Talk:Germanic languages/Archive 2

message: some linguist and historicians argue that the gothic language evolved from old gutnish. this view should be represented in the table of languages  that apears in the article.  
:Do you have sources? —Angr 15:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a page on Germanic Languages that references to some degree the assertion mentioned here.  Though, it does raise some good critical points.  Gothic is the only reasonably attested East Germanic language available for analysis, and so East Germanic is just too much of an unknown to make any sort of firm theory about its origins.  I would likely claim that any information that we represent here on the origins of the East Germanic branch would be speculative, and thus only have a relevance in heading that would specifically be talking about theories and speculations of the origins of Germanic languages.  As such, the existence of an East Germanic branch is undeniable, and whether it need be rerooted at some later point is not immediately relevant to this article. --Puellanivis 16:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, the source you give doesn't sound particularly optimistic about a Gothic-Old Gutnish connection, and he doesn't cite his sources either. If published discussion of the possibility can be found, then it could be added to the article East Germanic languages, but I don't think this article really needs it. —Angr 18:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gothic language

message: The term "North Sea" Germanic seems to be in much greater use than "Anglo-Frisian".
"Anglo-Frisian" is also a problem for a historial description. If "Anglo" means Anglic it disregards (the original, West Germanic) Jutish. If "Anglo" means "England" it disregards the early historical period of the group on the Continent. (The association with "England" is also a problem vis-a-vis Insular Saxon, as I'll get to in a moment.)
The "Diachronic" chart also has a big problem in that it is folding together the separate Anglic, Jutish, and Saxon into "Old English".
And to get to a really knotted problem -- Old Saxon wasn't "Anglo-Frisian"/"North Sea" at all, but ordinary (what the chart calls "South") West Germanic. And this Insular Old Saxon was in fact the literary language we called (confusedly) "Old English".
So the chart needs to show literary "Old English" in the South Germanic section -- really as "Insular Old Saxon (literary Old English)".
Meanwhile "Insular Jutish" and "Insular Anglic" replace "Old English" in the (hopefully renamed) "North Sea" section.
Then ideally some kind of special lines or color blocks join "Insular Old Saxon (literary Old English), and "Insular Jutish/Insular Anglic", to meet at Middle English. (This might not be possible with a text chart. I have simpler suggestions toward the end of this post.)
Because there really is no such animal as "Old English" -- as a language distinct from continental forebearers/cousins -- and as a unified merger of Anglic-Jutish-Saxon.
This brings us to the final classification/organization/presentation problem: "Middle English" and "Modern English" are actually (I assert) mixed languages resulting from the merger of two North Sea languages and one South Germanic language. So Modern English doesn't fit nicely in the "Anglo-Frisian"/"North Sea" category after all.
If you're going to disagree, and claim Middle English is (primarily) a continuation of Old Anglic, not Old Saxon, then you can't call Beowulf "Old English". You have to have the Insular Old Saxon of Beowulf going extinct and being replaced by the expanded Old Anglic, now Middle Anglic or Middle English.
Traditional classifications are confusing geography (and national cultural inheritance) with linguistic geneticism.
Well I've rambled on confusingly.
I would like to specifically and practically request:
Change "Anglo-Frisian" to "North Sea (Germanic)" throughout the article
In the Diachronic chart --
 - move the Frisian column to the right of English
 - divide the Old Saxon cell with vertical line into "Continental Old Saxon" and "Insular Old Saxon (literary Old English)"
 - divide the Old English cell with vertical line into "Old Anglic (vernacular Old English)" and "Old Jutish (vernacular Old English)"
Sorry not to do this myself but I'm hopeless with Wikipedia charts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.6.239.45 (talk) 11:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: North Sea Gmc, in Maurer's original formulation, includes Old Saxon. Actually the 3rd and 4th rows of the table are shambolic: South Gmc is a marginal synonym for WGmc and shouldn't be there; the consensus (everywhere except here!) is that Lombardic is an OHG dialect; it is absurd to date OHG from 200AD; there is no sense in which Old Frankish and OHG can be separated until the sound shift. I corrected it all few months ago, but couldn't be bothered to persevere when this version was reinstated. Utter nonsense. --Pfold 13:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Anglo-Frisian" vs. "North Sea", and the Diachronic Chart 

message: I no longer have any contention regarding this issue, as a result of User:Angr's pointing to WP:SNOW, while I remain concerned that Wikipedia can be abused by a mob, I suppose that's not really a *new* perdicament.  :) Thank you all so much for addressing my issue in a respectful manner, rather than just devolving into an edit war. --Puellanivis 01:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, as long as ru-sib is still up and working, bots are going to add the link anyway, so there's really no point us arguing about it. —Angr 21:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, somehow it's like a fight against windmills. How many of those bots are there, and can they be configured not to do this? I've actually left the owner of that bot a friendly message too. The inventors of interwiki bots apparently weren't thinking of the problem that such links could ever get potentially controversial - which, to be sure, they normally shouldn't be. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just not worth worrying about one way or the other. Once ru-sib gets deleted, some bot will come along and remove all the links to it. Let's us humans worry about the content of the article, not what interwiki links it has. —Angr 21:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. :) --Puellanivis 22:56, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contention Dismissed 

message: There should be some centralized discussion on this vandalism/improvement on the English Wikipedia. This same group of edistors seems to have gone through all en: articles with sib: links. See also Talk:Ingria. -- Petri Krohn 01:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Centralized discussion? 

message: I am not sure your partial revert was well merited. Moreover, sensible or not, it was a half measure, leaving an impossible situation.
The deleted text was from a context explicitly dealing with the 'pre-Proto-Germanic speakers'.  The migrations of the speakers is rather closely related to the spread of the idiom, if we do not assume the Germanic substrate hypothesis; and the theory of a Scandinavian origin ordinarily doesn't. Now, this context is set at the beginning of the section labelled History; but actually this is prehistory, which is the reason why it is dubious.  I believe that there are several incompatible theories for this prehistory, and that no real consensus exist among linguists and philologists on this.  This is a good reason not to retain the statements presented as the truth.
However, what you did was to delete some archaeological arguments in favour of the hypothesis of a Scandinavian origin of proto-Germanic speakers hypothesis, but at the same time leaving the map which describes the migrations of the 'Germianic tribes' southwards from Scandinavia in much greater detail, but without an explanation of what base these claims have.  The text motivated the map; and if you should retain just one of them, you should have kept the text but let the map go.
My suggestion is: Make a separate section for Prehistory; start it by noting that this is rather unsure and debated; and then present current theories, if possible with some evaluation of how much or little support they have to-day.  (I guess the Germanic substrate hypothesis should be presented as having rather little support.) Thus, the deleted text should be restored but as one alternative.  Probably Colin Renfrew's 'antimigrationistic' arguments should be presented, too; I assume that they are not completely dismissed by the scientific world.  and yes, this means that there will be some brief discussion of visible cultural changes (like different kinds of pottery), together with the questions whether or not this equals movement of people, and whether or not movement of people equals spread of langue.  This indeed would be completely within the topic, since it describes what grounds linguists have for believing that the proto-Germanic language spread or didn't spread this or that way.
At the same time, the text which now stands under the heading Writing could be moved down.  Recall that the existience of written records distinguish history from prehistory.--JoergenB 08:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I very much agree also.  This is a very good idea JoergenB, and I think the ordering Pre-History, Writing, and History is definitely a good idea for the ordering, as this gives a chronological basis for the evidence, and it allows us to present views on the proposed/known migration of people and the proposed effects that these had upon the languages spoken.  It also does give a better NPOV for presenting the various competing theories, that as is mentioned, are placed in Pre-history, and thus unavailable for the scrutiny available for attested History.   --Puellanivis 19:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Necessary text revision 

message: Some, like German, Dutch  and Icelandic, have preserved much of the complex inflectional morphology inherited from the Proto-Indo-European language. 
N: and its carier cary most of the ie marker R1a1. Acording to Cavalli-Sforza there is corelation betwen gen and language . Nasz 03:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dutch has hardly preserved any of the complexity of PIE inflectional morphology at all, and even German and Icelandic haven't preserved much. Chromosomes have nothing to do with language; what Cavalli-Sforza does is pseudoscience. —Angr 07:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  qoute + comment 

message: You are right that a large section was cut and pasted from somewhere else, but not the section about the Germanic placenames. You feel up to fixing it? Cbdorsett 20:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really. The stuff about Germanic place names based on *walhaz "foreigner", while true, isn't really relevant to this article, and the part about Celtic names based on Gall "foreigner" being derived from Germanic via w > g just isn't true. —Angr 21:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Angr's reversion went too far

message: This is indeed a good map. There are some things I don't like about it; 
*1 the Line dividing the North and West Germanic languages. this line is really unnecessary and misleading since it givs an impression of a huge division between the to language groups. I am a native Swedish-speaker and i find it much more easy to understand Dutch than Icelandic (probably due to the influences of Hanseatic Low German). 
*2 The division between East and West Nordic languages is out of date and misleading. In my opinion, the division between Insular and Continental Nordic languages is better. I can understand the west Nordic language Norwegian to almost 100% but I find East Nordic language Danish quite difficult. Aaker 20:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The line between North and West Germanic languages follows a genetic relationship, whereas your proposed alteration of the map would be more appropriate for intelligibility-based grouping.  Since this article deals with the genetic relationships of languages, I think it's appropriate to keep the line as is, dividing Western Germanic languages from Northern Germanic languages.  The same issue comes into play for point two.  The graph is essentially showing a genetic relationship, not necessarily a similarity index.  If it were based on intelligibility, I would say that English would be cut off from just about every other color in the map between Conservative and Nonconservative Germanic languages, as English has liberally changed more than any of the other Germanic languages and other Germanic speakers are entirely unintelligible to monolinguistic English speakers.   Now, giving a map of the North Germanic languages in particular, representing the two categories one can use to distinguish them may be a good idea. --Puellanivis 21:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with one thing: the line is unnecessary. The color scheme makes the division completely clear. I would vote with taking the line out and otherwise leaving the map alone. There could also be other maps showing more detailed information, but it is fairly clear that this one illustrates the major genetic divisions. Cbdorsett 04:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While the division of genetic relationships is clear, the division of north and west Germanic is not.   would go for removing the line, as long as a header was placed in the legend specifying which are North Germanic, and which are West Germanic.  While the color scheme does do a good job of seperating North Germanic (blues) from West Germanics (more conservative Germanic languages in Greens, less so in Oranges) it still would have special knowledge required to understand the map and the distinctions between the blues, greens and oranges.  We're not writing this article for people who already know this material, but rather for people who can't list off the major genetic branches of the Germanic language tree off the top of their head.  --Puellanivis 07:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The map of Germanic languages in Europe

message: Should "Scanian" really be placed under "Swedish"? The history of the dialect is muddled, and there are several Scanian regionalists who could get offended, but I'd say it's similar to Bokmål. Bokmål is geneologically (or however it's spelled) West Norse, but has turned generally East Norse due to heavy impact from Danish. Scanian is geneologically Danish, but has turned generally Swedish due to heavy impact from it. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So you think it should be under Danish?Cameron Nedland 13:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Genealogically, yeah, I think I'd prefer it. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Curiously, the Eastern Danish link in the table (the Danish dialect believed to be closest to Scanian, having emerged from a similar part of a dialectal continuum) already links to Scanian. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Shouldn't Danish and Swedish be under the same language genealogically? Aaker 12:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Linguistically, they could be considered dialects of a pluricentric language continuum. Genelogically, they have diverged from a common ancestor, Old Norse. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 18:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Placement of Scanian

message: Who doesn't consider them Germanic languages and why don't they? This looks completely arbitrary. Jacob Haller 15:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Creoles are not considered Germanic languages"

message: Is 'dead' in the table standing for the adjective or for the substantive (the man with the scythe/the status 'exitus')? The last is in Modern High German (der)'Tod' only the first is 'tot'.
--Pistazienfresser (talk) 19:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the adjective, same as in the other languages. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 19:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tod (sub.)/tot (adj.)

message: In the list of examples en:"many" is shown as meaning de:"Manch". This is wrong IMHO. The 1:1 translation of en:"many" into German is de:"viele" where de:"Manch" means en:"some". 92.226.196.13 (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a list of cognates, not direct translations. The question of "semantic shift" is already noted, afaik. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 16:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in list Of examples? 

message: I believe it is rather misleading to say that Afrikaans has "a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages" in the article, because I would not say that it is greater than many other Germanic languages. The non-Germanic influx into Afrikaans is certainly much less than English has experienced and I would say less than Dutch. Afrikaans began diverging from Dutch in the 17th Century and so escaped much of the French influence that Dutch was subjected to since that period, for example. Certainly there has been an influx, but to suggest it is significantly more than other Germanic languages have experienced is misleading. Booshank (talk) 20:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At the very least it would need citing with a reliable source. In addition to Dutch, English, and Afrikaans, the other Germanic language that has experienced "a significant influx of vocabulary" from non-Germanic languages is Yiddish. —Angr 21:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this was put in there to explain why it diverged from Standard Dutch and not as a comparison to all Germanic languages.  Since it's just a tree, maybe it's not necessary at all since if a user read the article on Afrikaans, he could read more about the language.  Just a thought. Kman543210 (talk) 12:10, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Even Scandinavian languages (except Icelandic) have had a notable impact from Non-Germanic languages, mostly Greco-Latin and French. Maybe it's less than for West Germanic, but certainly not ignorable. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 20:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influx of vocabulary from other languages) 

message: Linguistic evidence actually shows that Crimean Gothic is a West Germanic language, contrary to traditional belief. Shouldn't this somehow be altered in the article? I do not have a written source at hand, regrettably, I'm only going by what's been told to me by Harald Bjorvand, professor of germanistic linguistics at the University of Oslo. Does anyone else have a written source? I believe the misconception has arisen due to geographical reasons, seeing as Crimean Gothic was a germanic language spoken in an area assosicated with the Goths.--Alexlykke (talk) 19:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never heard that. All I know about Crimean Gothic is that the word for "egg" is adda, which appears to show the change of *-jj- to *-ddj- that's characteristic of East Germanic, not West Germanic. —Angr 19:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I have heard, whether Crimean Gothic should be considered East or West Germanic is still a matter under debate. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This issue is dealt with in the Crimean Gothic article which also cites the works you need to refer to to more detailed arguments and evidence. The statement "Linguistic evidence actually shows that Crimean Gothic is a West Germanic language, contrary to traditional belief" does not reflect the current state of scholarship. --Pfold (talk) 11:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crimean Gothic 

message: Could it be stated that a common feature of germanic (separating it from other IE languages) is the option of a zero-article?  I am not sure about this by any means, it just occurred to me how rather than Latin or Sanskrit who have no articles ever... French/Spanish (for example) seem to need them excessively (course, compared to germanic languages). It seems that generalness in Romance languages is handled much more differently... I don't know about Celtic languages, for example... (only that they don't have indefinite pronouns)
Any ideas as to what's going on here?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Retailmonica (talk • contribs) 17:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about determiner/article usage 

message: |I find it worth noting the range and depth of the phenomenon that is Germanic loanwords. Other than the Classical languages of Latin and Greek I believe the Germanic languages to be among the most influential in terms of vocabulary and loanwords. If you look to almost any European language you will soon find a Germanic loan in its vocabulary. It is worth considering the historical implications that this has had.
I believe it originates from the Germanic speakers as being in the right place at the right time after the Roman era. They were the most widespread tribes in the area other than the Roman descendants and the Celts, so the new technologies and cultural practices that emerged in the post-Roman period were largely named by these speakers. These words soon became easy to pass on to new peoples in Europe and along with the return of interest in the Classical languages the Germanic tongues became the most prolific givers of words.
While not as pure a group of languages as say, the Baltic tongues (who are the closest to Proto Indo-European), I think this again warrants mention in the article. I'm not going to add such a section yet until I see some opinions.| CormanoSanchez (talk) 01:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, how would you propose that section to look? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Loanwords and Influence (Ersatz) 

message: I'm a bit confused about the placing of Scots in the timeline/tree.
The northern part of the Kingdom of Northumbria was incorporated into Scotland right at the start of the Middle English period, so surely this would be where the split was?
Certainly, the big language change of the time was the Norman invasion of England, and as the Scots-speaking Lothian (modern East and Mid Lothian and Borders regions) was never part of the conquered Norman territory it's unlikely that "Middle English" per se was ever spoken there.
McClure's definition of it coming from Northumbrian Old English and the Oxford description of it seem to support the classification of it as having an evolution independent of what is recognised as Middle English.
Prof Wrong (talk) 21:18, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: McClure's definition of Scots having its origins in Northumbrian Old English, while chronologically correct in the sense that all varieties of ‘English’ derive from Old English, is somehwat misleading in that the period when Scots begins to diverge from other varieties of Northern English is after substantial immigration from Northern and Midland England  of Scandinavian-influenced English-speakers in the 12-13c. Their speech perhaps having an significant influence on the route Scots was to take. See History of the Scots language. Nogger (talk) 20:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scots... timeline?