Talk:History of English

CE vs AD edit war

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

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

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

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

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

Opening section

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

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

no alternate theories?

Are there alternate theories of the history of English? Actually I know there is at least one, that of M. J. Harper, as presented in The History of Britain Revealed (namely that English was spoken in Britain long before the Anglo-Saxons arrived, and that Beowulf is a good example of "not-English" rather than "proto-English"). So my question really is, is his theory so marginal that it shouldn't be mentioned at all? Or should it be mentioned to be refuted, or relegated to the loonybins of the English Department? Or is it legitimate to discuss? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 22:19, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Not only are there are alternate theories, but there is little to no historical evidence of an "Anglo-Saxon" invasion or any sort of invasion by "German tribes." By the time the Frisian/Anglo/Saxon coastal dwelling peoples came over to the British Isles, they were themselves living very much in a settled agricultural society, based around towns and villages, with little to no evidence of "tribalism." Further, there was no war-like invasion. Frisian, Anglo and Saxon tradespeople and, especially, bureaucrats were *hired* by the local landowners to come and improve farming practices and feudal organization in early medieval England. As a result, many of these Anglo-Saxons themselves became landed, married into the pre-existing clan system, and instituted what we now know today as "British monarchy." There are even studies of the DNA of these people (and to call them "Germanic" is a stretch, as German is not yet a language and the so-called Teutonic languages have multiple places of origin/linguistic pumping, so it's certainly a biased term that linguists have taken under recent consideration). At any rate, the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians did migrate to the Isles and began to take up administrative positions in what we would call the "upper" parts of society (Britain was much less class structured under the Celts). New patterns of land use, imported from the Continent, pushed Celtic people further west, but obviously, the Welsh, the Gaels and the Celtic speakers in Ireland did not convert to Anglo-Saxon. No one knows for sure how many Bretish/Pictish words still remained in the local vocabulary in, say, the year 900, but the entire region now known as England had been Romanized prior, so there was some linguistic displacement (both in syntax and in morphology/phonology) throughout the entire era. Anyway, this article is no longer usable as a reasonable reference for the subject for high school or undergraduate students, it is further off base than it is on base.LeVeillé (talk) 22:57, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I looked M. J. Harper's book up. Apparently his theory includes the idea that Modern English existed from medieval times, and that it gave rise to modern European languages. This seems highly implausible to me, and I haven't heard it before. — Eru·tuon 23:37, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

English is de facto a German dialect with several armies and navies, which was an important reason for both world wars. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.114.125.90 (talk) 13:33, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, that made no sense.LeVeillé (talk) 23:04, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not the top expert in this area, but I teach History of the English Language at the university level and have the strong sense that Harper's argument is highly marginal. The subtitle of his novel is sensationalizing ("the shocking truth about..."), the publisher is not an academic press, and the few reviews at amazon.com are very mixed. Jk180 (talk) 15:52, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Totally WP:FRINGE, and should not be mentioned. Johnbod (talk) 16:13, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

an anonymous author (that's not his real name) who is also anti-evolution and a selfpublished book? No. Doug Weller (talk) 20:02, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

He's pro- book advances; I'm not sure more than that can be said with certainty! Johnbod (talk) 20:47, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

I must assert that I agree with the implications of this header "no alternate theories?". The whole of the page has been presented almost as "received wisdom" on the basis of the "fifth century hypothesis" without any consideration whatsoever of the broad and contentious nature of this area of research. This area is a very controversial area with many reputable university scholars (who are far better placed intellectually than I in this area) debating, and contributing peer-reviewed articles to, the origins of the English language. Many are now considering the possibility that English has linguistic roots which not only predate the so-called invasions of the fifth century but also the Roman occupation itself. In my sincere opinion, and with all due respect, the whole page needs completely revising because it reads like an account from an outdated text on the origins of the English people and their language. A passing reference to Oppenheimer's work but not even a mention of the obvious implications of the historiographical evidence in Caesar's 'Gallic Wars' that Germanic speech communities (and not necessarily of the Western Germanic branch but of a distinct branch) were already established in Britain alongside the Brythonic by the third century BCE. Anybody coming to this page for the first time as a rookie or greenhorn, so to speak, would certainly not be greeted by a balanced introduction which invites further interest and inquiry. Greengauge121 (talk) 11:20, 26 October 2015 (UTC) 1) "English is Not Normal" by John McWhorter, Professor at Columbia University poses the tantalizing concept that English has its roots in "Celtic" languages. 2) After seeing the DNA results of England (traces of the Anglo-Saxon 'invasion' are found in roughly 5% of the population) it's hard to believe the language is Germanic (the huge majority Celtic population would have been required to stop using their own language and switch to that of the small ruling minority...not very plausible.) 3) My nephew, who teaches German, does not believe English can be a Germanic language; not because of the words themselves, but because of the language structure. It appears to me there should be a mention of alternate theories.

I don't know any Celtic languages, but I speak fluent English and German and have taught both at the university level. English sure seems to me like a Germanic language, and not just because of the vocabulary. The verb forms (as you move from present to past to part participles) and the word order are extremely close in English and German. Celtic could certainly be more important to English than is currently recognized, but that claim would need extensive evidence and discussion by scholars. As far as I know, specific DNA markers and specific languages have no direct, meaningful connections, and languages have been adopted or abandoned for all sorts of reasons. Jk180 (talk) 16:55, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Part of the problem is calling the entire group "Germanic" when there's no clear evidence about when "Germanic" diverged from PIE. Many DNA branches have specific linguistic affiliations (not sure where you're getting facts that would deny this; obviously, there are major exceptions but when there are, I can assure you that geneticists and geographers look for explanations and if possible, so do historians). We might as well call the entire group of languages "Nordo-Anglo-Teutonic" rather than Germanic. English has only a little in common with, say, Old Frankish (which is always classsified as Germanic). The stem language from which Anglo, Saxon, Frisian, German, Dutch, Norse, etc all descend probably ought not to be called Germanic and would not have been named this had not German linguists been so much at the forefront of the 19th century discussion. BTW, there *is* extensive debate about this among linguists at every linguistic meeting involving the topic.LeVeillé (talk) 23:04, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I thought the surprising lack of vocabulary of Celtic origin in Old English was always something of a puzzle to scholars! This is still fringe nonsense. Johnbod (talk) 17:39, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

McWhorter does not say English has its roots in Celtic languages. He says "English started out as, essentially, a kind of German." He just says that the requirement of using "do" in yes/no questions comes from Celtic, that's it. --Beirne (talk) 21:58, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I haven't followed McWhorter's argument about a possible Celtic origin of "do," but I know that "tun" (do) is used in German today even though it's viewed as incorrect. Elementary school children living near Frankfurt, Germany frequently use this construction very much like we do in English... until they are corrected by teachers and parents and told not to use it. A child might ask, for example, "Tust du essen?" (lit. Do you eat?) rather than the form that they are taught is correct: "Isst du?" (lit. Eat you?). Here's an English-language source that aligns with my observations of German children's use of "tun," but the author (David Briggs) connects it not to children but to specific modern dialects of German and cites a source explaining that the use of "tun" as an auxiliary verb was stigmatized in Early New High German: https://aeon.co/conversations/does-english-have-any-special-merits-that-set-it-apart-from-other-languages German speakers today sometimes continue to play with this "incorrect" use of the auxiliary verb form after they've grown up a bit. See, for example, the German-language exchanges at http://www.poppen.de/community/topic/25987-was-tust-du-essen/ It seems unlikely to me that small children and speakers of different German dialects are imitating English syntax; I think it's more likely that they're using analogy, drawing on other common question constructions that do use auxiliaries in German, such as "Hast du gegessen?" (lit. Have you eaten?). None of this has any direct bearing on what Old English and Old German were actually like, but it may every so slightly suggest that Germanic languages have always had the option of building questions with "do" and did not need to borrow that feature from Celtic. A possible Celtic origin is an interesting idea, of course, but I'm not yet convinced! Jk180 (talk) 01:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

In the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain Wikipedia page, the Celtic hypothesis (contents 5.2) is stated. I think it is fair to include this as an alternative theory. The hypothesis states that the Anglo-Saxon grammar was influenced by the Celts and gives evidence for the hypothesis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.47.192.105 (talk) 02:09, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Let's please stick to philologists specializing in historical Germanic linguistics here. Marginal theories outside of this discipline, including some espoused by McWhorter, are WP:UNDUE and should be treated as such. :bloodofox: (talk) 09:02, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

How about we stick to comparative linguistics and not philology at all? There are very few juried journals in philology dealing with this important topic. Further, spoken and written language do not necessarily share the same history or evolution.LeVeillé (talk) 23:04, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@Bloodofox: With all due respect, English philology does not deal exclusively with Germanic linguistics and alternative theories unrelated to Germanic origin should be welcome in this discussion. English is a mixture of languages (at least Latin and Germanic). The good evidence for a Celtic relationship (as I stated above) certainly should not be ignored. In regards to English origin, I think it is unanimously Germanic. However, this discussion is about the History of English not the origin of it. Regarding what you said about theories that are WP:UNDUE, the Celtic Hypothesis is not one of them. It is a growing idea based on sound evidence. Since the Celtic Hypothesis is already mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain page, it makes sense to include it in the history of English. 45.47.192.105 (talk) 13:01, 14 April 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.47.192.105 (talk) 23:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

You wrote that the Celtic Hypothesis "is a growing idea based on sound evidence." If it is a growing idea, we should cite reliable sources that present it as such. If it's based on sound evidence, we should cite reliable sources that discuss that evidence. I don't think it's acceptable to argue that it should be mentioned on this page because it is mentioned on another page of Wikipedia. (I'm very skeptical of the idea that English could only have gotten the "do" of yes/no questions from Celtic. In an earlier contribution to this thread, I cited several sources demonstrating the use of "do" in yes/no questions in German.) Jk180 (talk) 21:40, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

This article looks as though it had been written in 1950! No one seems to have looked at the extensive citations (see below) used in the "Linguistic evidence" section of Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. Taken as a whole, they seem to have more than adequate academic gravitas for the "Celtic Substrate" hypothesis to at least merit a mention here. I cannot imagine that all of these published authors are fringe theory pushers or lack academic credentials. For example 'The Oxford Handbook of the History of English' sounds like something that should be referenced here if nowhere else on Wikipedia. If a linguist can write a paper about the "re-evaluation of the Celtic hypothesis" then it has been around for long enough in academic circles to put this article to shame for not even mentioning it. Come on you linguists, earn your corn! Get hold of some recent research. Urselius (talk) 11:04, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

• Moravcsik, Edith. 1978. 'Language contact.' In Joseph Greenberg, Charles A. Ferguson and Edith Moravcsik (eds) Universals of human language, vol. I. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 93-123.
• Thomason, Sarah Grey and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language contact, creolization and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Coates, Richard. "Invisible Britons: The view from linguistics. Paper circulated in connection with the conference Britons and Saxons, 14–16 April. University of Sussex Linguistics and English Language Department." (2004)
• Charles A. Ferguson, 'Diglossia', Word 15 (1959), 325–340; Joshua A. Fishman, 'Bilingualism with and without Diglossia, Diglossia with and without Bilingualism', Journal of Social Issues 23 (1979), 29–38.
• Miller, D. Gary. External Influences on English: From its Beginnings to the Renaissance. Oxford 2012: Oxford University Press
• Hickey, Raymond. Early English and the Celtic hypothesis. in Terttu Nevalainen & Elizabeth Closs Traugott(eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of English. Oxford 2012: Oxford University Press: 497–507.
• Filppula, Markku, and Juhani Klemola, eds. 2009. Re-evaluating the Celtic Hypothesis. Special issue of English Language and Linguistics 13.2.
• Poussa, Patricia. 1990. 'A Contact-Universals Origin for Periphrastic Do, with Special Consideration of OE-Celtic Contact'. In Papers from the Fifth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, ed. Sylvia Adamson, .
• Hickey, Raymond. 1995. 'Early Contact and Parallels between English and Celtic'. Vienna English Working Papers 4: 87–119.
• Schrijver, P. (2013) 'Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages', Routledge ISBN 1134254490, pp. 60-71
• Hans Frede Nielsen, The Continental Backgrounds of English and its Insular Development until 1154 (Odense, 1998), pp. 77–9; Peter Trudgill, New-Dialect Formation: The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes (Edinburgh, 2004), p. 11.
• Peter Schrijver, 'The Rise and Fall of British Latin', in The Celtic Roots of English, ed. Markku Filppula et al., Studies in British Celtic Historical Phonology (Amsterdam, 1995) pp. 87–110.
• Toon, T.E. (1983) The Politics of Early Old English Sound Change. New York

Urselius (talk) 11:04, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

These are "disputes" among experts, on minute details of the phonology and grammar of Old English. There is no "alternate hypothesis" in the sense suggested here. From "Re-evaluating the Celtic Hypothesis" (2009): "The standard wisdom, repeated in textbooks on the history of English such as Baugh and Cable (1993), Pyles & Algeo (1993), and Strang (1970), holds that contact influences from Celtic have always been minimal and are mainly limited to Celtic-origin place names and river names and a mere handful of other words". The "impermeability of English against Celtic influences" is a fact and not under debate. What is under debate are possible reasons for this. The so-called "Celtic hypothesis", a neologism coined for the 2009 publication, does not challenge this; it is explicitly about reviewing minority proposals to the effect that some unexplained features of Old English might in fact be due to a Celtic substrate. Under WP:DUE, this does not deserve more than one or two sentences in this article, but of course anyone is welcome to build and improve the actual article on the topic, at present existing under the title of Brittonicisms in English. The problem is not with the 2009 publication, which is not "WP:FRINGE", but with the WP:SCUM attitude prevalent among uninformed editors on Wikipedia. Discussion of the various contributions to the 2009 volume would be perfectly at home in the Brittonicisms in English page, i.e. [1]

• McWhorter: periphrastic do may be due to Celtic
• Schrijver speculates about possible phonological effects of a Celtic substrate; "He concedes that the evidence is very limited"
• Laker: phonemicisation of voiced fricatives in Old English may be due to Celtic contact
• Lutz: paradigm of "to be" in Old English may have been influenced by Celtic, following Keller (1925) ["This article looks as though it had been written in 1950!" indeed]
• Poppe: Reflexives and intensifiers: "However, on closer examination they turn out to be typologically related, and do not therefore provide independent evidence for Celtic influence."
• Filppula: cleft construction.
• Klemola: unusual adverb + infinitive constructions in southwestern and West Midlands English ("away to go").
• Vennemann: answers to yes/no questions (ok, so this final one may be WP:FRINGE)

This hodge-podge of speculative (but perfectly scholarly) minutiae is dubbed, somewhat grandiosely, the "Celtic Hypothesis" by the editors. Yes, even historical linguists try to come up with catchy titles for their publications.

This is just your opinion. If a theory has backing from scholarly opinion and is not fringe (which if it is scholarly and has a relatively wide scholastic base it obviously is not) then mention of it should occur for completeness sake. Urselius (talk) 07:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

None of this has any place in the "history of English" page. Most of it would be too obscure or speculative even for dedicated "Old English phonology" or Old English syntax" articles. But people could work on a proper presentation in Brittonicisms in English instead of irrelevant cross-posting to this talkpage. Personally, what I find most promising here is the discussion of Welsh influence on West Midlands English. Needless to say, this is irrelevant to the "History of English" as a whole, as it concerns the continued contact between Welsh and English speakers along the Welsh borders throughout the medieval period. --dab (𒁳) 11:03, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Again just your opinion; an encyclopaedia, even one as flawed as Wikipedia, should aim to be encyclopaedic. Schrijver states that the sound shift seen in Old English from away from its continental ancestor, from c.450 to c.700 is the result of contact with a substrate language, i.e. thorough Old English being spoken by the native speakers of another language. I believe that the majority of philologists are of the opinion that Old English was not merely an idiom transplanted directly from the continent. If, as most scholars assert, Old English was a product of insular processes then there should be some mention of what these processes may have been. There is far too much published material on the 'Celtic hypothesis' for it to be entirely ignored in the text of this article. Urselius (talk) 07:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I do not believe that you are correct in repeatedly dismissing counter-arguments as "just your opinion." I teach History of English Language at the university level. The standard textbooks, written by experts, do not refer to a Celtic hypothesis. Baugh and Cable's History of the English Language talks about the "slight influence" of Celtic on English and focuses on vocabulary, not the periphrastic "do" or other alleged connections. You offer what look to me like unsupported assertions (such as "I believe that the majority of philologists are of the opinion that..."). Current, university-level textbooks are a reasonable place to find what actual linguistic consensus exists on the subject of Celtic influence on English. Jk180 (talk) 19:32, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

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Requested move 7 March 2020

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think the language is the primary topic for the noun "German".[2] - Station1 (talk) 09:31, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All pages with titles beginning with History of English

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Requested move 31 July 2020

• History of English → History of the English language
• History of French → History of the French language
• History of Portuguese → History of the Portuguese language
• History of Greek → History of the Greek language (bolded on the lead)
• History of German → History of the German language (bolded on the lead)
• History of Polish → History of the Polish language (short description of the article)
• History of Swedish → History of the Swedish language
• History of Hindustani → History of the Hindustani language
• History of Icelandic → History of the Icelandic language (bolded on the lead)
• History of Romanian → History of the Romanian language (bolded on the lead)
• History of Catalan → History of the Catalan language
• History of Danish → History of the Danish language – I nominated the respective category for renaming to match the main article (link). However, it was opposed and I am currently requesting to do the reverse. Unless otherwise noted, I am neutral on other History of foo articles. Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 12:28, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Caution – Before citing the WP:CONCISE to oppose the RM, please thoroughly read the policy on article titles. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 12:35, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Proposed just 4 months ago, & no consensus after a long discussion. What's different now? Johnbod (talk) 13:02, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose It looks like this was discussed a bit too recently to go through this all again. But this does not seem necessary -- without a word like "the" or another article, this does not seem a likely search term for other subjects, and for the few who use nonstandard phrasing there are hatnotes to resolve.--Yaksar (let's chat) 14:08, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, if not procedure close. This is the third RM of this nature opened by the OP in the past five months (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages/Archive 14#Requested move 4 April 2020 in addition to the above). I recommend they consult the community such as WT:LANG on the possibility of consolidation before opening RMs like this and work towards a preliminary consensus. Otherwise this is starting to resemble forum-shopping/refusal to get the point. Nardog (talk) 14:48, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment because it involve all RMs that include in History of foo format, I recommend for all users to discuss it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages to discuss the possibility of consolidation before opening RMs and work towards a preliminary consensus. thanks. 36.77.92.128 (talk) 16:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC)