages which this page does not have. There should be a detailed alternative to the basic map. I am certainly not saying we should clog the article with unimportant details I just suggest he addition od a furtherly detailed map as n alternative to the current one
(Link in question: [8])
Thanks 86.128.208.209 ( talk) 21:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
This article includes maps on how many people speak a number of different European languages. The data for this comes from the Eurobarometer, a survey in the European Union. I removed the maps for Polish and German, as they clearly did not represent the data, thus violating WP:OR. I hope they can be re-added, but then in correct format, corresponding to the maps for other languages. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is about sourced facts, not about truth. Jeppiz ( talk) 16:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
The data is irritatingly wrong. E.g. french is reported with 60 million speakers, whereas the source said 60 million in France, adding another 6 mio in Belgium and Switzerland further down the same page. This error seams to be systematically and concerns all/many languages. Before starting to change, let me ask, whether any reasoning about this issue has already been made? Nillurcheier ( talk) 15:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
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European Russia has 110 million people. How it comes that Europe has only 95 million Russian speakers? Also Ukraine has 40 million people all of whom speak Russian.-- 2A02:2168:83F:8428:0:0:0:1 ( talk) 21:19, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Why Malta is painted green on the map?-- 5.228.254.180 ( talk) 10:12, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I have tagged the "Number of speakers" table with {{ Refimprove}} and {{ Original research}}. This is because, although the table claims to display "the number of speakers of a given European language in Europe only", most of the figures have one or more of the following problems:
I suggest it would be better to simply remove all the unreferenced figures from the table until such time as they can be replaced with referenced figures. No information is better than obviously false information or wild-assed guessing. Another temporary solution would be to use the (referenced) global speaker populations to give upper bounds on the number of speakers, and to clearly mark them as such (using < or ≪). — Psychonaut ( talk) 08:10, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
The table is still bad. Using Ethnologue is never ideal, especially not for Europe (Ethnologue is open in saying that Europe is not a prioritised area and some of its information for Europe has not been updated for decades) so it's a bit shaky as WP:RS. Still, if the idea is to use Ethnologue, then why are different sources used for a few languages while 90% go by Ethnologue data. Given that those that use different sources always use sources that report higher numbers than Ethnologue, it looks very much like a POV-push to inflate these languages (Catalan, for instance). If the source is Ethnologue, then the logic thing is to use that source for all languages, not just some. Jeppiz ( talk) 19:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
This one is the most urgent - let's say Azerbaijan and the Russian Caucasus are in Europe, sure. But most of the 24,000,000+ speakers as given live in Iran, and plenty live in Central Asia, Anatolia, the US and elsewhere. This puts Azerbaijani as one of the most spoken languages in Europe... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.198.68 ( talk) 00:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
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I think diaspora languages from the Middle East (Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Aramaic, etc.) should be removed, if not have any legal status in EU. Because there are so many diaspora people in the EU from different regions of the world: East Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, North Africa...Either we should mention all the diaspora languages, or we should remove Middle Eastern diaspora ones. Because it is grossy misleading. 52.66.254.71 ( talk) 09:42, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
References
Well, first of all, this is not about the EU. There is a separate article Languages of the European Union for that. This is just about the de facto languages spoken in Europe. But I agree that it is very difficult to find reliable data on immigrant languages in Europe. There is some census data, but community sizes are systematically underestimated due to the gigantic scale of illegal immigration to Europe. Nobody knows how many people even are in Europe, and authorities have little incentive to invest any effort in this because it would just serve to enrage their citizens and destabilize their countries.
But of course this doesn't excuse us from citing such sources as we have, we just need to present them with the proper caveats. E.g. the Russian census cites 830k Armenian speakers, but the true number is likely closer to 2 million, nobody can be sure. France cites about 4 million Arabic speakers, but the number might just as likely be twice that, not to mention Germany, where there are now probably millions of Arabic speakers too, but nobody is willing to count them. The best estimate we can give on Arabic in Europe is "millions", Arabic is very likely in the top 20 languages in Europe by number of speakers, so I guess this makes it relevant to the article topic.
The only other immigrant language with > 1 million speakers is probably Armenian, perhaps also Kurdish, and Hindi+Urdu if you count it as a single language. After that, there are lots of languages with several 100k speakers scattered all over Western Europe and/or Russia.
Obviously, every language in the world will have some scattered speakers in Europe, the point isn't to list them all, but to get a decent impression of which immigrant languages are the most significant, say with communities of several 100k speakers. -- dab (𒁳) 07:07, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
After cleaning up the "list of languages", I note that the Italian dialects (Venetian, Sicilian, etc.) are listed as separate languages, even though their speakers are also included in the L1 sum total for Italian. At the same time, the German dialects (Bavarian, Swabian, etc.) are not listed separately (I just added a note to their being included in the German L1 total [exceptions: Luxembourgish and Yiddish are High German variants listed as separate entries]).
I have no preference as to how to handle this, but it should be handled consistently. If we treat as a separate "language" anything with an ISO 639-3 code, we will have to list the German dialects just as well as the Italian ones. These speakers will still all be included in figures of German and Italian speakers, and we would just have to add a caveat to this effect. -- dab (𒁳) 07:10, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
First, this is not a discussion to change anything, rather a discussion to first discover if change is needed and only then to discuss how to change. There is a pretty clear problem with the article, though not a clear solution. The problem is that the table is so wrong it's absurd. To take a few examples:
These examples are just some of the more obvious errors. I doubt anyone familiar with any of the languages I mention will dispute that the figures are completely disconnected from reality. Part of the problem, of course, is that we use the notoriously unreliable source of Ethnologue, but here is also where it gets tricky. Ethnologue has one big advantage and one big disadvantage.
So the problem is obvious, in that we have a table with some accurate figures, of course, but also lots of highly inaccurate claims. The solution is less obvious. I don't know of any other source with data for all languages. Without a source, it's just OR. One option might be to delete the column with number of speakers, but that's hardly ideal either. So what should we do? Pretend all is well even though we know it's not? Try to find another source? Insert a small paragraph pointing out that the table is imperfect? Jeppiz ( talk) 19:32, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
The errors need to be fixed, of course. References should be impooved, and problems should be explained to the reader. The Armenian thing was just vandalism and should have been reverted. The Celtic claims, I understand, concern children who have been painstakingly socialized in these languages and are now claimed as native speakers. Details and criticism of such claims are welcome. The dialectal demography is woefully fuzzy and better references are welcome, the rough SIL figures are just a minimal placeholder. We can improve this but it needs to happen carefully, and step by laborious step. -- dab (𒁳) 13:08, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Great care has been taken to only list speakers geographically in Europe. This is complicated by diaspora populations due to recent migration, which have their own section. Yes, tehre are about 10 million native speakers of Arabic in Europe Nevertheless, Arabic does not get an entry in the "list of languages" because these communities are dispersed migrant communities with no homeland in Europe. (this may change in the future, e.g. if France or Belgium give Arabic official regional status in heavily Arabic-dominated parts of their territory, but the list is supposed to represent the situation now, not at some hypothetical future time).
Exactly the same situation holds for Armenian, Georgian, Tamil, etc. etc. Please don't cite "total number of speakers" in the list. Yes, Armenian has "7 million native speakers", but then English has "400 million native speakers", i.e. worldwide. Native speakers of English in Europe number 60 million, in the UK and Ireland. Armenian speakers in Europe number about 1 million, and consist almost entirely of the Armenian diaspora of migrant workers in the Russian Federation.
Turkish is the most difficult case, as it has both 12 million native speakers in European Turkey, and 3 million native speakers in non-European immigrant communities in Western Europe (mostly Germany).
Please respect the scope of this list, and use list of languages by number of speakers to cover worldwide number of speakers. -- dab (𒁳) 10:37, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
User:JJ 25, you cite Ethnologue for a number of 12 million L1 speakers of Armenian in Europe. However, the source in question has "3,140,000 in Armenia (2001 census). Population total all countries: 5,900,080." [9], it follows that at most 2.8 million Armenian speakers can be in Europe. In reality, there is about 1 million, i.e. the disaspora community in Russia and Ukraine, which is duly mentioned under "immigrant languages".
Misrepresenting the content of references is quite serious misbehaviour if done on purpose. Please be more careful. You cite, without reference, that "Armenian is an official minority language in the following countries: Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Ukraine". I would be interested in this claim, please feel free to cite appropriate references for this. Please also note that "Europe" is a geographical term, while "Indo-European" is a linguistic one. Hindi is not a "language of Europe", but Kalmyk is, because India is not geographically in Europe, while Kalmykia is. Please do not re-insert your unreferenced material, or misrepresentation of the content of SIL Ethnologue. If this was an honest mistake, please learn from it and try to research and discuss your contributions. -- dab (𒁳) 11:20, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
The map with the isocodes is not an improvement in any way over the other map (well, apart from showing iso codes). It's less accurate in many regions (Brittany is French speaking, not Breton speaking; Irish Gaelic is not nearly as widespread; indicating that Russian speakers are spread throughout Estonia is just plain wrong etc.) The other map is by far more accurate for current language use in Europe. Jeppiz ( talk) 23:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
It is an improvement in almost every way, because the map you keep restoring is unreferenced. You may want to review the image page and see exactly how much effort went into making it fully based on actual references. The map uses hatching to represent the presence of significant bilingualism. The hatching doesn't indicate a specific percentage, so it isn't clear how you would gauge just how "widespread" Breton is being represented as in the map. The hatching in the map has been hand-crafted following File:Percentage of breton speakers in the breton countries in 2004.png. Etc. You are perfectly free to further improve it, e.g. by introducing various types of hatching based on percentage. You will find that you will spend a week of work on improving the granularity of information represented, only to face increased criticism because increased density of information in the map will mean more details will be open to criticism.
While we do not have any linguistic map that is "perfect", the map you seem to prefer, File:Languages1.svg, is completely unreferenced. It originated as a rough paint job in 2008 [10]. In 2015, someone added a sprinkling of minority languages [11]. Then in 2017, someone else added "Detailization and corrections on most countries", without any tractable references.
We now end up with a highly detailed map of Europe that would be completely unable to withstand any kind of criticism remotely similar to the kind you apply to the map that replaces insanely accurate division of terrain by hatching and bases this on actual references listed on the image talkpage. -- dab (𒁳) 09:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
@ Nonemansland: Could you help us in this discussion by sharing with us the sources you used in the compilation of your splendid language map File:Languages1.svg? Batternut ( talk) 22:29, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Some ad hominem remarks |
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Hi, Dartsss. Before adding again the map in Europe#Languages, we should have a consensus here.
You added references in the map description about the Catalan language, but they don't match with the map. For example, why did you mark Garrotxa as Spanish-speaking when everyone there knows that is one of the most Catalan-speaking regions? Your regions seem to be completely invented and they don't have nothing to do with the sources you provided later.
As Jeppiz said a year ago, the map should be removed, until this point and the last year points are sourced. -- FogueraC ( talk) 15:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
As FogueraC says, and as I pointed out a year ago, there are numerous errors with the maps. There is absolutely no consistency whatsoever. In some countries, only one language is show even though many are spoken. In others, the opposite is true. To take but one (of many) examples: why do we not show the Hungarian minority in Romania (a regional majority, large area, lots of speakers) while we do show speakers of Gaelic in the Scottish Highlands (below 10% even in the Highlands). It just doesn't make any sense at all. And why on earth do we claim that the area around St Petersburg isn't Russian speaking? Some of my ancestors came from there, and they spoke Ingrian and Finnish - 120 years ago. Today it's completely Russian. For now, I'm removing the first two maps. The rest of the maps are a bit better, but the first two are misleading to the point of no maps at all being preferable. Jeppiz ( talk) 14:16, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Whether the Caucasus is in Europe or not is one matter... but why are the North Caucasian languages included in the non-Indo-European section whereas Kartvelian languages are not? Is there a specific reason? 81.156.88.100 ( talk) 23:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
I'm a little confused with the last column of the table (Official Status > Regional), since contrary to its name it contains a very mixed bag of entries, including regional languages (i.e. official in a specific administrative region/municipality), minority languages (i.e. recognised/protected languages of minorities) and even languages with no official status at all. Although some minority languages are also official/co-official in a regional level (or sometimes just in municipal level), that's not always the case and that's definitely not clear in the table. I think that we should either update the name of the column, or be more consistent in the entries included. Any opinions? -- Argean ( talk) 09:01, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
@ TU-nor and KIENGIR: let's start with this -- the table says 23 million Azeris. There are only 10 million inhabitants of Azerbaijan, not all of whom are ethnic Azeris as we also have Lezgins, Juhuris, Talysh, etc etc. Most of the rest are in Iran. Okay some expansive definitions of Europe include all of Azerbaijan, not just the 1/3 of it north of the Greater Caucasus -- sure. Side note: I take issue with the fact that we are using the most possibly expansive definition with regard to the South Caucasus so as to include Armenia, yet somehow this does not apply to Turkey -- I don't think there is any definition of Europe that includes Armenia but not Anatolian Turkey. That aside, I also don't think there is a single definition of Europe that includes Iranian Azerbaijan in Europe. But correct me if I'm wrong?-- Calthinus ( talk) 05:07, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
I am currently able to access Internet only periodically, but just now I have a very limited "window". I agree that the traditional geographical definition currently used in the article is not necessarily the best (and certainly not the only) possible definition. It gives, however, well-defined inclusion criteria. I have nothing against including countries or parts of countries outside the current definition, but only if it can be done according to a new definition (or new inclusion criteria) that is supported by reliable sources. "I think country X should be included" is not an acceptable argument. We should not be discussing which countries or parts of countries to include, but the criteria themselves. -- T*U ( talk) 16:07, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
Today, Europe is home to the citizens of Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and Vatican City.-- so, for Nat Geographic, which is honestly a less controversial source than political organizations, Turkey, Cyprus and Russia are in, South Caucasus is out. I'm not saying this is what we should do. I'm demonstrating how RS ... go both ways.-- Calthinus ( talk) 00:46, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
"Europe" is taken as a geographical term, defined by the conventional Europe-Asia boundary along the Caucasus and the Urals..... and then the two Armenian lines and the inclusion of Azeris all the way into Iran pretty flagrantly violated that. Long standing is more of an embarrassment in that case. If you state a policy on a page, you follow it.-- Calthinus ( talk) 01:04, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Before my edit, no, the page was not consistent with pages like Geography of Europe because it excluded Turkey. I am not unambiguously calling for the S Caucasus to be excluded. What I was disputing here was KIENGIR's assertion that relevant RS widely do not consider Turkey to be "European" while applying the term to the S Cauc-- apolitical Nat Geo does the opposite and it is apolitical National Geographic-- unlike CoE, as TU-nor pointed out. Nevertheless I have indicated that I can support a position where we do use a geopolitical definition which broadly includes the S Cauc, Turkey and Cyprus (but on no grounds whatsoever Iranian Azerbaijan) -- this I believe is where I diverge from TUnor who doesn't want us changing definitions for convenience, and from KIENGIR on Turkey specifically. What I cannot accept is this hybrid gerrymandered definition where clearly non-geographic considerations are applied for 4 countries but not the one enormous country that separates all 4 of them from the bulk of Europe-- and worse, even East Thrace appears excluded for calculating speakers of Bulgarian, Bosniak, etc. As I have demonstrated, RS dont actually back this weird gerrymander -- and Nat Geo does the inverse. We either use a broad geopolitical definition ( all 5 in), geographic (all 5 out except for E Thrace, Quba/etc, and Tusheti/Svaneti/etc), a consistent geographic+RS "acceptance" (Cyprus in, the other 4 are disputed), or a narrow geopolitical definition (again only Cyprus is in). No double standards, no gerrymandered "continents". Id like to point out that in linguistic typology -- since this is a language page -- there is again an argument for specifically Cyprus being in "Europe" (specifically Greek being part of the Balkan sprachbund) and none of the others (the Caucasus has it's own speech area which is quite different typologically from both the Near East and from Europe). Also, I'd be willing to consider a separate table for these 5 states (again, not grouping them with Siberia and Kazakhstan, which they have obviously nothing to do with) as a sort of compromise.-- Calthinus ( talk) 17:44, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
of course I am open to help Archives908. I did forget about this. -- Calthinus ( talk) 23:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Name |
ISO- 639 |
Classification | Speakers in expanded geopolitical Europe | Official status | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
L1 | L1+L2 | National [nb 1] | Regional | |||
Abkhaz | ab | Northwest Caucasian, Abazgi | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Adyghe (West Circassian) | ady | Northwest Caucasian, Circassian | ![]() |
|||
Albanian | sq | Indo-European, Albanian | ![]() |
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Arabic | ar | Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, West | ![]() |
|||
Armenian | hy | Indo-European, Armenian | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Azerbaijani | az | Turkic, Oghuz | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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||
Batsbi | bbl | Northeast Caucasian, Nakh | ![]() |
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Bulgarian | bg | Indo-European, Slavic, South | ![]() |
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Crimean | crh | Turkic, Kipchak | ![]() |
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Georgian | ka | Kartvelian, Karto-Zan | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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||
Greek | el | Indo-European, Hellenic | ![]() ![]() |
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||
Juhuri | jdt | Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Southwest | ![]() |
|||
Kurdish | kur | Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Northwest | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Laz | lzz | Kartvelian, Karto-Zan, Zan | ![]() ![]() |
|||
Meglenian | ruq | Indo-European, Italic, Romance, East | ![]() |
|||
Mingrelian | xmf | Kartvelian, Karto-Zan, Zan | ![]() ![]() |
|||
Pontic Greek | pnt | Indo-European, Hellenic | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|||
Romani language and Domari language | rom, dmt | Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indic | ![]() |
|||
Russian | ru | Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Slavic | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Svan | sva | Kartvelian, Svan | ![]() ![]() |
|||
Tat | ttt | Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Southwest | ![]() |
|||
Turkish | tr | Turkic, Oghuz | ![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() |
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I'm confused. Wikipedia usually treats Serbo-Croatian as one language, but in this article, section List of languages to be exact, treats Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin as separate languages and lists only number of speakers of those languages, for which Wikipedia says are only "dialects" or "standardized varieties" of Serbo-Croatian, but there is no Serbo-Croatian in this list. Is there a specific reason for this? Should Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin be treated as separate languages or be under Serbo-Croatian as it is common on Wikipedia and among Western linguists? -- Thebeon ( talk) 19:56, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Hello. Information about Oghuz languages is incomplete. My suggestion is:
What would be your opinions? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meurglys8 ( talk • contribs) 12:02, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
@ L2212: According to Glottolog, Ethnologue, and the Endangered Languages Project, Campidanese and Logudorese Sardinian are considered separate (though related) languages, at least from a linguistic standpoint. ~Red of Arctic Circle System ( talk) 03:08, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
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