Talk:English language/Archive 27

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Archive 27

Semi-protected edit request on 30 January 2020

On the English person pronouns chart the 3rd person singular of the dependent progressive is hers not her JoeMama1022 (talk) 03:06, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

The chart appears to be correct as is. See English pronouns, Possessive determiner#Forms. Outriggr (talk) 06:16, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 January 2020

Please add Category:Languages of Bangladesh]]

 Done - thanks for the request. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 10:15, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

"Historically?

Why does the infobox say that English was "historically" spoken in the British Isles? It is still spoken there. --2605:A000:1329:4826:14E8:F1E7:7884:D854 (talk) 01:03, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

In the following line it says worldwide. That includes the British Isles. "Historically" means that before the mass migrations to the New World, the English speech area was restricted to the British Isles. –Austronesier (talk) 10:34, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Not in English it doesn't. It implies it was spoken there in the past but not any longer. 'Initially' is a better choice of word here. Wiki-Ed (talk) 23:39, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

"Spoken English" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Spoken English. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:47, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

"Langue angloise" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Langue angloise. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 18:18, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

"Langue anglaise" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Langue anglaise. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 18:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

"Future of English" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Future of English. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:50, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

"Ænglish" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Ænglish. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 21:36, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 March 2020

i would like to update this. Kalee Mehra (talk) 16:50, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

"Most verbs have six inflectional forms."

I really don't think that's true. Most English verbs have 4 distinct inflectional forms (e.g. walk, walks, walked, walking), strong irregulars can have 5 distinct forms (e.g. see, sees, saw, seen, seeing), weak irregulars can have 3 (cut, cuts, cutting), paired modals have 2 (can, could; may, might; etc), unpaired modals have 1 (must), while the super-irregular verb "to be" has 8 (be, am, is, are, was, were, been, being). I strongly doubt that any modern English verb has exactly 6 inflectionally-distinct forms within the same paradigm (i.e. excluding variant forms which compete with each other for the same inflectional slot), much less "most" of them... AnonMoos (talk) 10:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Writing systems

Nothing at Hebraization of English gives any indication of how prevalent this is. My guess is that it's very uncommon - and even then, of far more interest to Hebrew than English speakers. - Snori (talk) 05:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

First few words

Should we begin this article with "English" or "The English language"? Bernspeed (talk) 16:11, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

"The English language is a West Germanic language" would be redundant. - BilCat (talk) 16:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Map

The map is wrong. English is not an official language in Malaysia. It is the de facto official language among the economic sector but it has no official status, and the Malaysian Constitution only recognises Malay as the only official language of the country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.86.157.101 (talk) 05:58, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

"Ænglish" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Ænglish. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 4#Ænglish until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumyabrata ^talk _contribs ^subpages 13:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

"Englische Sprache" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Englische Sprache. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 15#Englische Sprache until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TheAwesomeHwyh 20:24, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 October 2020

Change - "It is estimated that there are over 2 billion speakers of English." To read - "It is estimated that, as of 2005, there are over 2 billion speakers of English." The source is now 15 years old. JamesWoods87 (talk) 11:13, 10 October 2020 (UTC) JamesWoods87 (talk) 11:13, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done ɴᴋᴏɴ21 ❯❯❯ talk 16:17, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

References

Number of Synonyms

In the opening on the Vocabulary section, the article makes the claim that English contains more synonyms than any other language, but the article cited (Jambor 2007) makes no such claim and provides no such data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qi Chin (talk • contribs) 11:17, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 January 2021

Per MOS:ORDER, move {{good article}} from before the lead section to the end matter after {{authority control}}, but prior to categories. – 108.56.139.120 (talk) 23:32, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done Terasail^[✉] 00:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Example audio files

Having the example audio files for accents is quite nice! Is it possible we could get one for Singaporean English and Philippine English? Those sections stand out for not having anything. Also, we should find a better file for Australia if we can (someone notable, and better audio quality). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:18, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

King James Bible

“Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift.“

The bit about the King James Bible doesn’t seem to be supported by the citation, unless I'm missing something. UnidentifiedHuman 07:36, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Vocabulary?

Hi, isn't the claim that "English is a rich language in terms of vocabulary" not so much wrong as not even wrong, i.e. meaningless? One might as well say that "English has a vocabulary".
I tried to look up the claim in the given ref (130, Jambor 2007, "English Language Imperialism ..."), but couldn't find the claim there, nor any use of terms like "vocabulary" or "synonym" in the sense of the claim in the article. Probably looked in the wrong place or wrong way, but ... the claim could possibly be unsourced.
Anyway; a lot of people confuse the number of words in any language with the number of them in dictionaries; yet such numbers are the sum of factors like time, money and scholarship - but not vocabulary.
Here's an article on some researchers cataloguing German words: https://www.welt.de/kultur/article167820246/Es-gibt-viel-mehr-deutsche-Woerter-als-wir-wussten.html .
Back in 2018, the count stood at ca. 23 million words actually used, and that was excluding i.e. the ca. 20 milllion terms for chemical compounds. But this is not to say that German has more words than English or any other language, merely that counting words is futile, like counting numbers to see which country has the highest number. T 84.208.86.134 (talk) 19:32, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

The Map

It appears Malta is missing as a country where English is the official but not majority languages. Thanks! SirPenguinMay (talk) 01:24, 2 April 2021 (UTC) <https://legislation.mt/eli/const/eng/pdf>

Semi-protected edit request on 2 May 2021

Saint Lucia should be blue in the first photo 69.80.22.185 (talk) 18:55, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

 Already done If you are referring to File:English language distribution.svg then from what I can see, it looks to be blue. (Although it is hard to tell which circle represents which specific area in the Caribbean). If this does need changing however it is an image which would need to be reuploaded at c:File:English language distribution.svg. Terasail^[✉] 21:25, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2021 - To add the Scots language to the most closely related languages of English.

Change "English is most closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon" to "English is most closely related to Scots, Frisian, and Low Saxon" Blinharry (talk) 16:10, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:18, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources:

https://www.ethnologue.com/language/sco https://dsl.ac.uk/about-scots/what-is-scots/

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. It's relation to Scots is covered in the article, but I don't believe it belongs in the lead, especially as Scots developed from old and middle english. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:38, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Number of Native English users

The number of 1st-language english speakers really needs to be updated now, and from time to time. the numbers have of course grown since 2006, it is well above 400 million. . by the last count I can find online, is around 520,000,000 people. I am not sure how to update that particular part of the page, the box at the top right of page, will someone please do it? Here is a link to show a much more recent count- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/23/the-worlds-languages-in-7-maps-and-charts/ Meat Eating Orchid (talk) 09:30, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

alright bro so how about you update it instead of asking other people to do it man — Preceding unsigned comment added by PeaceLoverStephenTrue1111 (talk • contribs) 21:33, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Yo brah, so how 'bout ya read what 'e rote more carephly? FillsHerTease (talk) 08:27, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

User edit-warring to remove singular they and derivatives from pronoun table

User:Local hero has been repeatedly removing singular they/them/their/theirs/themself/themselves from the pronoun table (example), claiming that they need to go because they aren't sourced in the table (despite the fact that the same is true for all the other pronouns in the table, and that this is a textbook example of the "General common knowledge" exception in WP:When to cite#When a source or citation may not be needed). Could someone please help me deal with them? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 20:52, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

These were added to the box by you. I reverted your edit because no sources were provided, nor was any explanation. This is certainly not general common knowledge as someone who was educated in an English-speaking country. Writing something like "they is" would certainly have been marked wrong in my English classes. So, again I request sources, or a consensus here if we proceed differently than the stable version of the article. --Local hero ^talk 21:01, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

No sourcing is needed for the fact that the usage exists, per Common Knowledge (Houston is normally warmer than Minneapolis in January...). However, plural forms to signify singulars is a marked usage -- has acquired more intensive marking lately -- and requires elaboration of that fact, of the reasons for the usage and its recent politicized upsurge, of the anomaly of singular referent (semantically 's/he'), but plural 3rd-person verb. Sources for the basics of the motivations for the usage are needed. -- Common sense, folks. Basic Applied Common Sense. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 21:44, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

"English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years."

The unfortunate limitless "more than" aside, what is "English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years" intended to mean? A reader can guess, but shouldn't have to. Why select 1400? And a literalist can legitimately claim that yes, as an Indo-European language, English has most definitely developed over the course of far more than 1,400 years. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 23:43, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Why stop reading with that sentence? "The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century..." pretty much explains it. Historians disagree on exactly when Old English as we know it began to develop, hence the vague "more than 1,400 years". Before that period, it wasn't Old English, even to a literalist such as myself. BilCat (talk) 00:27, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Editors owe it to readers to be as clear and accurate as possible. You actually make the point well. Makes much more sense to delete the lead sentence, which is nonsensical as it stands, and just begin with actual information, i.e. the second sentence. True that the text is still left with a possible snare for the ingenuous in "earliest forms of English" without further elaboration, but an alert reader can easily grasp that the lects in question are West Germanic. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 06:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I disagree that it is nonsensical. You haven't made that case yet. This isn't Simple English Wikipedia, and we don't spoon-feed our readers. This paragraph summarizes the History section, including the first line. The further elaboration is in the History section, not the lead. BilCat (talk) 07:15, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh my. First, re "we don't spoon-feed our readers". Well, actually we must and we do. That's the gig. For the text to be successful, it has to be comprehensible to a general readership, a huge spread of the bell curve -- for the matter at hand very much including those with no experience whatsoever in historical linguistics, language evolution, etc. Producing clear and accurate text for a topic such as language is challenging in ways that producing text for, e.g. quantum theory, is not: our Aunt Molly brings no baggage to her brave attempt to make sense of quantum theory (other than "It's hard to understand."), but she and everyone use language constantly and come to the topic with all sorts of untenable preconceived notions that at the very least should not be encouraged (e.g. "Latin died"). As for "You haven't made that case yet", the case is made by the text itself. An undergraduate term paper beginning "English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years" would be off to an unfortunate start, not only for the red flag of unqualified "more than" stretching into infinity. A friendly "Would you like to reconsider that first sentence before I grade this?" would be a kind way for an instructor to offer a normally conscientious student the opportunity to rescue him/herself. If the student had been attentive during the term, s/he would likely identify the "problem(s)" immediately, and be glad to execute appropriate repairs on the spot. (I suppose I expected similar here. If so, It appears I was wrong.) Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:17, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

What is your proposed improvement? _signed, Willondon (talk) 21:44, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

As stated above: remove the first sentence of the paragraph. A slightly more ambitious repair would be re-writing the first sentence to state clearly whatever it was originally intended to mean, assuming that the resulting text is factual, and clear enough not to leave room for misunderstanding. Might not be easy to do that and also keep it succinct, though. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, I could remove the first sentence of the paragraph for you, if you'd like. Anything more ambitious, I would leave to you. _signed, Willondon (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Therein the rub. Anyone hoping to repair the first sentence must first decipher what it was intended to mean. So far no attempts to do that have come forth. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

It seems the only unsucessful attempts to decipher its meaning to have come forth are yours. _signed, Willondon (talk) 16:48, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Actually, that's unknown. No one has yet ventured to offer an explanation of its intended meaning. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:59, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I thought we were talking about the attempts to have come forth. Of the two that have come forth, yours is the only one that was apparently unsuccessful. Of the attempts that haven't come forth, I assume most were successful and thus went unremarked. Or perhaps some were unsuccessful, and the reader was too embarrassed to comment. _signed, Willondon (talk) 21:17, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

"I thought we were talking about the attempts to have come forth." No attempts have come forth. Perhaps it's time to channel Graham Chapman as The Colonel -- "I’ve noticed a tendency for this programme to get rather silly" -- and leave unsuspecting readers free to interpret "English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years" as they please. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

We can be more specific, but again, I don't see the need to, hypothetical prescriptive-grammar college professors not withstanding. However, I will abide by consensus. BilCat (talk) 22:22, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely nothing to do with grammar, prescriptive or descriptive. Accuracy and clarity are the issues. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

From what you've been saying, I think you mean precision, not accuracy. _signed, Willondon (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Accuracy in the first instance; precision can be worked in if it's available. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure this required 1068 words of debate. The simplest solution is to remove that first line because the second line of the paragraph explains the same point precisely. Or accurately at least. Wiki-Ed (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Well done. I've added one little tweak for clarity. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 May 2022

Change In contrast to many other Germanic languages there is no major differences between word order in main and subordinate clauses.[211]

To In contrast to many other Germanic languages there are no major differences between word order in main and subordinate clauses.[211] 51.6.97.143 (talk) 11:35, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done 💜  melecie  talk - 11:43, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

English is widely spoken in Europe - the map needs an update.

124.169.133.90 (talk) 08:24, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

The map shows only countries where English is either official or a major first language. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:24, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Non-Germanic Influence in English

"English is genealogically West Germanic, closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages; however its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of French (about 29% of modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%),"

I don't get it, aren't Low Saxon and Frisian (as well as all other surviving modern West Germanic) languages also distinctively influenced by French and Latin? I know modern German and Dutch, for sure, are heavily influenced by French and Latin and you can quite regularly see loanwords from these languages in these written languages. Also why are we still quoting this silly 29/29% figure for loanwords when that study was compiled in such a ridiculous way and included so many technical and rare synonyms that are rarely, if ever, used by the average English-speaker? Now it might not be quite AS heavy as in English, but Dutch and German certainly aren't THAT far off in terms of Latin and French influence. 2.99.93.88 (talk) 02:39, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Please provide reliable published sources that can be consulted for discussion, otherwise there's really nothing to be discussed here in way of improving the article. BilCat (talk) 04:46, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

The thing is most other language articles seem to be using Swadesh lists in order to measure their word origins. If you did this with English, of course, you have a Germanic language with a significant minority of Latin loanwords (much like German or Dutch with around 25% foreign loanwords, usually from Latin or largely Latin languages like French, it might be around 30-35% in English)

Because of course all Swadesh lists do is take a set amount of the most commonly used words (usually around 1000) in languages and trace their origins.

This article seems to be citing an amateur study from decades ago where a guy basically went through thousands of business letters (which would be more formal and corporate anyway, and contain far more French and Latin synonyms and loanwords, as would formal German and Dutch business letters) and tabulated the words people used and traced their origins?

How is that a reliable source? That's not how linguists assess vocabulary at all. 2.99.93.88 (talk) 16:02, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

This "study" also doesn't seem to have distinguished between French words that come from Frankish (and ultimately Proto-Germanic), and French words which come from Latin. Around 30% of Old French vocabulary was of Frankish origin, and likely slightly higher still was the Germanic influence in Norman Old French) even modern French is still around 15% Frankish in origin (despite attempts to purify it of Frankish influence).

Many of the most commonly used French loanwords in English actually have a Germanic origin through Frankish (flag, banner, abandon, merchant, banner, standard, forest, common etc. etc. etc.)

Having said that, I don't know if it takes into account words from Old English that were of Latin origin either (Old English was around 25% Latin loanwords itself).

I feel like the article could elaborate more on this complex nature of language borrowing in European languages, since there is a common, erroneous perception that English is not a Germanic language due to many loanwords from other languages. 2.99.93.88 (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn't be too difficult to add a bit of text that relaxes the hold that lexicon has on people who don't really understand how language works. Direct attention to structural components that actually characterize the language type -- morphology, syntax. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 03:39, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I think the sentence is okay (maybe we could change the percentages to something more vague like "almost a third" or "over a quarter" or "between a third and a quarter"). It describes the situation perfectly well, is clear that the French and Latin influence is in the number of vocabulary words, saying nothing of frequency of use, and when we get down to it, the discussion above is confusing West Germanic and Germanic. That is a problem because English did derive from West Germanic but many of those most frequent Germanic words in the language now come from Norse influence, which is North Germanic.

The one change I would like is to change "closest" back to "closely". I tried that change before, but it was changed back. I understand why we want to say English is closest to Frisian, but the concept of closest language is all so debatable. In a summary in the lead, I think it is enough that we single out Frisian and Low Saxon as the closely related West Germanic languages. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:07, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Cumbersome Lead

The lead is showing signs of bloat as it keeps getting small additions. I am going to make some bold edits to the first paragraph now, but pre-empting queries as to why by opening this talk section.

1. I am removing lead discussion about where the Angles came from (too much detail).
2. Removing the bit about England being named for the area they migrated too as that is not quite right and needs a lot of unpacking (but consider, at least , that the Scottish lowlands also saw such migration).
3. The bit about closest languages is a fraught and debatable topic. I am avoiding it with new wording. Scots is English too, in the Old English period at least.

I may prune other parts soon (will see how this one goes first). Something I noticed in doing the edit is inconsistent referencing style. An editor has been inserting shorter footnotes (sfn) into the document that has not used these in the past. Do we have a view on the best reference style going forward? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:51, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Not sfn, certainly. Cite-bandits should be strongly discouraged. Johnbod (talk) 14:01, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I took a look at the referencing to see how big an issue it would be to sort it out, and noticed it is not as easy as I had supposed. There are over 300 sfn references in the page, and a lot more than <ref> style. Clearly someone had changed the whole page at some point so I took a look at page history and found some very significant activity in March-May 2015. All sfn references were converted between March and April of that year. The activity appears to have been to prepare the article for GA status. So I may have mis-stated above. It may be there is already an archived consensus for sfn. I will leave that alone for now. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:51, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

So looking at the second paragraph of the lead, my thoughts are that there is repetition with the first paragraph. We are again told of the West Germanic root, and Norse influence. That was already mentioned in the first paragraph. I don't like "mutated" and think "influenced" by Norse would be better. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:22, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

L2 Speakers

As per Ethnologue, 2022 Edition, English now has over a billion L2 speakers , someone please update the article accordingly. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 20:29, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

a complement clause such as I saw him leave, where the main verb is to see, which is in a preterite form, and leave is in the infinitive

Seems unkind to tell naive readers that on the one hand saw is the preterite of to see, while leave is in the infinitive. I.e. the "bare infinitive" actually is the infinitive. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:31, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

"29% of modern English words"

Does anyone know where the statistics about dialects of France/French being (about 29% of modern English words) and Latin influences (also about 29%) are ultimately coming from? I realize the same statistics appear on Foreign-language influences in English, which contains a cute lil pie chart. But that page also fails to cite sources. The chart itself cites a deadlink from AskOxford. List of English words of French origin gives 45% (also citing a deadlink). I like the idea of having percentages, but can we have some citations? Wolfdog (talk) 14:11, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Good point, Wolfdog. Enthusiasm or lack thereof for percentages aside, has anyone serious ever really calculated the % of "modern English words" taken in from Old Norman, Old French or more recent French? A lexicon is not finite. A calculation, if not couched overtly as an approximate estimation (based on what?), would have parameters, limitations, along the lines of "x% of the [y number] most frequent words used in Modern English", along with identification of the corpus, such as print of various registers, oral recordings, etc. The results can be simplified -- espérons-le with minimal distortion -- for Wikipedia purposes, but the reference(s) should be here. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:43, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Highly incorrect map for english mandatory subject - Democratic People's Republic of Korea/source needed

Well, I am korean and there is no way in hell that english is mandatory in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The map does not seem to have any source. Are you sure that english is mandatory in North Korea, China, and all of the countries that are in blue? Jishiboka1 (talk) 02:52, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

The source is a publication from the University of Winnepeg. [1] It has a map, and clicking on DPRK provides: "Year of primary source: 2016. Mandatory grades: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11" The article describes "blue" countries as "where English is a mandatory element of the national education policy concerning public education". Poking around the site, I found a table of links to their sources.[2] Unfortunately they are kept in a dropbox which requires a login to access. They do give an email address if you have difficulty reading the files, though. _signed, Willondon (talk) 03:33, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 28 May 2023

Sample text section should use blockquote markup instead of description lists. See WP:DLIST and WP:BLOCKQUOTE. 93.72.49.123 (talk) 22:42, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done Actualcpscm (talk) 07:05, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

American spellings

Why can’t this page have American spellings Theobegley2013 (talk) 20:36, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Theobegley2013, please see WP:ENGVAR. -- Hoary (talk) 22:34, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The earliest versions of this article used British English. --00:38, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Dialects vs languages

Wouldn't you guys consider Central American and Carribean languages to be their own language, rather than a dialect? Take for example, Jamaican. I believe this language falls under dialects in this article, but it is considered its own language. I probably sound like an idiot, but please take this into consideration. Von Speck (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I sense some confusion between Jamaican English and Jamaican creole, which are two separate things, both mentioned in the article. (see the topic below, as well) _signed, Willondon (talk) 17:08, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Why did the lede get gimped?

Seriously look how much more informative it was a few months ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_language&oldid=1150213565 Somarain (talk) 22:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

@Somarain: A lot of that went into the History section, as the lead section was becoming overcrowded. Wolfdog (talk) 11:55, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Overcrowded how? We have no problem with the Battle of Gettysburg having a long lede because it's important. Why is it so important that the international language has the same length as Togo and Icelandic? Somarain (talk) 01:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Is the UDHR sample really necessary?

If someone is reading an entire article written in English about English, do they really need a two-sentence sample of the English language? Doesn't this entire article serve as a "sample" due to being written in English? It's almost like it's pretending not to be written in English when it obviously is. Eightos (talk) 02:38, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that that's ridiculous. Can be deleted unless someone has some compelling reason we can't think of. Wolfdog (talk) 13:03, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done _signed, Willondon (talk) 14:21, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Guyana and Jamaica

Guyana and Jamaica are both English speaking - quite so. Local creole are also decidedly English dialects which rely heavily on old English - and far easier to understand than, say, Cockney. English is the native tongue and official language in Guyana and Jamaica of books, press, tv and government. To state otherwise is to demand that native English speakers fit some artificially and quite possibly racist rule regarding geographic place or 'acceptable' dialect. For a long time the French Academy rejected Quebecois as French. Wikipedia shouldn't be committing a similar error here in separating "lesser" people from recognition of speaking their own claimed native language. 208.59.107.13 (talk) 16:44, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't see where the article runs afoul of this advice. Guyana is not mentioned. Jamaica is mentioned a number of times: (1) the infobox list of dialects, including "Jamaican", "American", "British"; (2) where it is described as an "outer circle country" that has a "much smaller proportion [than other groups in the model] of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government"; (3) where it says "The most prominent varieties are Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole." Perhaps you are conflating what the article says about Jamaican creole, and the Jamaican flavour of English. _signed, Willondon (talk) 17:04, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Not mentioning Guyana - the only native English speaking nation in South America - is a vast encyclopedic oversight by any measure. And Jamaican creole is a dialect somewhat distinguished by not using the “th” sound and not pronouncing the “h” sound in the beginning of a Standard English word. It is English and written as so in all of the local daily newspapers. By what standard do we discriminate against Guyana and Jamaica in denying them of their own domestic claims of English as their native language?

Both Guyana and Jamacia should be listed in this article under the heading, "Countries and territories where English is the native language of the majority. 208.59.107.13 (talk) 18:43, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

There are a few lists linked to (one in "See also"), but none currently in the article (or encyclopedia) specifically list where English is "the native language of the majority". The Jamaican Patois article says "Jamaican Creole exists in gradations between more conservative creole forms that are not significantly mutually intelligible with English, and forms virtually identical to Standard English." So where I read this article as referring to two distinct things (Jamaican Patois, and Jamaican English), that article seems to be describing a continuum. Bottom line, I don't see where there is any discrimination or denying going on here. _signed, Willondon (talk) 19:17, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Guyana is not mentioned. Not mentioning Guyana - the only native English speaking nation in South America - is a vast encyclopedic oversight by any measure. Neither Jamaica nor Guyana are recognized as nations that are native language English speakers. Why? 208.59.107.13 (talk) 23:27, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Very good question: where's Guyana in the article? No answer forthcoming, it seems. Perhaps the first step, given the elaboration of Kachru's three circles model, would be to establish where Guyana fits in that classification. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 00:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Source updates for vocab section

The source that is used to confirm the number of English words is described as a 1989 Oxford English Dictionary, and links to an archived page. This needs to be updated. Also, I think that the English vocabulary's famous designation as the largest in the world should be addressed here. Norabur (talk) 02:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Although I've heard of this designation in pop culture, do we have an actual credible source/study that supports the claim? Wolfdog (talk) 16:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)