Talk:Languages of Europe/Archive 1

Maltese?

I don't see it...65.101.174.47 23:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Voila (Stpaul 07:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC))

About Galician

In the list, Why is galician show as "son" of the portuguese? although both have the same origin (Galician-Portuguese), they are diferent languages. Also, the Fala language is often considerated a galician dialect, not portuguese --Alyssalover^(talk) 08:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Galicia is very far apart from the towns where the Fala is spoken... FilipeS 18:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Errors in Slovene and Croatian

1. ...Croatian (e.g. léta he flies, is flying with long rising accent vs. lêta years with long falling accent) and Slovenian (e.g. sûda of the vessel with long falling accent vs. súda of the court with long rising accent)... — words used in these examples are wrong. The supposed Slovene words are definitely not Slovene (vessel = posoda, genitive: posode; court = sodišče, genitive: sodišča). They probably aren't correct Croatian either (vessel = posuda, posuđe, genitive: posude, posuđa (should be verified with a native speaker of Croatian); court = sud, genitive: suda). In the first Croatian example: 'to fly' is leteti, 'he flies' would be (on) leti. I don't think leto exists in Croatian, 'year' is godina and 'summer' is ljeto (leto means year in Slovene and 'summer' in Serbian).

2. ...Cz. restaurace, Slow. Slovenian reštaurácia, ... — is Slow. intended for Slovak? Slovenian 'restaurant' is restavracija and it probably isn't same as in Slovak. NikNovi 15:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Geography and classification in conflict

Since this is a geographical grouping, I don't see why languages that belong to so-called "European language families" but are spoken outside Europe are included. This includes the three examples given in the opening paragraph, Afrikaans, Pennsylvania German and Persian (Persian is there because of the migration of the Ossetians into the Caucasus, but that doesn't make Persian a European language; Afrikaans etc. because of migrations out of Europe, but, again, Afrikaans is not a European language). The relationships of these languages with European languages are important but they are dealt with in articles such as Iranian languages, Germanic languages.

There is a second question: does a modern migration make a language into a European language, or are languages brought to Europe by modern migrations excluded? Something needs to be said about this. Andrew Dalby 12:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The first sentence

"Most of the many indigenous languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family."

Wikipedia article on indigenous languages says that: "An indigenous language is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples"

Is there any indigenous Indo-European languages (in Europe)? There are of course several Finno-Ugric indigenous languages and Basque might be one too, so the sentence seems to be just plain wrong. Even if indigenous meens something else, why shouldn't other language groups and Basque not be in the introduction? 213.243.181.212 21:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

If we take the definition of "indigenous" to its limit, no group can be proved to be indigenous anywhere. I am not sure when the Sami languages reached their current locations, but other Finno-Ugric languages are no more indigenous than the Indo-European ones. And even the ancestors of the Basques arrived from somewhere.

I think the problem you raise is the same as the one I raised just above: when does a migration become too recent to be counted? My suggestion is that the word indigenous has to come out of the article, and, instead, we have to say that we place in a separate section of the list languages spoken in Europe as a result of modern migration, say (for the sake of argument) after 1850. What do others think? Andrew Dalby 12:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Fenno-Ugric languages in Fennoscandia and Siberia are certainly indigenous, as before there was only ice for tens of thousands of years. Samis are indigenous people too but Finns are usually not called so because the is a Finnish national state (the definition is very much political). If there was not Finns would be "indigenous people" too and same might be true of Estonians also. I did take the word out just indigenous because of this confusion. There need to be a separate article on the origins of European languages in general.213.243.181.212 17:01, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

This is just nonsense. First, there is no linguistic evidence whatsoever that Fennoscandia has been populated by speakers of Fenno-Ugric languages since the end of the Ice Age, and such an idea is rejected by the majority of specialist in Finno-Ugric comparative linguistics, who even date Proto-Uralic thousands of years later. Second, it is a historical fact that Finnish is not an "indigenous" language in most parts of Finland, for instance; most parts of central, eastern and northern Finland are known to have been inhabited by "Lapps" (= Saami) even in the Middle and Early Modern Ages before the northward spread of Finnish and Karelian.

As for the idea that there ought to be a separate article "on the origins of European languages in general", I can see no justification for this. The topic is far too wide and diverse. --AAikio 18:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Merger

Against the merger, the subjects are very different, and there are many other languages outside the EU.

True, but all Languages of the EU are within the category of European Languages. I don't claim that the entries are synonymous, but that the EU languages are a subgroup of European languages. --Sinatra 09:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The EU languages includes things like language policy and so forth, whereas European Languages is a purely geographical exercise. This is important, as languages and language policy are very interesting within the EU.

Very true, the difference between the political question of the languages of the European Union and the geographical question of all European languages is very important, so I oppose. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 07:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I oppose for the same reason. Andrew Dalby 12:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is the context? Merge with what? It is possible that someone removed the 1st line. --Antonielly 13:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Norwegian Nynorsk and Bokmål

Why is Norwegian Bokmål mentioned specifically and not Norwegian Nynorsk? I know that there is some discussion about which category Norwegian Nynorsk should be in, but it looks very odd to just leave it out. - Nidator 16:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC) -

Good point. I deleted bokmål because it is not a language, it is just one of the two different literary standards used for the Norwegian language. --AAikio 09:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

"Common features of European languages"

This is an interesting idea, but the "cultural-anthropological definition of Europe" with which this section begins is unreferenced. Since it excludes more than half of geographical Europe it appears to be a bad definition. In fact it looks more like a definition of "the parts of western Europe that we like", therefore none too neutral. Am I being unfair? Andrew Dalby 20:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

After writing the above comment I have noticed that the whole long section "Common features of European languages" is identical (except for a few recent edits) with a section of the article Eurolinguistics. This looks a bit like spamming, in a respectable way. Since it hasn't been properly wikified, and it all depends on the so-called "cultural-anthropological definition of Europe", which isn't referenced and doesn't correspond with the normal English meaning of Europe, I am now thinking of taking nearly all of the section out of this article and replacing it with a cross-reference to Eurolinguistics, which seems to be a better place for it because it's all about the research relevant to this special definition of Europe that's going on in certain German universities. Does anyone object? Andrew Dalby 18:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The definition is now referenced. --Sinatra 22:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Agree Remove this section a place a link

Hello! I think this article should be merged with (into?) the Eurolinguistics article. They handle very similar topics. Moreover, a lot of sections are almost identical in content between them.

Maybe the list of languages could be put into a separate article, e.g. List of languages of Europe or List of European languages.

What do you think? --Antonielly 13:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Should be completely rewritten

This page is a disgrace for Wikipedia, an article of such relative importance as the languages of Europe should not be allowed to look this bad. The second half of the article may very well be a copyright violation, it reads exactly as if it was taken from a book - note in particular the frequent use of "we may assume" and similar sentences. The only thing that speaks against the article being a copyright violation is the wast amount of errors. Saying that the Irish alphabet is still used in many books is completely wrong, it has hardly been used in any new books for the last 40 years.

Well, you actually find it in reprints of dictionaries that are still used! --Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The author even appears to be unaware of the fact that all Slavic Orthodox nations are Europeans

You appear to be unaware of the fact that there are different definitions of Europe ;-) - Ok, I have added a remark on that. --Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

- he talks about features being common to European cultures, but then points out that they also appear among Orthodox Slavic nations. Neither does the author seem to have any insight into European minority languages. Frisian is listed as being in a weak position while many much weaker languages are listed as being in a strong position.

There is probably a problem of definition again.--Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I just noted that the statement of "weak" vs. "strong" minority languages was not made by me. --Sinatra 10:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The author also implies that Flemish would be a weak language in Belgium.

I certainly did not want to imply that Flemish is in a weak position. --Sinatra

These are only some of the countless errors, and then I haven't even begun to list the statements without sources. If not major improvements to the text is made, the second half of the article, starting with Common Features of European Languages, should be deleted.JdeJ 15:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

As to the section about "Common Features of European Languages", I proposed deletion some months ago (above), and no one has disagreed, so I'll now do it. As I said then, the material is repeated at Eurolinguistics; it is essentially a puff for a researcher's comfortable theory, and certainly doesn't need to be in two places. Andrew Dalby 18:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for not reacting earlier. Since it is me you're talking about, please let me tell you that I've not set up any theory yet, but just collected observations. If you would like to simply put a link to Eurolinguistics (e.g. in the form "For a description of common features among European languages see the article Eurolinguistics"), that would totally be okay with me. -Sinatra 21:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The text sections that remain are not necessarily better than those just deleted, but I think they deserve to remain and to be improved. Do others agree? Andrew Dalby 18:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! This is a good beginning. I'm rather busy at the moment, but I will contribute as well in the future, and I hope others will join in as well. JdeJ 02:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

By now I've had time to improve my text under Eurolinguistics, from which I had pzut some information here. I personally would prefer to reorganize this entire article here (starting with the definition of Europe); but I guess this should be done by the author who started the article. --Sinatra 10:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Reorganization of this page

I've tried to reorganize the contributions on languages in Europe a little bit: see European languages. I added the various definitions used for Europe and put the list of languages in a separate article. I also deleted the information in the article Eurolinguistics, so that it doesn't occur in the Wikipedia twice. I hope everybody is happy with this. --Sinatra 12:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The big problem (hence the NPOV tag) is that you use the English word Europe with a meaning that you have defined; unfortunately this word already exists in English and it has a different meaning (see any dictionary). I think your material was OK as a self-description of your research in Eurolinguistics; it won't do as a Wikipedia article about Languages of Europe or European languages because it begins with, and relies on, a definition of Europe that is not generally understood or accepted. In research, you can do that. In encyclopedia articles, you can't. Andrew Dalby 20:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. Please note that I don't use a definition for Europe that I myself have established. It is a definition used by anthropologists (which indeed I find very useful, because it is based on culture, and language history is very much related to culture). I have quoted Huntington, certainly not an unimportant name. I have quoted a renowned politician, Helmut Schmidt. If you think that more sources should be quoted I can do that. I understand that Europe in everyday language is most frequently associated with the geographical definition, but I don't think that this forbids the use of a different technical meaning in an encyclopedia. A word like dialect also has different meanings in everyday speech and in linguistic terminology, and I guess nobody doubts that this should be reflected in an encyclopedic article. This is why I have mentioned all current usages of Europe (quotes included). And I have said for which definition the observations presented holds true, so I don't quite see why the article should be NPOV. --Sinatra 23:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Huntington's name may be important, if you say so, but he is politically highly controversial (see the Wikipedia article about him). You're citing him (the only native English speaker you cite?) for a definition of the English word Europe which differs from that used by nearly all the other speakers of English.

I'm pretty sure (from my experience) that quite a number of Europeans who speak English use Europe not in the geographical sense.

To me, this makes it appear that you are doing something political yourself. Otherwise, why choose him?

No, I'm not doing anything political, I'm interested in culture, that's why I chose a definition from cultural anthropology. Other scholars who use this definition of Europe are, e.g.: Jeremy Rifkin, Lawrence E. Harrison, Mariano Grondona, Ronald Inglehart.

Similarly, in setting out by stating a new definition of Europe, one that is likely to be very comfortable and satisfying to global powermongers who speak western European languages, you appear to be hanging on the powermongers' coat-tails. Otherwise, why start out like that?

Because I would like to be comprehensive, as it should be in my concept of an encyclopedia. If there are definitions of terms that are technical and not part of everyday language, this should be reflected in an encyclopedia.

But this impression, that I have derived from the way you start out in the article, may be quite false.

In fact I'm really interested in your work, which, I'm sure, is valid and important. What I don't agree with is turning it into the whole body of an encyclopedia article called (last time I looked) European languages, as if the European languages that don't fit into the new definition are to be squeezed out.

That's not the impression that I want to give. The link to List of languages in Europe lists the languages in Europe in a geographical sense (however, most allochtonous languages are missing there--which makes the problem even more complicated). My own passages are introduced by the remark that these passages refer only to the languages in Europe in its anthropological sense. I do not claim that this is already a complete article.

In a good article under this heading, their features need to be discussed just as much as the languages that fit your special definition.

I totally agree with that. However, I'm not an expert in the Slavic orthodox or "eastern European" languages. If somebody wants to add sub-sections on these languages, I have nothing against it.

In fact, you are doing something different from writing an encyclopedia article about all European languages.

Again, I'm trying to write on all European languages--re Europe in its cultural definition... - Information on Europe in its geographical sense may be added

You are identifying Areal features and you are defining a very important Sprachbund, perhaps the most significant in the world right now. If your text, just as it stands now, were headed European linguistic area (or, for those who prefer the loanword, European Sprachbund!), were linked to all other relevant articles, with a brief summary at European languages, then I would welcome it, praise it and even draw other people's attention to it!

I'm not sure that we have enough common features to speak of a European sprachbund. As a matter of fact, some of the features are indeed also present in the "eastern European" languages as well. My goal would be to have information on Europe lato sensu added to Europe stricto sensu. Maybe you are able to do that.

Andrew Dalby 13:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

-Sinatra 19:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Rollback reorganization

I was bold and restored the page to a version before the edits by User:Sinatra. IMHO, the article "Languages of Europe" should really describe the languages of Europe, and not the languages of Central and Western Europe. Btw, does the redirect American languages refer to Indigenous languages of the Americas or to Indigenous languages in the United States of America? --zeno 21:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Zeno! I checked your userpage and can see that you are an administrator of the German Wikipedia, so I understand that you are keen on contributing good articles to this encyclopedia and I respect this. It is also my aim to make good contributions to Wikipedia. However, I feel disrespected if you delete contributions without referring to the arguments that have been discussed. The consequence of your reorganization is that we now have 1. an article that lacks two important definitions that--as I have tried to point out--are used in the academic world and also in everyday speech; 2. an article that lacks many references and sources that I had added in my new version. Viewing these two aspects what we have now is a version now that is farther away from a good encyclopedic article than before. Can you give me a reason why you would like to neglect the other definitions and why you would like to insert unsourced statements? --Sinatra 19:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sinatra, I generally appreciate if specialists in certain fields contribute to Wikipedia. But sometimes they are biased and try to present their views as the generally valid views on a certain topic. I have the feeling that while you may have worked a lot in the research of European languages, you try to push a certain view into Wikipedia which is not at all shared by the majority of linguistic researchers. I think it is a little bit problematic to rely on and cite one's own work that much in a Wikipedia article. Are you sure your book is so relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe? Hint: You may be biased.

I have no problems with mentioning relevant minority views in articles (that should generally be the case in Wikipedia!), however, they should be presented as such. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. I would also like to point out that the approach of Eurolinguistics, especially your interpretation of it, is not shared by most linguists. As I have heard, many linguists have not even heard that the "discipline" of Eurolinguistics exists.

For example, mentioning it in the first sentence of an article about the languages of Europe is not in the interest of our readers, who want to learn about European languages, and not about a rather obscure branch of linguistics.

If you want to elaborate on the opinions shared by the people who work under the label of Eurolinguistics, it might the best to do it in the article "Eurolinguistics", but not here. But be prepared that also there you may have to live with the fact that other people may have different opinions on the matter.

With kind regards, --zeno 12:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Since you bring up the topic of NPOV, I see that I still haven't expressed myself clearly. Let me try again. I am not at all interested in views or opinions, I'm interested in facts and observations. So the only passage where I had mentioned views was in the section on language politics, and there I had only summed up other people's suggestions without evaluating them. I don't see how this should violate any WP rules.

If you think that Eurolinguistics should not be mentioned in the first sentence of this article, this is fine with me. What I would expect though from an encyclopedic article, though, is that it gives all usages of the entry word, in this case: the three definitions that I cite.

Let me also point out that I did not just quote myself, but also other linguists. To what extent my book is relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe I don't dare to decide--to avoid the criticism of original research, I quoted two prominent eurolinguists who reviewed my book. That there are linguists who are not familiar with certain subbranches of linguistics does not surprise me. I wouldn't claim to know all branches either. If I'm correct, you're from Freiburg University, and I know that colleagues there are familiar with Eurolinguistics, as they are working in this field themselves (and I also know that some of them use my book). Other universities where eurolinguistic research is carried out are Mannheim, Berlin, Leipzig, Regensburg, Passau.

--Sinatra 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Sinatra: What I would expect though from an encyclopedic article, though, is that it gives all usages of the entry word, in this case: the three definitions that I cite.

If we followed this logic, then we would have to mention several different definitions of "Europe" in every article that covers some European topic.

Yes, I would definitely expect that from an encyclopedic article: if an author uses a polysemous word without making clear which sense is used, how could a reader be clear about the content? - Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we should make that clear. But: Why talk about Western Europe in an article that may cover all of Europe? Because you did so in your book? --zeno 07:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Because some scholars use Europe in this way. The article should of course also include information on Europe in its other senses. Actually, my version did not exclude information on the other senses.-Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

To what extent my book is relevant for people interested in the languages of Europe I don't dare to decide--to avoid the criticism of original research, I quoted two prominent eurolinguists who reviewed my book.

The crucial point here is: The two reviews were not published in a widely accepted linguistic journal, but in an online journal of which you are (1) the editor and (2) the author of about 50 % of articles. To put it in other words: Your own, private publication.

Whether a linguistic journal is widely accepted or not and whether it is an on-line journal or a printed one, is not the guarantee for quality. But what can probably be expected is that a peer-reviewed journal makes quality more probable. Please note that, although I am the editor and so far the author of most articles, all articles--including my own--have been peer-reviewed. - Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I can turn these sentences around: Being peer-reviewed is not a guarantee for quality. It can also be expected that a wide acceptance of a journal makes its quality more probable.

If JELX is peer-reviewed, who were the reviewers for the different issues? I could not find that information on the website.

The consulting editors of the journal are named on its main page. Who reviewed which article and review remains anonymous, of course.

If your research may be interesting to a wider range of people, why don't you try to publish it in the usual publications?--zeno 07:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "usual publications"? Printed publications? Are you trying to tell me that on-line publications are principally less valuable then printed ones? -- I don't know how much experience you have with traditional publication venues, but with many you have the following obstacles: (1) with some you have the problem that you have to wait years for the actual publication (I've been waiting for the publication of a simple review in one of the internationally most renowned journals for three years now! this is mostly okay with me as regards historical publications, but not as regards quite topical issues); (2) where should Eurolinguistic contributions be published that it reaches the right audience (I wanted to create a central venue of Eurolinguistic study with easy, fast and general access--that's why I've created EuroLinguistiX); (3) not infrequently traditional journals are not interested in innovative approaches before they have been accepted elsewhere. In sum, to reach a wider audience, the traditional linguistic journals do not seem to be the right place to me. So far, I have had the chance to publish over a dozen articles in internationally renowned journals, but my most innovative ones have appeared elsewhere....-Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The eurolinguists you cite may be prominent in the small community that operates under the label "Eurolinguistics", but I am not sure whether this makes your book relevant to the topic "European languages"/"Languages of Europe".

I don't understand the logic. So are you saying that eurolinguists are not relevant to the topic "European languages"? Would it help matters then if I said that I am also a scholar in "English linguistics" and "general linguistics"? Would it help if I said that the two reviewers are also experts in "Slavic linguistics"? Would it help if I told you that these two reviewers have carried out projects sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the central sponsor of academic projects? When is a review relevant then, when is a book relevant then in your view?

I do not say Eurolinguistics are not relevant. What I do say is that Eurolinguistics is not as relevant to the study of European languages as, let's say, Slavistics to the study of Slavic languages. Only a minority of researchers who work on European languages call themselves Eurolinguists. --zeno 10:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by Slavistics is relevant to the study of Slavic languages? Slavistics is the study of Slavic languages? If you say that not only few researches who work on EUropean languages call themselves Eurolinguists that's because not everybody working on European languages is a Eurolinguist, because just comparing two European languages, for instance, doesn't make somebody a Eurolinguist. But I see that this should be clarified in the article Eurolinguistics.--Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

That there are linguists who are not familiar with certain subbranches of linguistics does not surprise me.

As I see the matter, it is disputable whether Eurolinguistics is to be considered a proper branch of linguistics. Maybe "Eurolinguistics" is better described as a small community of researchers.

I don't know whether you can describe -icses as communities, but that is probably not relevant to the topic. Viewing the number of entries in my Eurolinguistic bibliography I also think that the community is more than "small", but "small" is of course a relative description. - Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Best regards, --zeno 15:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The last passages have brought us a bit away from the actual issue here, namely the organization of this article. Let me repeat that I haven't seen any convincing argument yet, why an article that ignores that a word has several definitions is more encyclopedic than one which does. Also, I don't see that the article is left with the unreferenced statements instead of my completed version. Regards, Sinatra 20:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have not seen any convincing argument yet why defining "Europe" as "Western Europe" makes sense for this article.

Because European is understood in the sense of your Western European by some scholars (like the ones I have indicated).-Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I also don't see why citing your book should make the article complete.

mfg, --zeno 07:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that citing my book makes the article complete, I'm saying that all the references that I had given (of course including my book, but not exclusively) had left the passages without unsourced statements. Now the passages include unsourced statements again. -Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If I'm correct, you're from Freiburg University, and I know that colleagues there are familiar with Eurolinguistics, as they are working in this field themselves (and I also know that some of them use my book).

Who are they? Using Google, I could not find any. Please give me their names, either here, or via WP-E-Mail. With kind regards, --zeno 10:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's the homepage of the study program [[4]]; Professor Bernd Kortmann is the coordinator. You will find out that the study program sees Europe in the sense of "Western Europe". --Sinatra 20:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If you look at their map, it does not seem so. And at least they do not exclude Russian: http://www.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/mel/semesterplan/semesterplan.html

--zeno 21:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. There might have been a new development, because the first courses offered as you can see did not include any Slavic classes at all. They have had two courses on Russian, but the rest of the Slavic classes seem to be focussed on Western and Southern Slavic languages. So viewing the small amount of Russian classes in contrast to the other classes and viewing the homepage of the study program, it seems to me that nonetheless the basic view of Europe is a cultural one. By the way, the cultural definition is fortunately a flexible one. It is therefore not at all excluded that Russian becomes a part of this civilization one day. -- Sinatra 19:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

It has been suggested that List of languages in Europe and Alphabetic list of living languages in Europe be merged into this article or section.

Reasoning: the other two lists make assertions that aren't supported, mainly in regards to numbers of people using them. Since this article is almost completely formatted as a list already, they seem redundant and easy targets to POV pushing. Since it's not very likely that they will be sourced, the best solution is to simply redirect them here and find citations for this article to support any claims about usage numbers. 24.4.253.249 20:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Romance languages merge

I recently cleaned up Category:Romance languages and List of Romance languages. I am going to move all correct information from this list to List of Romance languages and then i'll put back whatever is relevant for Europe. --Amir E. Aharoni 17:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Map term "Romanic"

I believe the proper term should be "Romance" and not "Romanic." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Facial (talk • contribs) 07:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Chinese

What about the 140,000 chinese speakers in Ireland alone? There are more people speaking Chinese than Gaelic in Ireland yet they are not even mentioned in this article. 83.70.219.91 00:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

-hardly, in the latest Irish census, 1,650,000 Irish people claimed to be fluent in Irish, and over 500,000 claimed to use the language daily. (I don't know how to do these things, but I'll put the date and my name if it helps. (10/9/2007 - Paul) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.176.93 (talk) 03:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Esperanto debated as official language?

Section General issues - Issues in language politics Sorry, but that's laughable. Esperanto was and is never seriously debated as an official language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.46.30 (talk) 19:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Kosovo Demographics

After the war in Kosovo, a large number of primarily Serbian speaking people have left the region. I recommend someone look at Wikipedia's own web page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Kosovo so that a more accurate mapping of the region can be made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.149.235 (talk) 04:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Catalan and Occitan

The area for Catalan in the main map is wrong, as well as its merging with provençal. The map that represents only the romance languages is right and very good. I don't know how to change the main map, but someone who knows should do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.159.136.238 (talk) 07:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The map is misleading

I am removing this map from the page and moving it here for the moment because it is misleading. A map is of course useful, but this one is misleading. If only a single map is used, it should show the *predominant*, not minority languages for each area. Therefore, the language for the entirety of the British Isles should be shown as English - the *majority* of people in Wales, Scotland and Ireland speak English as their first and (in most cases) only language.

And this is just the area I am familiar with - if this is anything to go by the entire map is unreliable.

On the flip side, the map also suggests stark boundaries that simply don't exist in multi-lingual countries where two or more languages are either the official languages or are widely spoken.

TO summarise: good idea, but the data used is wildy innacurate. Perhaps it would be better to have a series of smaller maps showing the spread of each language, with gradations of colour/tone for what percentage of people speak that language in that particular zone (ie a high percentage (dark) blue for German-speaking people in germany, a lighter blue for German-speaking people in Switzerland, since it is only one of serveral official languages there, and not everyone speaks it)

Thanks - PocklingtonDan 16:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Languages overlap, that's so true! But I think the series of maps you propose, if you care to draw them, would rather belong in the articles about single languages, not in a general article about languages of Europe.

Whether the map is misleading depends on what people want and need to read from it. You apparently want to know the "predominant" languages of each "area", and you seem to think of areas as being fairly big; OK then, it's true the map is not ideal for you. But for people who want the locations of as many as possible of the languages listed in the article, including minority languages, because they don't know these locations in advance, the map may be of some use. Maybe better than removing the map would have been to improve the caption? Andrew Dalby 21:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I have now put the map back and tried to do as I suggest. The map's not so very bad, really. Improvements to caption or article text are welcome! Andrew Dalby 18:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This map is really pretty bad, and not of a standard for wikipedia. It should be removed. Just looking at spain, where I am right now, and Scotland, where I'm from, I can see glaring errors that make the rest of the map completely unreliable. Interestingly I actually came to this article from Reddit, where the map was completely ridiculed for its inaccuracies. Every commenter was able to find an error, omission or downright nonsense. This was reddit readers remember, if they think the map is poor, it must be dreadful.81.37.127.125 (talk) 20:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

What the map appears to represent is a classification of 'native dialects' in a simplified taxonomy. The part classified as Dutch in northwestern France is for instance accurate as a classification of original native dialects, which are dialects of Dutch, but these dialects have nearly completely been replaced by standard French in public life over the last century. Furthermore the Dutch taxon subsumes language cousins (Low Saxon, Limburgish) not generally considered 'Dutch' by their speakers (or by the Dutch for that matter). Same with the English, Italian language area, and probably many others. In most cases of argued language overlap we find local dialects belonging to one language group overlapped by a standard administrative language taught in schools from another one. There is merit in having a map based on the classification of native dialects, even if these have largely disappeared in public life in favour of a standard language from another group, but to make the classification principle more obvious it would be nice to add a map representing the dominant language in public life. In this map Dutch would for instance not appear in France, while Frisian would be reduced to the province of Fryslan in the Netherlands, where it is an administrative language and taught in schools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.18.192.124 (talk) 10:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Several errors on the main map

The main map is false-in Poland the Upper Silesian region has minority languages and dialects, not the Lower Silesia one, also in both Ukraine and Poland Polish language areas are missing.--Molobo (talk) 14:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. The map needs a legend; I guess the author might have intended to show Silesian language, but currently it looks like German.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Spanish removed

The map showing Spanish should be removed at it is not accurate. Russian is more widely spoken than Spanish so I have no idea why Spanish was included next the three working languages of the E.U. (English, French, German). Including a map makes Spanish look more important than it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 (talk) 10:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

And where's the problem? It would be ideal to have maps for more languages added, not to have existing maps removed. And as Spanish is, on most accounts, the second most spoken language in the world (native), I can see why people find it relevant. JdeJ (talk) 11:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

It may be the second most spoken language in the world but this article is about Europe. Do you think we should include the number one language Chinese?

I've added Russian and Italian to make this article less bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 (talk) 12:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Good. And I've reverted your repeated vandalism (that of deleting Spanish) in order to make it ever less biased. JdeJ (talk) 17:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The New Map

And I'm back :) Here are some suggestions for improving the map, I'll be happy to discuss any of them.

• The Catalan area in France is missing. It's true that Catalan is not in a strong position everywhere in Roussillon, but that's true about some areas in Spain as well.
• In the map, the Sami language is found in large parts of Finland and Sweden. It is spoken in both countries but not in the areas coloured on the map. Especially in Finland, it's much further north. There are hardly Sami speakers in the area now coloured as the Sami language area. On the other hand, more than half the Sami speakers in the world live in Norway, yet they aren't found on the map.
• Staying in Scandinavia, the Swedish speaking areas in Finland are completely missing from the map. As the Swedish language area in Finland is relatively large and the percentage of native Swedish speakers is higher in parts of Finland than anywhere else in the world (including Sweden), it's strange that they are missing.
• The Irish Gaelic language is marker on the map, though in the wrong places. There aren't any Irish speaking communities at all in County Clare, yet all of the county is coloured for Irish on the map. On the other hand, the Irish speaking enclaves in Kerry, Cork and Donegal are missing.
• German in Alsace is missing. It's retreating, though not more than many other languages marked on the map
• The same goes for the French in Aoste.
• Corsica is coloured for Italian, with Corsican as a minority language. The main language of Corsica is French.
• If colouring Croatian and Serbian as different languages, bosnian should logically also be coloured as a language.

These are some of the points I noticed straight away. There could be others, but fixing these would make the map much more correct and representative. I hope this is helpful, cheers! JdeJ (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi again! I've had a loog at the larger map now [5], and unfortunately there are even more errors on it than on the smaller. I can't go through, but the main error is that you seem to select which areas that are to be coloured as unilingual or bilingual rather arbitrary. To take but a few examples:

• Ireland is a complete mess. The major part of Ireland (in the middle) is coloured as bilingual. In fact, most of this area is as English in speech as England although there are also smaller parts in that colour that are unilingually Irish. Most of the area coloured as unilingually Irish is in fact unilingually English, although small parts of it are either bilingual or unilingually Irish.
• For some reason, Cornwall is coloured as bilingual. The number of people speaking Cornish daily is below 100, or 0.02%.
• All of Bretagne is colured for French and Breton. In the Eastern half of Bretagne, Breton hasn't been a spoken language for the last 800 years.
• In Spain, some Basque and Catalan areas are coloured bilingual, others unilingual. Some of the strongest unilingual Basque and Catalan areas are coded as bilingual, while areas that is very much bilingual or even with Spanish domination is coloured as unilingually Catalan/Basque.
• Corsica still gives the impression that Italian is spoken there instead of French.
• As I said earlier, the Sami area is in the wrong place altogether.
• Why are all of the Swedish speaking areas in Finland coded as bilingual, even those that are more unilingually Swedish than any community in Sweden?
• How come all of Galicia is unilingually Galician?

Well, these are some points from the areas I know best. I really appreciate the work you're putting into this, but I must ask what kind of sources you are using. Cheers JdeJ (talk) 12:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• If colouring Croatian and Serbian as different languages, bosnian should logically also be coloured as a language - Croatian and Serbian function both as collection of dialects and as standard languages, so-called Bosnian language that was invented in the 1990s only in a latter sense. Bosnian language is not language of the people of Bosnia: it's a codified language of Bosniaks, Bosnian Muslims. Bosnian Croats and Serbs use Croatian and Serbian, and these two are the official languages by the constitution, beside "Bosnian". There are no linguistic or political reasons to promote the anachronistic term Serbo-Croatian, like this map does right now. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Malta

If changes are being made to the map, I would request that Maltese be displayed as a distinct language (as befits its position as an official language within the European Union and national language of a sovereign state). Thanks ^_^ the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 09:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Problems with the map

The recently added map suffers from several problems. What's the idea behind coloring some areas in a single color and using stripes for other areas? I guess it's to give the idea of more than one language being spoken in some areas, but in that case I must call for major revisions. Let me give a few examples

• The Irish speaking areas of Ireland and colored in one color only, although few of them are only Irish speaking and some are in fact only English speaking.
• Some of the Swedish speaking areas of Finland are colored in stripes although more than 90% of the population there are native Swedish speakers. This is much higher than for any Irish speaking area and even higher than for most areas in Sweden.
• Similar concerns can be made about Catalan (Spanish spoken alongside it in many areas).
• Most of the areas coloured as unilingually Sámi are in fact no Sámi-speaking at all, even stripes would be a mistake for them.
• In some cases, even very small minorities (Sorbians, Gagauz) are marked on the map while many other minorities are missing.

I think the map is a foundation to build on, but the present version needs to be revised. The most important thing is to have proper definitions for when using one color, when using stripes and to define which languages should or should not be market. All of that is lacking at the moment, making the map a bit confusing. JdeJ (talk) 10:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

No answer yet, so I take it nobody would oppose removing the map? I'll wait untill tomorrow to allow for further discussion. JdeJ (talk) 12:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Map

The map Image:CelGerLatSla europe.PNG is stupid. What is the green area labeled "Celtic" supposed to represent??? It certainly doesn't represent the area in which the main language spoken is Celtic! The creator of this map seems to be deeply confused about the status of Gallego... In other cases, there is a fatal tendency to follow current national boundaries. AnonMoos 00:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the new map is not very good. It certainly isn't Wikipedia-like. Also it mixes ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 language tags, which doesn't seem sensible. Evertype 08:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

As long as it doesn't show Celtic being spoken in Trieste(!?) like Image:CelGerLatSla_europe.PNG does, then it's got to be something of an improvement... AnonMoos 16:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The first (uppermost) map contains a quite important error. There is no Danish-spoken minority in Scania (the southernmost peninsula of Sweden). The local dialect, “Scanian”, have been claimed to be an own language. However, persons claiming so did not arrive to that conclusion in the ordinary linguistic way. Please don’t accuse me for being a language denier as some nationalistic politicians! Scanian is close enough to standard Swedish to be mutually understandable. Since there is no Scanian writing standard it should be considered a dialect, not a language of its own. (The word “Scanian” was invented by me for this propose. I did not know any English word for the Swedish dialect of Scania.)

2006-11-06 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

You are incorrect. Scanian (skånsk or skånelandsk) is a Danish dialect closely related to the dialect of Bornholm and that of Amager (in the area of Dragør and Tårnby). Your argument about Scanian being close enough to Swedish to be mutually understandable is void. Danish, Norwegian (Bokmål) and Swedish are all closely related and mutually understandable (Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages#Classification )

Denmark have three major dialect groups. One of these is Eastern Danish (østdansk), with the Amager, Bornholm, Blekinge, Scanian and Halland dialects.

The fact there isn't a standard for Scanian does not mean it isn't a language. It just means it has no standard. A standard is not required in order to assign a language the label "language". Due to Scanian being Danish it is correct to say there is a Danish minority in the kingdom of Sweden. The fact Sweden denies this does not change the presense of the Danish minority.Dylansmrjones 03:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

There is two ways of defining language. One is language as a social construct: a variety defines itself as language by creating it’s own rules of writing. However, by this definition there would not be any non-written languages. The other way is as a group of mutually understandable dialects. I myself use the first definition for written language and the second for non-written ones. By this definition Scanian is not a language of it's own. Your expression “Danish minority” is misleading, Scanians does not view themselves as Danish! They might be proud of being Scanian but they don't want independence from Sweden. In other words there is no “Scanian Republican Army” or anything such.

2007-05-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

You are again incorrect. Scanians definitely view themselves as Danish. Swedish persons in Scania may not view themselves as Danes, but the native Scanian population surely does. There is no republican army but that is completely irrelevant. And there are several groups working for independency of Sweden. By any of your definitions Scanian is a Danish dialect. Dylansmrjones (not logged in) 80.197.57.23 11:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

What did you get that from? My mum is a Scanian an she does NOT perceive herself as a Dane. I have visited Scania at least once a year for 25 years and I can’t remember meeting any locals who call themselves Danes! Furthermore, I have never heard of any groups working for the independence of Scania. According to my mum there is such a group but it is really marginal. About Scanian being a Danish dialect I don’t think all linguists agree with you. I have read an essay by a Swedish one who don’t.

2007-08-11 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Ironically, there is in fact a Jamtlandic Republican Army (JRA), though. For those of you who don't know what Jämtland is, I can tell you it's a province in northwestern Sweden which became Swedish in the mid 17th century. The dialect spoken (or today rather used to be spoken) is a Norwegian one, at least when you ask Norwegian dialectologists. (This should be marked in the map somehow.)

Jens Persson (213.67.64.22 (talk) 22:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC))

Sorry, but the Jamtlandic Republican Army is not meant to be taken seriously. If Jamtlandic should be considered a Swedish or Norwegian dialect is probably a matter of definition. In this case I don’t know what most linguists would say.

2008-01-19 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

The JRA comment was ironic, so no need for you to state the obvious about its non-seriousness. But no smoke without fire, of course. But the problem what language one should associate a geographical area with is still unsolved. How do you mark bilingualism? I'd claim Jämtland is bilingual - Swedish (by political belonging) and Norwegian (by tradition). The corresponding for South Sweden (Swedish and Danish) and Southwest Sweden (Swedish and Norwegian). All these questions would be resolved though if we accepted the fact that Mainland Scandinavian is, from a linguistic point of view, only one language (with several literary standards with corresponding oral standards).

Jens Persson (90.230.148.118 (talk) 17:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC))

The map previously discussed has been replaced by a more reliable one. However, it does show several minority languages as if they where regional majority languages so it can still be improved upon.

2009-04-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

The map

The current map Image:Languages of Europe no legend.png is unfortunately filled with errors. I must confess to not being an expert on the sociolinguistic situation in every country, but let me mention a few of those I know fairly well. I'll also point out that I started writing this assuming good faith of the creator, but by the time I got to Belgium I found it hard to do so. The driving force behind this map appears to be German nationalism.

• Spain. The Catalan area as indicated on this map has little to do with reality. The map claims that most of southern Aragon is Catalan-speaking, just as part of eastern Castille. Those parts of Spain have never been Catalan-speaking and most certainly aren't now. In contrast, Catalan is very strong all the way down to Elche, but the whole area between Elche and Gandia is marked as Spanish-speaking here.
• France. The map is rather accurate... if today is 1008. The eastern half of Bretagne has not been Breton-speaking for the last 800 years so the map is a bit dated, to say the least. It's not as bad in the north, the map is only about 200 years wrong when it comes to Dutch in France. As for Alsace-German, the map has little to do with any linguistic reality but more about showing the part of France that was last annexed to Germany by Hitler during WWII. These areas are thoroughly French-speaking today and have been so for quite some time. It would be news to the Corsicans that they speak Italian and not French.
• Italy. Seems like Sardinian has ceased to be a language. The French-speaking area of Italy isn't even a third of the area shown on the map, it's restricted to [Val d'Aosta] and retreating even there. Just as in France, the German speech-area takes on ridiculous proportions. While Südtirol definitely is German-speaking, Trentino is just as Italian-speaking despite being marked as German on the map. And the relatively large German area in Val d'Aosta is pure fantasy.
• Switzerland. The trend of extending German as far as possible continues. While only a small part of French-speaking Switerland is coloured as German-speaking, it's funny to see that Bosco Gurin occupies about a fourth of Ticino. If I may recall those German nationalists to reality, the population of Bosco Guring is 79 and the majority of them speak Italian.
• Belgium. No surprise there, German is extending far beyond Eupen-Malmedy.
• Scotland. 90% of the areas marked as Gaelic-speaking were still Gaelic-speaking 100 years ago, but are more than 98% English-speaking today. In many of the parts marked as Gaelic-speaking here, there isn't a single Gaelic-speaker left. Gaelic isn't a majority language anywhere on the mainland, only in the Outer Hebrides.
• Ireland. Give us a break. The Irish dialects of Clare, Limerick, Sligo, Tipperary and Eastern Cork have been extinct for more than 50 years now. About 10% of the area coloured on the map here is Irish-speaking. Check the article Gaeltacht to get an idea about where they are.
• Poland and Lithuania. What language is the brown colour meant to represent. Turkish? Last time I checked, people in the Lithuanian capital were speaking Lithuanian and not Turkish.
• Latvia. So there are Estonian speaking areas of Latvia? No, not for the last 600 years.
• Sweden. There are only four municipalities where Sami is official and it's not the majority language anywhere in Sweden, yet one third of the country is claimed as Sami-speaking here.

Ok, I'm tired and I don't think I have to go on much longer. The point is that this map is just a bad joke combined with German irredentism, it's a complete disgrace for Wikipedia and should be deleted. Sorry if I sound a bit bitter but this map is regularely removed from various articles, only to appear at another article in a while, and I've getting tired of argumenting against all the stupidities in it. While I normally encourage all contributions to Wikipedia, I can't help thinking that it would have bettn better if the creator of this map would have bothered to check the facts before making the whole thing up. JdeJ (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

What we need is someone good with images to make these edits, and preferably create an svg version. BalkanFever 03:20, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to apologise for the tone in my message sounding a bit harsh, I was dead-tired yesterday when I wrote it and it would have been better to have kept it waitin untill today. Having said that, I stand by all the points raised, the map is wrong on almost every language in Europe, sometimes just a little bit wrong, sometimes a lot. I'm not good at editing images myself so I'm afraid I cannot contribute much in that regard. I would also like to suggest that the map be removed for now. While I fully support having such a map on this page, the current map in its present form provides no useful knowledge whatsoever, the only thing it can do is to give people the wrong idea about where different European languages are spoken.JdeJ (talk) 08:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the map pending correction. BalkanFever 13:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

To B.F.: Just fyi, there is Image:Simplified Languages of Europe map.svg, which is an SVG map, though with very poor internal svg coding and therefore not too easy to work with. I have Image:Languages of Europe (BW).svg, with somewhat cleaned-up SVG and translated into black/white, that would probably be easier to work with as a basis for a modified version; the black/white patterns can easily be exchanged for colours again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you willing/able to give it a shot? :) BalkanFever 13:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! Minor points could be made about those maps, as about any map, but they are by a very far margin better than the map BalkanFever wisely removed. JdeJ (talk) 13:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't promise I'll have much time for extensive map work in the near future. If people want anything special, I'd like details of proposed changes to be discussed in advance, so I don't end up again like with my Balkan language maps ... ;-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, but JdeJ has been making many of these points for quite some time now (just scroll up), and nobody has argued yet. A few points of my own: Macedonian and Bulgarian should be differentiated (probably Serbian and Croatian too), and so should Romanian and Aromanian (and Megleno-Romanian I guess). BalkanFever 10:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Why does the current map respects some natural borders and ignore the others? It separates European and Asian territories of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, but includes all of Georgia, Azerbaijan which are only transcontinental like the other three and all of Armenia, Cyprus which have no territory in Europe.

The map should either;

1. use natural borders (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Map_of_Europe_%28political%29.png)

2. include all transcontinental countries totally (possibly along with Cyprus and Armenia)

I'll try to edit and do it 2nd way. --Mttll (talk) 23:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want to delete for example the historicaly Alsatian German regions of France than you should also delete the Sorbian area in Eastern Germany - because in Lusatia 95% of the populatian have German as native language and mostly don't know any Sorbian and only 5% are native Sorbian speakers, who all know German on native-level. 195.243.51.34 (talk) 14:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

This map is a master disaster- German is not spoken in all of Trentino-South Tirol nor all of Alsace-Lorraine but in the northern province of Bozen and most of Alsace along with French and a small part of Lorraine along with French. There is no way the Fruali is spoken by that many people and what about Ladin.. The map is a real disaster... not like this has not been mentioned but nothing has been changed!

I have to agree with the anonymous user. I see that already a year ago, it was commented here that the map gives extreme predominance to German, and despite a discussion on the subject, nothing seems to have changed, just like the user above says. I suggest a thorough review on the map based on all the points made last year. In the meantime, I suggest removing the map as it really isn't very helpful in its present format.Jeppiz (talk) 17:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Yep, I agree too, it's a disaster... Shall we remove it until someone makes changes ? --K'm ^{bla bla} 20:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by K'm (talk • contribs)

I removed it, as everyone seems to agree that the map is is disastrous.Jeppiz (talk) 20:32, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The weak and the strong minorities

Dear linguists, you are the politest bunch of bickerers I have yet seen on Wikipedia. Too bad I have not seen more of it. I've seen some of you in other contexts. Maybe the vicious treatment I received then made you feel guilty. My goodness I am impressed by the high quality of the bickerers. Now the task is to get the article to match the quality of their credentials. The first thing I notice is what someone else above spotted immediately, very few references. Wikipedia is different from your usual publications, my friends. Speaking as linguists your offhand opinions are treasured by crowds of language enthusiasts who can't wait to shower money on you for it. Speaking as Wikipedia editors no one gives a rat's tail just what you may think and you must do it for free. But, here you are, so thank you for being here. You cannot quote yourselves but maybe you can quote each other. If you expect this to be a good article by Wikipedia standards you better start quoting someone. I just happened to drop by here on my way through some Latin articles hoping to correct any obvious weaknesses. That means I basically started with the templates. Now in investigating a dubious-discuss tag I find no discussion. No discussion? What, you can call for a discussion and then forget about it? Oh no. We are going to discuss, at least I am. I see here that some minority languages are strong (not named) and some are weak! But, the section doesn't use any definitions (in addition to the English being bad). I see we are using some German concepts in German. I'm dazzled by their brilliance; if you intended to impress I'm impressed, but I don't understand their use here and I dare say no one else will either. We need to lose our committment to bad language articles, if it would not cut in on your profits too much. But what is THIS I read? The Turks and the Scots are weak? You singled out the two toughest warrior peoples in all of Europe and called them weak? What's the matter with you! You'll be trying to dodge a Turk on the one hand and a Scot on the other. First of all it is very unclear what you mean and why you brought it up. Second, why do you use strong and weak? Are those professional terms? How are they strong, how are they weak? We need some better writing in this section without the dubious implications. Strong and weak verbs I understand, strong and weak minorities I do not at all. I will try to clarify a little but only as a quick fix. That's the problem with Wikipedia, everything you try to quick fix turns into a major project. If you want to be linguist contributors and not linguist cover models you might take a hand here.Dave (talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC) PS - I just received a message. I did it this way so you wouldn't be overwriting me even as I typed - but you found a way around that, didn't you? I suggest you swiftly take this article in hand to improve it.Dave (talk) 21:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Removed unsourced offending paragraph

A minority language can be defined as a language used by a group that defines itself as an ethnic minority group, whereby the language of this group is typologically different and not a dialect of the standard language. In Europe some languages are in quite a strong position, in the sense that they are given special status, (e.g. Basque, Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Rhaeto-Romance/Romansh), whereas others are in a rather weak position (e.g. Frisian, Scottish Gaelic, Turkish)—especially allochthonous minority languages are not given official status in the EU (in part because they are not part of the cultural heritage of a civilization). Some minor languages don’t even have a standard yet, i.e. they have not even reached the level of an ausbausprache yet, which could be changed, e.g., if these languages were given official status. (cf. also next section).

This unsourced paragraph attempts to redefine the council of Europe's document, adding some quasi-linguistic definitions that are not in the document and some personal interpretations such as the strong and the weak minorities and giving personal opinions such as whether some lingustic classification would change if the language were given official status etc. etc. Also I find it a strange mix of conversational and encyclopedic English as though some student were having a linguistic conversation with his buddies while sitting in the cafeteria. I think we should follow the document so I am adding a proper intro to the document, the organization and the minority language issue raised by this subsection. I suppose it is legitimate to raise this issue in this article. It goes a little further than merely listing languages but then the title and intro never said this was a list of European languages. If you can reach a consensus about removing it, fine; meanwhile it is here and should be made acceptable.Dave (talk) 10:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The non-existent translation school

Early promotion of linguistic diversity is attested at the translation school in Toledo, founded in the 12th century (in medieval Toledo the Christian, the Jewish and the Arab civilizations lived together remarkably peacefully).

I removed this paragraph. For one thing, there was no school, according to some major sources. The whole thing was a myth. See "Charting the future of translation history" By Georges L. Bastin, Paul F. Bandia pp 32-33. The authors chart the growth of this myth. That which was taken to be a school consists of some translations from Arabic into Latin performed in different parts of Spain. So, there was something. One might state a few points of view for and against the school concept at the proper location, but what is that? I don't see how the translation of works from the Arabic promoted linguistic diversity and I can't find anyone who says it does except the editor of this section. These translations promoted knowledge, certainly, but because of them no one had to read the Arabic, no Arabic speakers were being tolerated and encouraged; the Arabs were being thrown out of Spain in large numbers just as the Jews would be. Just because a few Arabs were asked or allowed to do some translations does not mean the society was diversity tolerant. It was not and was growing worse every day. Before long they would be torturing and burning people because they didn't quite fit the mold demanded by the closely knit Christian communities. Already the bishops were railing against the supposed school which clearly indulged in toad-kissing and sexual orgies along with the translating from the Arabic, a devilish activity. I do believe this opinion is Wikipedian opinion not general opinion and not supported by anyone I can find. I don't want to argue the subject matter. I only want to point out that this would need sourcing and development, whch I do not see.Dave (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Unencyclopedic

"Despite previous attempts to achieve national linguistic homogenization, like in France during the Revolution, Franco's Spain and Metaxas's Greece, the “one nation = one language” concept is hard on its way to become obsolete."

Unreferenced and undeveloped mud-slinging. All opinion, no hard facts.Dave (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

All editor opinion no fact

A more tolerant linguistic attitude is the reason why the EU’s general rule is that every official national language is also an official EU language. However Luxembourgish for instance is not an official EU language, because there are also other (stronger) official languages with “EU status” in the respective nation. Several concepts for an EU language policy are being debated:

• one official language (e.g. English, French, German)
• several official languages (e.g. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish + another topic-dependent language)
• all national languages as official languages, but with a number of relais languages for translations (e.g. English, French, German as relais languages).

New immigrants in European countries are expected to learn the host nation's language, but are still speaking and reading their native languages (i.e. Arabic, Hindustani/Urdu, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili and Tahitian) in Europe's increasingly multiethnic/multicultural profile. But, those languages aren't native or indigenous to Europe, therefore aren't considered important in the issue of allowing them printed in European countries' official documents.

I'm sorry I know you won't like the removal of this unreferenced material - references, references, you must have seen that caution everywhere on Wikipedia! I will try to do you justice here. This is all your opinion, is it not? You are in essence putting yourself in place of the EU and guessing at its motives. That they are more "tolerant" etc. is your idea alone. And then there is the part about expecting new immigrants to learn official languages. I doubt if the EU officially cares in the slightest whether anyone does that. And then there is whether they are considered important. Looking at the EU documents I see no such value judgements, that is an inference you have made. So, as a serious assessment of your writing here (so that you may get something out of this educationally), I would say, you have to learn to distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion and not present your opinion as fact. Second, you like to make hasty generalizations - unwarranted conclusions from the detail. But then, you don't give any detail, and you don't give any definitions. I know it is satisfying to express yourself but the other half of the equation is the people who have to listen to you. To say something objectively significant in words that are understandable is really hard work. You have to keep critiquing and revising your own material. But, there is one thing about your writing that is correct. You can't write or learn to write without writing, for better or for worse. You have to persist. Eventually you might be able to write the Gettysburg address by inspiration from your first thoughts. Good luck. I'm putting something based on the EU sites in place of the above excised. I don't care at all if goes or stays. Now, if you were thinking of putting what you had back, please support everything you say with references. We might be interested in what the EU says but we are not interested in your personal opinions or in having you put words in their mouths. Whew. This is tough work.Dave (talk) 09:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Slick English

"The proficiency of languages is increasingly related to second or third language learning and has been subject to recent shifts caused by changing popularity and government policy."

This is just about the best example of slick English I ever saw. You have some real talent there. Have you considered going into sales? It is flawlessly correct and in the style of formal English. You read it with the expectation of being able to understand it and of learning something from it. At last, you think, here is some some real information. You reach the end of the sentence as though a blank wall realizing you have understood nothing, nothing at all. After 3 or 4 readings you realize you understood nothing because it says nothing neither by direct statement nor by implication. The goal of Wikipedia is not to say nothing in slick language, although many of the early editors wrote that way. What's the point? You aren't getting paid for this and you remain anonymous, so why do it? You should have an objective reason for writing something on Wikipedia, such as the transmission of certain encyclopedic information for the benefit of the public. We want to steer away from the strange world of creative subjectivity. This is unreferenced so I can take it out. If you want it back make it say something also said by an author you can reference.Dave (talk) 14:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Created languages

I've just added Volapük to the list, and am checking Interglossa and Basic English in order to add those. I was surprised not to find them on the list, so I wondered if there was some reason for this. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:11, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We seem to be doing only natural languages here. Those artificial ones are not widespread and have no native speakers.Dave (talk) 23:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Hindi, Marathi, etc.

What is the justification for including Asian Indo-European languages like Persian and Romany but not Hindi, Marathi, etc.? It should also be noted that languages like Persian cannot really be said to "linguistically belong to European language families" as stated in the first paragraph. While related to European languages, Persian belongs to the Indo-Iranian language family, only found in Asia, which derives from the language of the Proto-Indo-European speakers, whose Urheimat is widely contested but generally believed to be somewhere near the Black and Caspian seas. — Ливай | ☺ 21:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This must have been fixed. The ones currently in there are only the ones in the Causasus, which apparently is being considered part of Europe. South of it are the Near East and the Middle East but you can make a good argument that the Caucasus is not those and is not central Asia. As for Romany - well- is there a place on earth without gypsies? I for one doubt it.Dave (talk) 23:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Not quite NPOV

This is not quite NPOV: These are languages of non-European origins which are spoken in parts of Europe. Maltese, Turkish, Tatar. Semitic and Turkic languages have been around parts of Europe for some 14 centuries now (in fact long before Hungarian, which no one questions as a European language). And then, Indoeuropean languages originated out of Europe as well. -- User:Perique des Palottes 2005/02/17

This looks fixed to me, I don't see it.Dave (talk) 23:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Language map

About the lenguage map. it shows galician (NW of spain) as a celtic language, however galician is an romanic language, brother of the portugues

It's been fixed.Dave (talk) 00:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

On with the show

Well I just dropped in to fix the things that were marked as needing fixing and standardize the format where it wasn't standard. It seems to me problems have been being fixed regularly. I didn't see any noted in the discussion that were not addressed, some of them quite major. That is what worries me. Despite all this loving care, some by linguists in the field, it hauled down a grade of C! Well really! Can't you do better than that? The things that were left wrong are the major reasons why articles get poor grades: no references, too much editorial opinion, unsubstantiated generalization, overbrief curtailment, inadequate explanation of meaning, just plain gobbledeygook. We aren't trying to look smart, we are trying to inform. I'm going on, but if something was not marked I didn't fix it. And, I didn't touch the graphics. I must say despite its faults I consider this article really quite useful. To be able to see what all the languages of Europe are is quite a valuable intellectual asset. Critical to being able to visualize are the maps. We need those and we need to continue to correct those or get better ones. On Wikipedia I have not yet turned into a graphics person so I'm not doing it. Those sections of writing that still have no references need tham. They are unchecked by me. I have no doubt they will be mainly seen to be wrong once you dig into it. So, we still may have a C article. Feel quite free to bring the level of the article up, Wikipedia certainly encourages you to do that. The more work is required the freer you are to do it. This is quite a place of freedom.Dave (talk) 00:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew

Should Hebrew really be listed? Except for Israeli immigrants, the number of speakers seems negligible. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Map at the top and status of Georgian

Why is there maps of alphabet use right at the start? Since this is about languages, not scripts, is there really no map of the languages available to go at the top? Also, why is Georgian described as isolate when it's part of the Kartvelian family? Munci (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Expand

Turkey is soon to be an EU member state, and in any event 3% of Turkeys land area is within Europe. Can, therefore, Turkish be added by somebody who understands these things ? (Alas, not me). Thanks --jrleighton 13:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It's been fixed.Dave (talk) 00:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

---

The classification is more or less well-construed. But there should be more about them on this very page. A language is what makes a human human. There should be more data provided here.--~::Annie Chung::~ 16:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

What classification? What have you got in mind (if you can remember)?Dave (talk) 00:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

TURKEY IS NOT A EUROPEAN COUTRY AND WILL NEVER JOIN THE EU. TURKEY MUST BE DELETED FROM ANY EUROPEAN LIST.60.48.32.125 (talk) 04:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)CRISTIAN, ONLY CRISTIANS ARE EUROPEAN

Distribution of the proposed Altaic languages across Eurasia

Distribution of the proposed Altaic languages across Eurasia???????

The proposed but controversial Altaic language family is claimed to consist of five branches (Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus, Korean and Japanese) that show similarities in vocabulary, morphological and syntactic structure, and certain phonological features. On the basis of systematic sound correspondences, they are generally considered to be genetically related.???????

WHY NOT TO ADD IN THIS ARTICLE LAFRICAN LANGUAGES AND BANTU, OR OTHER ASIAN LANGUAGES AS JAPANESE, CHINESE, ETC....ISN'T THIS ARTICLE CONCERNING EUROPEAN LANGUAGES?TUKIC, MONGOLIAN, TUNGUS, KOREAN, WHAT'S THE MATTER? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.48.32.125 (talk) 04:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I think you fail to understand there are at least 35 million Altaic speakers in Europe. That's much more than there are speakers of Uralic like Hungarian, Estonian and Finnish. With the capslock you sound like a racist.NeoRetro (talk) 14:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Last Section

Several countries which are not members of the European Union are included on some of the maps (EG Iceland on the English map), so why not just add Russia as the native Russian-speaking country? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.163.62.23 (talk) 15:30, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Kazakh?

Isn't Kazakhstan partly in Europe? -- megA (talk) 14:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, do the inhabitants of that part of Kazakhstan speak Kazakh or Russian? Bevo74 (talk) 15:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

They do, according to the map in the article's lede... ;-) Anyway, according to the West Kazakhstan Province article: "Despite its border with Russia, West Kazakhstan has a Kazakh majority. 69.8% of the population is ethnic Kazakh, while only 27.4% is ethnic Russian." This however, is only referenced from Russian Wikipedia... I'm trying to find the province's official site right now... As for Atyrau province (the soouthern part of European Kazakhstan), its article gives more than 80% Kazakh population. This is of course not citeable, but I'd call it at lest a strong indicator... -- megA (talk) 09:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Low Saxon includes Standard German?

"There are three major groupings of West Germanic languages: Anglo-Frisian, Low Franconian (now primarily modern Dutch) and Low German (Saxon); the latter two include the pluricentric German varieties including Standard German." I don't think so... -- megA (talk) 10:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

serbo-croatian? no language

Croatian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language Serbian language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_language Language and dialect map 2008.; http--www.muturzikin.com-carteseurope-carteeurope1.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.0.35.15 (talk) 09:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

• This still isn't fixed? Croatia is a part of EU in 6 months. Croatian language exists. No reason to put it together with Serbian and Bosnian!!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sedam07 (talk • contribs) 13:47, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting map

In the map is shown that around Munich live a Turkish Majority. In 2011 there lived 40.000 Turks in the whole city of Munich-> These are 3% of the population!--62.178.209.98 (talk) 19:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok its an users fault, Maurice07, maybe an turkish nationalist, uploaded his own map, deleted the kurdish language in eastern turkey and invented some new turkish linguistic enclaves --62.178.209.98 (talk) 19:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

You're right, the map has been vandalized by a Turkish nationalist who has made several changes that violate both POV and OR.Jeppiz (talk) 20:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

possible POV deletions of Sardinian and some Italian idiomas

An anonymous editor has several times deleted mention of several Italian languages (calling them "dialects"), and Sardinian, which, to my knowledge, no non-politically-motivated Italian nationalist linguist considers to be a dialect [or group of dialects] of the Italian language. The deletion was first made today. I reverted it, but my reinsertion of the text was rapidly reverted. I have re-reverted the deletion and requested clarification. I do not have time to pursue this, so I hope someone is here to defend the integrity of the article in my stead. 96.41.249.21 (talk) 01:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Celtic languages

User Ehrenkater has twice edited this article, no doubt with the best intentions, to qualify whether the Celtic languages are spoken in Europe, first saying "more or less" [6] and then "to various degrees" [7]. I have reverted both times and would appreciate if Ehrenkater would gain a consensus on the talk page before repeating this edit.
I don't deny that some (one might even say all) Celtic languages are in a weak position. Then again, that is the case for many other languages mentioned in the article, such as the Arbëresh language, Arvanitika, North Frisian, Saterlandic, Low Saxon, Griko, Occitan, Romansh and many many more. Several of these are in a weaker position than some, or even all, Celtic languages. That being the case, I see no reason why the article should single out the Celtic languages as being in a particularly weak positions, when there would be about fifty other languages for which the same claim could be made. If we want to comment on the viability of the languages, we should be consistent and do so for all languages. Obviously that would need good sources.Jeppiz (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

"Linguas Francas"

I seriously doubt that Czech was a lingua franca at any time in history ever. Latin and German would have been the lingua franca of the Holy Roman Empire at the time of Emporer Charles. There is no doubt that Charles supported the use of the local Slavic language used in the surroundings of Prague when the city was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, but as a Historian and Linguistic I have never heard of Czech being any type of lingua franca spoken by people outside of Bohemia, nor was Czech a codified language at the time. I think this should be removed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poettchen (talk • contribs) 09:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

First of all, the correct plural of "lingua franca" is "lingue franche". Second, why is this section even here? For that matter, what's the purpose of the "General Issues" section at all? I can understand the "treatment of minority languages" section, and maybe "language and identity", but the other two sections don't seem to be adding anything of value to the article. Sectori (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

76.104.198.129 (talk) 22:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC) I'd like to add that even if the proper plural of "lingua franca" is not going be used, in what circumstance does English ever have adjectives agree in the plural? Wouldn't "Linguas franca be more appropriate?

I would actually consider [lingua franca] to be a single unit, and would pluralize it in English as lingua francas. But yes, either way it's problematic, and I'm not sure what to do with this section. Sectori (talk) 13:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Six is the number of the beast

Don't we look things up in the dictionary any more or do we just get petulent on Wikepedia discussion? There are actually paper dictionaries out there and they actually are of some value and they are not going to be replaced by Wikipedia or any other Internet forum in the near future, probably not ever. Some pocket dictionaries avoid the question of the plural. Webster's Third International faces it squarely and probably so does the Oxford unabridged but I don't have one of those on my shelf. If necessary I can go to the library. Well sectori, what you would actually consider actually comes right out of the dictionary. Lingua franca is treated as a single word as though it had a hyphen. It does not (but should have) but the plural is lingua francas. Unless, you want to treat it as two Latin words. English uses Latin plurals in parallel with English plurals for Latin words depending on current usage. So, Webby gives us the alternative of linguae francae, two plural words. Linguas francas is unheard, unknown. Look it up in the dictionary; let that be your guide. If you give me any flak about it I will put in a ref to Webby. So, make sure you have your own ref handy as refed material take precedence over unrefed.

Now for the great six, justly someone wants to know, where did you get that? Not tatooed under your hairline I hope. I can't find any sign of it. Would it not be better to leave the matter open? So I changed the wording slightly. If you can find someone credible who is willing to state it was six, just six, no more, no less -six, precisely six - do change it back.Dave (talk) 14:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The elusive lingua francas

There are basically two philosophic confusions in the lingua francas section. For one thing, it does not distinguish between a lingua franca and the rise of a national language. For example, Spanish came from Castilian and French from Paris and northward. Those languages expanded their ranges to become the extensive national languages they are. Until they did and while they were doing so they were lingua francas over those ranges. After they had a firm foothold the other languages were demoted in status to second languages or else disappeared. However there was always a range where the native language continued to be the first language. In cases like this, just when did the national language cease to be a lingua franca? If you go by the definition in our article every national language of earth is and always has been a lingua franca except in the phase before it expanded from the locality of its origin. If you go by political boundaries then lingua francas are only between sovereign nations and hence have a political definition. However, in many regions of Europe a language of another nation is used as a lingua franca. And what on earth do you do with Switzerland or Alsace? "Lingua franca" is a vague and analogous term and you have to define carefully what you mean by it. Is English in the states the lingua franca of the native american tribes, many of whom still speak a native language, or is it their national language, or just exactly what is it? We don't really address the philosophy of lingua franca on Wikipedia. So here we are blithely stating that this or that national language was a lingua franca between time x and time y and that Europe had 6 lingua francas, which leads to the second problem, the distinction between lingua francas and partial lingua francas in Europe. I don't know of any 3rd-party language used in all Europe at any time. I wouldn't even pick Latin as the general population of all Europe never communicated in Latin. Even the original lingua franca never had that range. So, Europe has had no lingua francas. Whoever put the tag on Spanish might just as well have put it on every single languge in the list. And if we are going to start listing national languages at some phase in their nation-building, then every language in Europe ought to be listed. I don't really know how to fix this section. It either says too little or too much. You have to start with the lingua franca article. So for the time being I am going to obliterate the blithe distinction between total and partial lingua francas. There aren't any total. Then I think they should be arranged by date and some comment made about whether this phase represents the formation of a national language. Now I can supply the requested ref on Spanish but the phase mentioned is actually the rise of Castilian in Spain and meso-America. It is still spoken there; moreover, many of the minority languages are still spoken there as well. Just when did it stop being a lingua franca? Let me ask you a question - what is Spanish to the Basques? National language? Lingua franca? First language? Second language? If it was ever a lingua franca, just when did it stop being so? Why isn't modern Spanish listed as a lingua franca for all of its history? Did the Poles or the Lithuanians ever communicate with the Russians in it? If not, why is it listed as a European lingua franca at all? If we are going to be shallow, let's keep it shallow and not make pretenses; if deep, then this section falls far short. I'm going to abolish some of the pretenses. Those of you with more of an interest in linguistics should definitely take the lingua franca concept in hand.Dave (talk) 08:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Hungary and 1867

1867 is only the year of the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. They were stil debating whether to have Latin as the official language or Hungarian in the 19th century. This "officialdom" was strictly ornamental I am sure. The real issue was, German or Hungarian. So, the lingua franca would have been German. In general this item is unsat so I will have to rewrite it. If you want to check me see "Language planning and policy in Europe" By Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf, page 72.Dave (talk) 10:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

"American 'inventions' and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as explanation for English as lingua franca

The text on English as a European lingua franca explains the current status of English as a European lingua franca with references to American 'inventions', such as television and the internet, and to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These references should be further explained or removed. In addition, it is highly questionable whether television and the Internet are American inventions (see for example history of television). I have therefore removed the references to American 'inventions' and the First Amendment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.93.180.114 (talk) 15:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Provencal provincial

• Provençal (Occitan) (12th—14th century, due to Troubadour poetry)

I took this item out. The reason is that I could find no one at all to vouch for its use as a lingua franca. True, it is spread about in pockets through southern Europe in different countries. But, those are pockets of native language speakers. True, the original lingua franca contained elements of provencal. But, the lingua franca was lingua franca, not provencal. True, the songs and styles of the troubadors were spread about quite a bit. But, outside of the native range, song writers did not write in provencal or speak provencal to be understood, they imitated the genre in their own languages. No one in Valencia burst into Provencal to make himself understood by a visiting Sicilian. Dante wrote in Italian not Provencal. So, I took this item out. If you can find a ref for it, put in back in proper order. This gets us into the problem of defining a lingua franca. All the books I can find on it say it started as a pigin language. But, later it was expanded to mean any third-party language - not mine, not yours, but someone else's which we both understand, and not just for a few individuals but customarily. That is as far as it goes. It does not as far as I know apply to non-language items such as musical genres. Well, I can see why you might want to take this whole section out. But, isn't that not facing up to the task at hand, which is to fix a bad section? Modern languages do have heavy use as lingua francas, especially English.Dave (talk) 03:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

About Dante and provençal, we should remeber that in "De vulgari eloquentia" Dante regards French, Provençal and Tuscan as the three important vernaculars; moreover, Arnaud Daniel in Purgatory, XXVI, 140-147, is the only character in the Comedy who speaks in mothertongue, different from Italian, because Dante knew Provençal well. Lele giannoni (talk) 16:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

lingua franca and Italian

Firstly, "lingua franca" is an Italian expression, not a Latin one: so, the original plural is "lingue franche". Moreover, Lingua Franca was mainly based on Italian and Italian dialects, mostly Venetian. See The "Online Etimology Dictionary". Lingua Franca was confused with Italian: e.g. John Reed in "The war in Eastern Europe" writes that in Thessalonika the different communities spoke each other in Italian. Likely, he mistook Lingua Franca for Italian. In fact in the Levant Lingua Franca was still used until Balcanic wars and First World War created national states which forbade Lingua Franca. If you put languages which are or were region-wide lingua franca, like Spanish and German, you should also put Italian, which was commonly spoken in an area wider than today (Monaco, Nizza, Corsica, Malta, Dalmatia, Ionian Isles) also before Italian became an official language in the XVIth century. Finally, I think you should explain that every class and field had a different common language: Latin was the language of the Catholic Church and the Universities; French was the language of aristocracy and diplomacy (e.g. the Almanach of Gotha); Lingua Franca was the language of Mediterranean merchants; Italian was the language of music. Only in recent times English has became a lingua franca for every purpose. Lele giannoni (talk) 16:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Breton, not Britton

The name of this language is spelled wrongly on the map - it should be Breton. (Actually, I'm not sure it should really be on the map at all given that only around 5% of the population of Brittany speaks it nowadays, but that's another issue.) 108.254.160.23 (talk) 05:21, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Where's Ligurian?

It's still widely spoken in northern Italy with about a half million speakers according to its own article in Wikipedia.

Some idiots go by a "not a real language" path and keep removing all Italian regional languages.178.94.68.103 (talk) 17:40, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Sardinian language

Ok, I'm having another warning so lets discuss it as semi-decent humans. At least starting with Sardinian. Sardinian is a Romance language, noted for its conservatism and lack of particularly close genetic ties to Italian. It is widely recognized as a separate language, regulated, has a written standard and a co-official status. And yet, it is deleted along with the rest of Italian vernaculars as a "dialect". It can be labeled as such only for political reasons, if at all. I dare anyone to prove otherwise. 178.94.56.243 (talk) 01:05, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear anonymous user, first of all, according to the WP:BRD rule, until the end of the discussion remains the version BEFORE your changes, so please do not revert again, otherwise you will be blocked. Regarding Sardinian and the other languages, you should present reliable sources affirming what you say, and put them in the article. Wikipedia is based on consensus, so, if none objects to your sources, then your edits will stay. Bye Alex2006 (talk) 04:48, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Sources of what exactly? Here are some:

http://www.sardegnacultura.it/linguasarda/limbasardacomuna/ - standardization and official usage;

http://www.ethnologue.com/language/srd - Ethnologue page;

'Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction' (978-0521717847, Cambridge University Press), singles out Sardinian among Romance vernaculars as the most conservative and identifies several dialects of Sardinian on the island as opposed to the local dialects closer to Tuscan Italian on the island.

Any objections? 178.94.56.243 (talk) 05:31, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

On my side, absolutely not. Now let's wait some time (one day or so) and if none objects, you can bring your edits on the article with these sources, and that's it. But if anyone objects, you have to discuss with him/her. These are the rules on wikipedia. :-) Alex2006 (talk) 06:17, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. They are local idioms without a recognised standard; Actually nobody speak these languages in Italy. It's spoken the dialects of these local idioms that change from town to town and the so-called regional Italian. There is no fully accepted standard for Sardinian and less than 1% of the people from Sardinia are able to speak the Standard Sardinian. The website you linked is not an official website.--93.32.150.145 (talk) 16:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

According to this study of UNESCO there are four varieties of Sardinian, all of them endangered. Alex2006 (talk) 17:18, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Didn't we agree to confirm our words with reliable sources? 178.94.117.32 (talk) 18:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes Alex, but actually there are only two varieties of Sardinian, the rest (Sassarese and Gallurese) are considered separated idioms. Sardinian from the unofficial website is a kind of Standard Sardinian (different from both varieties of Sardinian) who is an artificial language spoken by less than 1% of the people (only from scholars). There are no reliable sources, I see only original researches and unofficial websites. As you can see, the situations of local idioms in Italy is a mess: no standard forms recognised, tens of local varieties, confusion between dialect and regional Italian, lots of original researches and unofficial websites (i.e. the official website of Sardinia is only in Italian, there isn't a Sardinian version); these are the reasons why they are unfit for this list.--93.32.150.145 (talk) 19:26, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Ethnologue and the book I mentioned are reliable sources and acknowledge that Sardinian is a distinct language with enough speakers, you provided nothing so far to counter that. 178.94.117.32 (talk) 19:43, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Ethnologue reliable source? According to large part of linguists is a great mess as well. They do not do distinction between Regional Italian and Local idioms, numbers are completely wrong. Moreover, Standard Sardinian is not included in Ethnologue, there are only two natural varieties of the Sardinian Group (Campidanese and Logudorese).--93.32.150.145 (talk) 20:58, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

You have anything more reliable to offer? 178.94.117.32 (talk) 21:02, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Of course. One of the most important encyclopedias in the world: Treccani.it http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/dialetti_(Enciclopedia_dell'Italiano)/ - Here is the real question of Italian idioms faced by important Italian and foreign linguists. Ps. you made another mistake sir, at the beginning of the discussion: Tuscan and Italian are not the same thing and this makes me more and more doubtful about your competences on this matter.--93.32.150.145 (talk) 21:16, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

A page for Sardinian on the same encyclopedia: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/dialetti-sardi_(Enciclopedia_dell'Italiano)/ Section 5 says Sardinian is recognized and protected as a regional minority language. In the same section a survey identifies a large percentage of people who speak Sardinian. Section 2 confirms uncertainty about its categorization among Romance languages. About Tuscan: I quoted a book which said that Sardinia also has dialects genetically closer to Tuscan. 178.93.31.126 (talk) 21:46, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The same page says this: Il sardo non ha mai avuto una ➔koinè regionale, ma si sono affermate nel tempo due varietà sovralocali, il logudorese letterario, d’uso consolidato nella poesia, e il campidanese generale, basato sul dialetto di Cagliari. Il prestigio di cui tali varietà godono nelle rispettive aree di riferimento non facilita soluzioni unitarie in materia di standard. In relazione all’uso, il sardo è in una situazione di bilinguismo instabile, dominata dalla tendenza a sostituire la lingua con l’italiano (➔bilinguismo e diglossia). It talks about dialects and a growing tendency to be replaced by Italian. Sardinian is a group of two idioms, it's not a regional minority language, it is only part of an Italian law who protects language minorities in Italy, included linguistic groups and not languages in the real meaning of the term.--93.32.150.145 (talk) 22:06, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

An who's to define the "real" meaning of the term? It says Sardinian has two dialects, the two are grouped separately from other dialects in a group that makes up what is understood as Sardinian language. 178.93.31.126 (talk) 22:16, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The difference between languages and linguistic groups (aka Macro-languages) is widely known to people who study linguistics. Anyway, also your "bible" Ethnologue considers Sardinian a macro-language and not a language.--93.32.150.145 (talk) 22:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

So you propose to include two dialects of Sardinian separately, or avoid them entirely only because neither grouping meets your arbitrary criteria to be called a language? Because you jumped from calling all vernaculars dialects to calling Sardinian a group of languages, I'm sure we can find a sweet spot between the two extremes. 178.93.31.126 (talk) 22:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

It's not an arbitrary criterion. It's a matter of fact linked to linguistics that the Sardinian situation is too much confused to list the idioms as languages. I.e the Region of Sardinia (that knows this confusion) spent lots of money in projects that aim to the creation of a real Sardinian language; the result was an half disaster because after 10 years almost nobody speaks this language, that actually is an artificial language like Esperanto.--93.32.150.145 (talk) 22:47, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Just because the language situation in the region is too confusing doesn't mean it's not a real language. (P.S. I made a request for an experienced editor to help resolve the dispute) 178.93.31.126 (talk) 22:57, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but Sardinian is not a language (in this everybody agree). It's okay for a third opinion.--93.32.150.145 (talk) 23:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

(ENG)Hello to everyone, I am a Sardinian speaker and, upon the invitation of a user, whom I thank for the thought, to read the discussion between the two anonymous users, I think the former has done the right thing to raise this issue. Replying briefly to the latter, instead, actually everybody agrees that Sardinian *is* a language, which, unlike the Italian dialects, pertains to the western branch of the Romance languages and is made up of two dialectal groups (just like many other languages which present some differentiations, mostly phonogical, within them) whose definition, if it weren't for the fact that they've already passed through a process of standardization, may be even called into question; plus, the point of the anonymous regarding the supposed non-existence of the language based on the lack of consensus for an accepted standard form is flawed, since it refers to *written* conventions which apply only to bureaucratic and extremly formal contexts and, being it considered as such, is obviously *not* meant to be spoken by anyone. Anyway, the policentric nature of Sardinian is, truth be told, a common problem faced by many minority languages across Europe, but that doesn't mean that they are not languages at all: Sardinian is and will be regarded as a language, whether it will not make it and perish or not, whether there is a standard or not. That being said, I am of the opinion that, just like the first anonymous asserted, Sardinian should be added to the number of European languages already present.

(SC)Salude a tottus, deo soe unu chi su sardu lu faeddat e, gràtzias a un'utente chi mi at cumbidadu a lèzere s'arresonu tra sos duos anonimos (e pro custu li torro gràtzia), penso chi su primu apat tottu sa resone de custu mundu a che pesàre su problema. Torrànde impòsta a s'atteru, imbètzes, a nàrrer sa veridade tottus sun de accordu chi su sardu *est* una limba, chi, a s'imbèsse de sos limbàzos (dialettos) italianos, pertènet a s'ala noulatìna de Ponente e lu fàchen duos grupos dialettales (comente a medas atteras limbas chi diffèrin, pro su prus fonologicamente, in intro) e sa definitzione issoro, si non fit pro su fattu chi sun issos etottu giai istandarditzàdos, podet èsser posta in dùda; in prus, su chi narat s'anonimu in meritu a sa supposta non esistentzia de su sardu ca non b'est accordu pro unu istandard ebbìa non bàlet, ca cussu sun regulas chi sèrbin a un'imprèu pètzi (solu) burocraticu e formale e, de custa manèra, non si chistiònat. Comùncas, sa natura policentrica de su sardu est unu problema chi tènen medas limbas de minorìa pèri tottu s'Europa, ma custu non bòlet nàrrer chi non sìan limbas: su sardu est e at a èsser tentu in cunsìderu comente una limba, chi non bi la podat fàcher e si estìngat o nono, chi bi apat unu istandard o nono. Nàu custu, deo soe de su pàrrer chi, comente su primu anonimu at affirmàdu, su sardu si depat pònner a costàzu (fiancu) de sas limbas europeas chi giai bi sun.

(If this, in your opinion, resembles an "Italian" dialect not even worthy to be mentioned, then it is clear that I have just wasted my time since 2009, and so have many users trying to make this encyclopedia a little more reliable. Have a nice day.)--Dk1919 (talk) 12:57, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Dk1919. It's a pleasant surprise that we've got an actual Sardinian speaker to participate in the discussion. I initially hoped to keep the entire list of Italian vernaculars but I'm glad that at least I get to add the one that interests me the most. 178.94.17.145 (talk) 14:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to thee too for raising this issue I was unaware of! It's a pleasure to finally see someone willing to give our language in danger of extinction some consideration. That means there is still hope, I presume. Saludos.--Dk1919 (talk) 14:55, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of that, would you happen to have a better source for an absolute number of speakers? I used Ethnologue here but I wonder if they get too optimistic sometimes. StasMalyga (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Sami

Shouldn't the Sami language be in here?

• It is (currently) listed under Finno-Ugric languages -- is that good enough? Pagan 07:37, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Provencal

How about Provencal (or is it included in catala) ? Pagan 07:34, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

• Actually, at least now both Franco-Provencal and Provencal (under Occita) appear -- are these duplicates? Pagan 07:34, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Typo?

In the last section 8.10 'Issues in language politics', the word 'relais' seems to be used in the sense of 'relay'. Is this a simple typo or has a new word been created to denote the translation of one language into another and then into another (as the European Union is considering doing in future)?

Misleading image

The Image "Knowledge of French" makes French look more spread than it really is. The different percentages of French-speakers aren't distinguishable because even areas with about 10% French-knowers are coloured with a rather dark blue colour (compare this with the "Knowledge of German" image). The whole image seems a bit politically motivated to me, its creator might well be a part of the French-lobby. 'Knowledge' is a very broad term as well: I doubt that every 10th Swede, for instance, could read a French book. --Fennicus

Missing languages

Some language suggestions to add to the list of languages, that came up when I used this list for my Sporcle Quiz: Scots, Kurdish, Arabic, (West) Flemish, Lombard, Sicilian, Bashkir, Chechen, Avar, Kabardian, Dargwa, Udmurt, Kumyk, Mari, Lezgian, Karachay-Balkar, Komi-Zyrian, Kalmyk Oirat, Lak, Adyghe, Tabassaran. I suppose some of these are sometimes or often considered to be dialects. But especially those languages spoken in Russia seems to be quite distinct. Is Russia not considered to be European? Should I just add those to the list, or is there some reason they're missing? Bawm79 (talk) 08:26, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Number of speakers table error

When I try to sort the number of speakers table by number of speakers, it sorts it alphabetically rather than numerically (i.e. 9,000,000 is above 700,000 is above 70,000 is above 5,000,000). — Preceding unsigned comment added by R160K (talk • contribs) 00:36, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Official Status?

Scots, Scottish Gaelic, English and Cornish do not have any "official" status anywhere in the UK - R160K (talk) 00:48, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

On the crossroads of...

I removed the expression "On the crossroads of Europe and Asia" related to the transcaucasic countries. As written on the talk page, this article deals with countries in Europe according to a certain, pre-discussed definition of Europe, which can be either geographical or political. In the first case, the right term is "transcontinental" and does not apply to Armenia (see Archives on Talk:Armenia about reached consensus about its geographic location, which is in Asia), in the second, we don't need it, since all three countries are fully European. I hope that this concept is clear. Alex2006 (talk) 05:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

New External Link

I would like to add this link to the page as it contains a detailed map of languages which this page does not have. There should be a detailed alternative to the basic map. I am certainly not saying we should clog the article with unimportant details I just suggest he addition od a furtherly detailed map as n alternative to the current one

(Link in question: [8])

Thanks 86.128.208.209 (talk) 21:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you the creator of this map? If so, perhaps you would consider releasing it into the public domain or under a free content licence, and uploading it to Wikimedia Commons along with the sources. This would allow the community to check, correct, and further develop it, and would maximize its potential for reuse, which is a core goal of Wikipedia. But I don't see why we should merely link to a non-free, vaguely sourced map whose distinctions between languages are far more fine-grained than usual and which is hosted on an anonymously authored website which seems to have been created only yesterday. —Psychonaut (talk) 07:33, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I am indeed the creator of the map along with the creator of the website which is indeed new. I do not whish for the map to enter the public domain without me being able to control it's use due to rampant plagiarism found on the web. Therefore I will not be uploading it. I do however whish for the community to be able to view my work as does anyone and I believe it is beneficial as it offers a different view on the oh so tangible word 'language'. I believe that it is vital for Wikipedia's non bias policy to represent the two versions of the word language. 31.54.223.29 (talk) 17:50, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

If you insist on exclusive control over the use of your map, then your goals and Wikipedia's are fundamentally incompatible, and you should find a different venue to promote your work. —Psychonaut (talk) 19:53, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Well if that is the case then never mind. Thanks for discussing though 86.167.144.116 (talk) 15:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment As Psychonaut said, you cannot control content on Wikipedia. What is more, there are a very large number of errors in your map so while your interest is appreciated, the map would not be added to Wikipedia in either case unless it could be very substantially corrected and improved.Jeppiz (talk) 16:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Proficiency

This article includes maps on how many people speak a number of different European languages. The data for this comes from the Eurobarometer, a survey in the European Union. I removed the maps for Polish and German, as they clearly did not represent the data, thus violating WP:OR. I hope they can be re-added, but then in correct format, corresponding to the maps for other languages. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is about sourced facts, not about truth.Jeppiz (talk) 16:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The data is irritatingly wrong. E.g. french is reported with 60 million speakers, whereas the source said 60 million in France, adding another 6 mio in Belgium and Switzerland further down the same page. This error seams to be systematically and concerns all/many languages. Before starting to change, let me ask, whether any reasoning about this issue has already been made? Nillurcheier (talk) 15:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

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Population

European Russia has 110 million people. How it comes that Europe has only 95 million Russian speakers? Also Ukraine has 40 million people all of whom speak Russian.--2A02:2168:83F:8428:0:0:0:1 (talk) 21:19, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Malta

Why Malta is painted green on the map?--5.228.254.180 (talk) 10:12, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Number of speakers

I have tagged the "Number of speakers" table with {{Refimprove}} and {{Original research}}. This is because, although the table claims to display "the number of speakers of a given European language in Europe only", most of the figures have one or more of the following problems:

• They are entirely unreferenced.
• They are for the global number of speakers of the language, not for the number in Europe only.
• They are for the number of speakers of the language in all countries which are completely or partially in Europe, not for the number in Europe only.
• They are entirely novel estimates of the number of speakers in Europe which rely on nontrivial (and possibly grossly inaccurate) extrapolations from ethnic (not linguistic) population data.

I suggest it would be better to simply remove all the unreferenced figures from the table until such time as they can be replaced with referenced figures. No information is better than obviously false information or wild-assed guessing. Another temporary solution would be to use the (referenced) global speaker populations to give upper bounds on the number of speakers, and to clearly mark them as such (using < or ≪). —Psychonaut (talk) 08:10, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Please make up your mind. If you want referenced figures, then we can simply restore the original cited data, as per what the sources say on Ethnologue. If, however, you want specific figures of the number of language speakers within the geographic boundaries of Europe, then we can only give estimates. So please make up your mind. I am completely against removing figures that can already be backed with reliable sources. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 08:59, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that it is better to remove unreferenced information. But first of all we should understand what is meant as Europe. Do we have here a geographical, political (EU), Council of Europe, UEFA, or what other kind of definition? Alex2006 (talk) 09:03, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

To suggest that the political boundaries of Europe are limited to the EU states is disingenuous. Political boundaries of Europe include the boundaries of all countries that are member states of pan-European bodies, most notably the Council of Europe. Furthermore, multiple definitions of Europe should be used in any encyclopedic Europe-related article for the sake of neutrality. I will restore the cited figures if it's going to come down to removal of content from the article. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 09:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Then, if we adopt as criterium the membership in the Council of Europe, there is no sense in citing only the speakers in the European (in geographic sense) parts of Russia and Turkey: we have to cite all the speakers, also in Siberia and Anatolia. Alex2006 (talk) 09:27, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

If the figures are based on the political boundaries of Europe, then yes. But I'll try to look for any cited figure regarding how many speakers of a certain language exist within the strict geographic boundaries of Europe, although that'll be very hard to do, and it'll also apply to languages such as English, French and Spanish, given that there's a huge diaspora for these communities. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 09:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Here falls the donkey, as we say in Italian. :-) The first rule of each info is consistency: this means that either we use a definition or another. We have to decide: what is used here? A geographic or a political definition? In the first case, it makes sense to cite the figures for the (geographic) european territories, in the other case no. If we do as you suggest, we will have only a jam of ambiguous information, which misleads the reader. As an example, if one cite Armenians and the Russians as now, one has the misleading impression that Armenian speakers live inside the geographic borders of Europe, which is true only for those belonging to the European diaspora. The proof of the way how this article is being currently written, is the sentence "at crossroads of Europe and Asia" near Armenia, Georgia and Azerbajian. In the case of Armenia this is pure POV. This country lies geographically well inside Asia, while politically (as council of Europe) is in Europe. The other two countries are transcontinental, and so should be defined. This sentence must be removed. Alex2006 (talk) 09:52, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

To consider the statement, of Armenia being at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, as a POV is quite simply a false assumption, and such accusations would fall under the category of personal attacks according to the Wikipedia bylaws. Since the boundaries of Europe in the Caucasus region aren't properly defined, Armenia is considered to be at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, just as it is mentioned in the intro sentence of the Armenia article (and it wasn't me who added it). It's also considered to be part of Europe by multiple reliable sources, not the least of which is Worldatlas.com. This isn't a black-and-white issue, therefore as many definitions must be included as possible, since the article is supposed to be encyclopedic, neutral and informative. Also, if we want to know the exact number of speakers of one or two languages within the geographic boundaries of Europe, then we must consistently apply that to all languages. Therefore, in order to be consistent, any removal of one linguistic figure from the table should prompt us to remove all the other figures from the table, including the figures of German, English, and Spanish, given that we don't know exactly how many people speak those languages within the so-called geographic boundaries of Europe. But that would be ridiculously counterproductive and such removal of content would not benefit the article whatsoever. Therefore, I see only two solutions... The first solution is to try to find the figures of the exact number of speakers of each language within geographic Europe, which will be hard to do. The second, and better solution, would be to restore the cited figures of all the languages in question and simply mention which language is spoken in a transcontinental country, when it is needed. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 11:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

The geographical boundary of Europe is consistently set at the watershed of Caucasus since at least 150 years. Today this IS a black and white isssue. Physical Geography is a science, exactly as physics or chemistry, and every reliable source (worldatlas.com is NOT a RS) in this field defines the European border there. Regarding Wikipedia, I would like to remember also that about the geographic placement of Armenia there has been more that one lenghty discussion on the Armenia article (to be found in the discussion page Archives) and the consensus was that geographically Armenia lies in Asia (as I wrote), so the geographical issue is closed. The sentence "at the crossroads of Asia and Europe" was introduced in that context to give a general definition of the country (since culturally the country has many european characters), but it has not to be intended as "geographic crossroads". Coming back to our issue, using this sentence here in the context of the Transcaucasian countries is ambiguous: either we use a political definition of Europe (and Armenia is there), or a geographic one (and then it is not). But then we have to be consistent also with the other countries. In other words, if Erevan is Europe, then also Wladiwostok belongs to it. Alex2006 (talk) 11:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Let's not argue over Armenia's geographic place. Sciences aren't black-and-white either, I cant believe you think sciences are black-and-white. The geographic boundaries of Europe have never been properly defined or unanimously accepted, which is why everyone says something different. And therein lies my original point, which is that we should include all definitions in order to make the article as all-encompassing and as encyclopedic as possible. Anyway, I'm going to stop replying now and start looking for sources for the number of speakers, by language, within geographic Europe. If I cant find any, I think I'll go with the second proposal I made. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 12:01, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

As there seems to be some disagreement and/or confusion concerning the best approach to take, I suggest that you seek support for your proposal here on the talk page before implementing it. Personally, I support your second proposal, provided we aren't able to find figures for the first proposal. However, if you do implement the second proposal, please make sure to cite your sources, and to check that they cover European and European transcontinental countries only as opposed to the entire world. —Psychonaut (talk) 12:31, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Kutsuit, this isn't a question of me "making up my mind" but rather of the community collectively deciding on how best to define the scope of the table and how to provide suitable references. As I already stated, I'm in favour of removing any figures which are unreferenced, or which rely on references which prove something entirely different to the stated purpose of the table. Alex2006's suggestion of first deciding how to define "Europe" for the purposes of the table is a sensible one. I favour a purely geographic interpretation, though if the consensus is to include the population of all countries which are at least partially in Europe, I would accept that too (provided this definition is explicitly mentioned in the article). —Psychonaut (talk) 12:16, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you, Psychonaut. For me also a purely geographic definition would be better, but I can live also with the "Council of Europe" solution too. What I don't want, as I stated above, is mixing apples with pears, inserting "geographic" information (i.e., number of Turkish speakers in geographical Europe) in a "political" context. Alex2006 (talk) 12:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm trying to find the sources now. If I cant, then I'm in favor of how the original text was, which included the population of language speakers within the political boundaries of European countries, since that was sourced and leaves no room for so-called "original research". Furthermore, if you want to stick with the geographic definition, then I suggest you find sources for the number of language speakers within the geographic boundaries instead of removing sourced content. A sourced content with an explanation is better than removal of content. Also, please do not abuse templates as that is a form of sneaky vandalism, which I'll have reported to the administrators if it persists. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 12:29, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Alright Psychonaut, I've noted your latest message. If I cant find the sources for the population of language speakers within the traditional geographic boundaries of Europe, then I'll provide the sources for the population of language speakers within the political European boundaries instead, and I'll make sure they don't include worldwide population figures. So this means the population of Turkish speakers will go down from over 70 million to under 60 million according to Ethnologue, if I'm not mistaken.
  But please in the meantime, could you remove the original research template? There is no original research. According to Wikipedia bylaws, numerical estimates are not original research but they do need to be cited nevertheless. The addition of the template isn't nice. Anyway, I'll go find these sources but please bear with me. It may take a day or two since I can hardly find anything on Google Books so far. I may need some time, as this is going to be very hard to find. Also, I don't need to remind anyone about canvassing, hopefully. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 12:51, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Table

The table is still bad. Using Ethnologue is never ideal, especially not for Europe (Ethnologue is open in saying that Europe is not a prioritised area and some of its information for Europe has not been updated for decades) so it's a bit shaky as WP:RS. Still, if the idea is to use Ethnologue, then why are different sources used for a few languages while 90% go by Ethnologue data. Given that those that use different sources always use sources that report higher numbers than Ethnologue, it looks very much like a POV-push to inflate these languages (Catalan, for instance). If the source is Ethnologue, then the logic thing is to use that source for all languages, not just some.Jeppiz (talk) 19:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Before you erased that complete section, 97 of the languages listed had a reference and 9 did not. The original discussion was that there was too much original research and not enough references. I disagree with your reasoning This has been tagged for two years and is more or less an orgy of OR. Time to remove as no RS source has been given. for removing the complete section. Of the some 106 languages listed 84% were referenced, the Tag should have been removed because it was almost all referenced. Further more the articles for Africa, South Asia, Asia, List of languages by number of native speakers and List of languages by total number of speakers all have similar tables which often have a lower reference quality. I am for a revert and to include that section again. To the discussion Where Europe ends and Asia begins is a second discussion that I can't solve, am I not going to tell Armenians that see themselves as European that they are in fact Asians. --Alternative Transport (talk) 11:38, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Azerbaijani

This one is the most urgent - let's say Azerbaijan and the Russian Caucasus are in Europe, sure. But most of the 24,000,000+ speakers as given live in Iran, and plenty live in Central Asia, Anatolia, the US and elsewhere. This puts Azerbaijani as one of the most spoken languages in Europe... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.198.68 (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

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Diaspora languages

I think diaspora languages from the Middle East (Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Aramaic, etc.) should be removed, if not have any legal status in EU. Because there are so many diaspora people in the EU from different regions of the world: East Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, North Africa...Either we should mention all the diaspora languages, or we should remove Middle Eastern diaspora ones. Because it is grossy misleading. 52.66.254.71 (talk) 09:42, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd agree for example that the statement "The Iranian languages in Europe include Kurdish, Persian (incl. Tat Persian), and Ossetian" is not very useful, and somewhat misleading. Although of course there will be many people speaking those languages currently in Europe: firstly Balochi, Pashto and many other Iranian languages are spoken by migrants in the UK; and secondly, it would not be useful to list all 100+ of the languages spoken in London alone, let alone those of Paris, Hamburg, Moscow, Istanbul... Some restriction is required. Batternut (talk) 11:22, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

References

Well, first of all, this is not about the EU. There is a separate article Languages of the European Union for that. This is just about the de facto languages spoken in Europe. But I agree that it is very difficult to find reliable data on immigrant languages in Europe. There is some census data, but community sizes are systematically underestimated due to the gigantic scale of illegal immigration to Europe. Nobody knows how many people even are in Europe, and authorities have little incentive to invest any effort in this because it would just serve to enrage their citizens and destabilize their countries.

But of course this doesn't excuse us from citing such sources as we have, we just need to present them with the proper caveats. E.g. the Russian census cites 830k Armenian speakers, but the true number is likely closer to 2 million, nobody can be sure. France cites about 4 million Arabic speakers, but the number might just as likely be twice that, not to mention Germany, where there are now probably millions of Arabic speakers too, but nobody is willing to count them. The best estimate we can give on Arabic in Europe is "millions", Arabic is very likely in the top 20 languages in Europe by number of speakers, so I guess this makes it relevant to the article topic.

The only other immigrant language with > 1 million speakers is probably Armenian, perhaps also Kurdish, and Hindi+Urdu if you count it as a single language. After that, there are lots of languages with several 100k speakers scattered all over Western Europe and/or Russia.

Obviously, every language in the world will have some scattered speakers in Europe, the point isn't to list them all, but to get a decent impression of which immigrant languages are the most significant, say with communities of several 100k speakers. --dab (𒁳) 07:07, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Listing dialects

After cleaning up the "list of languages", I note that the Italian dialects (Venetian, Sicilian, etc.) are listed as separate languages, even though their speakers are also included in the L1 sum total for Italian. At the same time, the German dialects (Bavarian, Swabian, etc.) are not listed separately (I just added a note to their being included in the German L1 total [exceptions: Luxembourgish and Yiddish are High German variants listed as separate entries]).

I have no preference as to how to handle this, but it should be handled consistently. If we treat as a separate "language" anything with an ISO 639-3 code, we will have to list the German dialects just as well as the Italian ones. These speakers will still all be included in figures of German and Italian speakers, and we would just have to add a caveat to this effect. --dab (𒁳) 07:10, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I now opted for "let's list anything with an ISO 639 code". --dab (𒁳) 15:09, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

This is a bit of an old discussion, but the overall linguistic consensus is that Bavarian is a German dialect whereas Venetian and Sicilian are independent languages. I agree we cannot have the cake and eat it, speakers should not be counted for more than one language. Jeppiz (talk) 23:00, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

The "overall linguistic consensus" is that there is no objective way to make such a distinction. You are making empty claims. --dab (𒁳) 21:30, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

What's better, no information or information we know to be wrong?

First, this is not a discussion to change anything, rather a discussion to first discover if change is needed and only then to discuss how to change. There is a pretty clear problem with the article, though not a clear solution. The problem is that the table is so wrong it's absurd. To take a few examples:

• we currently claim there are 12 million native speakers of Armenian in Europe. Given that there is less than 3 millions in Armenia, that means we claim there are more than 9 million native speakers outside Armenia. Sure, there are some in Russia, some in Nagorno-Karabach, and smaller numbers in European Turkey and in France. Still, we can be pretty sure there is nowhere near 3 millions in Europe outside Armenia, so the figure is inflated by more than 100%.
• we also claim 600.000 Europeans are native Yiddish speakers. France is home to the largest European Jewish population, but they are mainly Sephardic, so never spoke Yiddish. The only way the 600.000 European Yiddish speakers would be correct would be if all European Ashkenazi Jews had Yiddish as their native language. In reality, it's not even 10%. So if Armenian is an exaggeration by 100%, here we are close to 1000% inflation.
• for the revived Celtic languages Manx and Cornish, the article claims 230 and 557 speakers. Would that that were true... Again, we're in the realm of pure fantasy (there may be that many fluent speakers of each, but not L1 speakers).
• for Italian languages, the article confuses "living in a region" with "speaking the language". For example, the article claims close to four million Veneto speakers. That would that most people in the Veneto region would speak Veneto; yet when local TV in Veneto walked around Padova a few years ago asking locals if they could speak Veneto, they had a hard time finding even one fluent speaker. The same applies to all other Italian languages in the article as well. These numbers might well have been correct in the 1970s, but there's been a drastic decrease in local language use since.

These examples are just some of the more obvious errors. I doubt anyone familiar with any of the languages I mention will dispute that the figures are completely disconnected from reality. Part of the problem, of course, is that we use the notoriously unreliable source of Ethnologue, but here is also where it gets tricky. Ethnologue has one big advantage and one big disadvantage.

• Advantage It exists. It is the only source I know publishing estimates (no matter how old and/or far off) for all languages.
• Disadvantage Both its number of speakers and other information tend to be unreliable. As Europe is not their priority, some of their data for smaller European languages date from the 1970s (then, the data for both Yiddish and Veneto would have been rather accurate). Sometimes they seem to just make things up (there were never in history even close to 12 million Armenian speakers in Europe).

So the problem is obvious, in that we have a table with some accurate figures, of course, but also lots of highly inaccurate claims. The solution is less obvious. I don't know of any other source with data for all languages. Without a source, it's just OR. One option might be to delete the column with number of speakers, but that's hardly ideal either. So what should we do? Pretend all is well even though we know it's not? Try to find another source? Insert a small paragraph pointing out that the table is imperfect? Jeppiz (talk) 19:32, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

The errors need to be fixed, of course. References should be impooved, and problems should be explained to the reader. The Armenian thing was just vandalism and should have been reverted. The Celtic claims, I understand, concern children who have been painstakingly socialized in these languages and are now claimed as native speakers. Details and criticism of such claims are welcome. The dialectal demography is woefully fuzzy and better references are welcome, the rough SIL figures are just a minimal placeholder. We can improve this but it needs to happen carefully, and step by laborious step. --dab (𒁳) 13:08, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

List of languages

Great care has been taken to only list speakers geographically in Europe. This is complicated by diaspora populations due to recent migration, which have their own section. Yes, tehre are about 10 million native speakers of Arabic in Europe Nevertheless, Arabic does not get an entry in the "list of languages" because these communities are dispersed migrant communities with no homeland in Europe. (this may change in the future, e.g. if France or Belgium give Arabic official regional status in heavily Arabic-dominated parts of their territory, but the list is supposed to represent the situation now, not at some hypothetical future time).

Exactly the same situation holds for Armenian, Georgian, Tamil, etc. etc. Please don't cite "total number of speakers" in the list. Yes, Armenian has "7 million native speakers", but then English has "400 million native speakers", i.e. worldwide. Native speakers of English in Europe number 60 million, in the UK and Ireland. Armenian speakers in Europe number about 1 million, and consist almost entirely of the Armenian diaspora of migrant workers in the Russian Federation.

Turkish is the most difficult case, as it has both 12 million native speakers in European Turkey, and 3 million native speakers in non-European immigrant communities in Western Europe (mostly Germany).

Please respect the scope of this list, and use list of languages by number of speakers to cover worldwide number of speakers. --dab (𒁳) 10:37, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Regional status of Armenian

User:JJ 25, you cite Ethnologue for a number of 12 million L1 speakers of Armenian in Europe. However, the source in question has "3,140,000 in Armenia (2001 census). Population total all countries: 5,900,080."[9], it follows that at most 2.8 million Armenian speakers can be in Europe. In reality, there is about 1 million, i.e. the disaspora community in Russia and Ukraine, which is duly mentioned under "immigrant languages".

Misrepresenting the content of references is quite serious misbehaviour if done on purpose. Please be more careful. You cite, without reference, that "Armenian is an official minority language in the following countries: Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Ukraine". I would be interested in this claim, please feel free to cite appropriate references for this. Please also note that "Europe" is a geographical term, while "Indo-European" is a linguistic one. Hindi is not a "language of Europe", but Kalmyk is, because India is not geographically in Europe, while Kalmykia is. Please do not re-insert your unreferenced material, or misrepresentation of the content of SIL Ethnologue. If this was an honest mistake, please learn from it and try to research and discuss your contributions. --dab (𒁳) 11:20, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Map

The map with the isocodes is not an improvement in any way over the other map (well, apart from showing iso codes). It's less accurate in many regions (Brittany is French speaking, not Breton speaking; Irish Gaelic is not nearly as widespread; indicating that Russian speakers are spread throughout Estonia is just plain wrong etc.) The other map is by far more accurate for current language use in Europe. Jeppiz (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

It is an improvement in almost every way, because the map you keep restoring is unreferenced. You may want to review the image page and see exactly how much effort went into making it fully based on actual references. The map uses hatching to represent the presence of significant bilingualism. The hatching doesn't indicate a specific percentage, so it isn't clear how you would gauge just how "widespread" Breton is being represented as in the map. The hatching in the map has been hand-crafted following File:Percentage of breton speakers in the breton countries in 2004.png. Etc. You are perfectly free to further improve it, e.g. by introducing various types of hatching based on percentage. You will find that you will spend a week of work on improving the granularity of information represented, only to face increased criticism because increased density of information in the map will mean more details will be open to criticism.

While we do not have any linguistic map that is "perfect", the map you seem to prefer, File:Languages1.svg, is completely unreferenced. It originated as a rough paint job in 2008[10]. In 2015, someone added a sprinkling of minority languages[11]. Then in 2017, someone else added "Detailization and corrections on most countries", without any tractable references.

• It now gives the distribution of minority speakers, such as Sami or Moksha, almost to the resolution of a single pixel (maybe 20 km)? Who kept track of all the Sami and Moksha speakers and came up with this pattern? Why is this gargantuan work not referenced in any way?
• I see that you are claiming there are exactly four contiguous pockets of Tatar speakers in Crimea. What is your reference for this?
• I see you are claiming the division of Scots vs. English in Shetland shows the presence of English in the southern tip, the southwestern tip and the northeastern tip. This is very interesting, as the population of Shetland is about 20k and strongly concentrated in Lerwick. I would be very interested in your source for this particular pattern
• etc. etc.

We now end up with a highly detailed map of Europe that would be completely unable to withstand any kind of criticism remotely similar to the kind you apply to the map that replaces insanely accurate division of terrain by hatching and bases this on actual references listed on the image talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 09:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Languages1.svg is prettier, more pleasing to the eye. I find the level of detail rather implausible, without generous sourcing. Hence we should stick with Languages-Europe.svg for now. Batternut (talk) 11:11, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Regardless of opinions, it would be good if Dartsss and dab would stop edit warring. (I am not sure why dab is claiming I "keep" reverting, as I've edited exactly one time, but that's hardly important). Of course we can list errors with each map, so here goes:

The map claims that Russian is spoken throughout Estonia (in contrast to Latvia where dab claims it's only in the Eastern part). Not only is this unsourced, it's contrary to the Estonian and Latvian censuses. So the map is wrong for both countries according to our sources.

According to the map, the Turkish speaking areas in Bulgaria have shrunk a lot since the latest census. What is the source for this claim?

The map claims that Danish is still spoken throughout Scania. That was the case around 400 years ago. The Scanian dialects, while containing some Danish traits, have been Swedish for at least 300 years, so why claim they are Danish?

In Scotland, parts of the Highlands are claimed as Gaelic speaking even if no Gaelic speakers remain. Hard to find a reason for that.

The Republic of Ireland is indicated as bilingual Irish and English, Northern Ireland as English only. Yet there are areas of Northern Ireland with a higher concentration of Irish speakers than many parts of the Republic, so why this distinction.

Why is Corsica coloured bilingual but Sardinia monolingual. Sardinian is every bit as much alive as Corsican.

How come the entire Catalan area is given as bilingual when parts of the Welsh area is given as only Welsh. There are far larger entirely Catalan speaking areas than Welsh speaking areas.

Why are the Sápmi areas of Sweden and Norway indicated as bilingual, but in Finland as Sápmi only? This does not correspond to any census in these countries, quite the opposite.

When were the Åland islands swallowed by the sea?

Why are all Swedish speaking areas of Finland given as bilingual, but Swedish in most of Sweden as Swedish only? The areas with the highest concentrations of native Swedish speakers are in Finland, not in Sweden (unless censuses for both countries are wrong).

Compared to other errors, the indication of a Yiddish speaking minority in Western Ukraine is only off by some 25 years, but it's wrong none the less (unless the creator is aware of things not know to the rest of us).

In Romania, the German minority is as overstated as the Hungarian is understated. There is not one municipality in Romania in which German speakers make up even 1/3 of the population, and the only village in which they are over 30% (Brebu Nou) is home to only 86 people... In contrast, there are large areas where Hungarians make up 80-90%, yet they are ignored. The idea seems to be to color strong Hungarian majorities bilingual, and even if Hungarians make up a plurality, it's given as monolingual Romanian. Why?

Gallo-Romance languages such as as Venetian, Lombard and Piemontese are indicated to be Italian, in contrast with linguistic consensus. How come?

Looking forward to the sources for these spectacular claim in this "fantastic" map. Jeppiz (talk) 17:39, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@Nonemansland: Could you help us in this discussion by sharing with us the sources you used in the compilation of your splendid language map File:Languages1.svg? Batternut (talk) 22:29, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

As Nonemansland, the uploader of Languages1.svg, is blocked, we may never know what sources he/she had for their map. Batternut (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

• Comment It's been more than two weeks since I gave a rather long list of original research in the map (see above). Since then, nobody has addressed any of those points nor presented any sources to support them. That being the case, I have removed the map for now. As I agree that the other map is not ideal either, I have not reverted to that version either. While having a map would be good, no map is still less bad than having a map filled with errors and original research. Jeppiz (talk) 21:38, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Some ad hominem remarks
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Your "list" included gems like "When were the Åland islands swallowed by the sea?" You are clearly not arguing in good faith. I subscribe to WP:AGF, but once an editor goes out of his way to make clear they are just here to troll, there is no longer any room for "assumptions". in spite of your refusal to follow basic decency or wikiquette, I will go through your list and try to find points that can be argued to be reasonable. This would be ever so much more enjoyable if you showed a minimum of constructive attitude. --dab (𒁳) 21:35, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

This article would certainly benefit from a more detailed map, and I very much look forward very much to Dbachmann's responses to those arguable criticisms made 2 months ago of his generally useful map! Batternut (talk) 23:26, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Dartsss. Before adding again the map in Europe#Languages, we should have a consensus here.

You added references in the map description about the Catalan language, but they don't match with the map. For example, why did you mark Garrotxa as Spanish-speaking when everyone there knows that is one of the most Catalan-speaking regions? Your regions seem to be completely invented and they don't have nothing to do with the sources you provided later.

As Jeppiz said a year ago, the map should be removed, until this point and the last year points are sourced. --FogueraC (talk) 15:57, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

The map is painted according to the census source[12] showing the majority of the inhabitants that can speak Catalan in Valencia and a source showing Catalan vs. Spanish peakers in the Baleares[13][14]. I assume the dispute is about Catalan in Catalonia. I can leave two suggestions for Catalonia, now:

1. [15] source for Comarques of Catalonia(page 26). Estimate published by the University of Oxford, and according to something like a massive reasearch on internet trends. I adjusted Catalonia according to this source, because it shows further breakdown by settlements that is mantained in the rest of the areas of the map.

2. [16] source for Provinces of Catalonia. If the first source is controversial, I think this one's accuracy is beyond doubt. If we use this source, we should include three provinces as Spanish speaking because 39%, 36% and 28% are reported to have spoken Catalan as a habitual language in the provinces of Tarragaona, Penedes and Metropolita.

I am also open to applying different data from newly suggested sources. But this is the only data I have now. Dartsss (talk) 19:16, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Ok about Valencia. The source about Mallorca says that the only regions where Spanish speakers are majority are Palma and Llevant, but in the map Tramuntana is also marked as Spanish speaking. About Catalonia, the second source it's clearly more accurate than the first one. --FogueraC (talk) 23:40, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I can apply the second source. Dartsss (talk) 04:26, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

As FogueraC says, and as I pointed out a year ago, there are numerous errors with the maps. There is absolutely no consistency whatsoever. In some countries, only one language is show even though many are spoken. In others, the opposite is true. To take but one (of many) examples: why do we not show the Hungarian minority in Romania (a regional majority, large area, lots of speakers) while we do show speakers of Gaelic in the Scottish Highlands (below 10% even in the Highlands). It just doesn't make any sense at all. And why on earth do we claim that the area around St Petersburg isn't Russian speaking? Some of my ancestors came from there, and they spoke Ingrian and Finnish - 120 years ago. Today it's completely Russian. For now, I'm removing the first two maps. The rest of the maps are a bit better, but the first two are misleading to the point of no maps at all being preferable. Jeppiz (talk) 14:16, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

As dab says, Jeppiz didn't show enough of a constructive attitude. Jeppiz was right as the map was unrefernced, But I have also some news to add, as I attempted to list the sources in File:Languages1.svg. Which first two maps and what area around Saint Petersburg? If you have any remarks, please, back them with sources and add them to the map. Remarks from personal experience are not a reliable source. None other user has showed sources so far... I have added about a dozen of sources for Russia alone. This is versus the insisting to remove the maps based on personal experience. 04:26, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

A bit bewildered why Dartsss think (a) that an ad hominem comment from over a year ago is an argument and (b) why Dartsss thinks themselves the judge of what is constructive. I have laid out a considerable number of errors in the two removed maps. Stating obvious and general facts like the existence of the Hungarians in Romania or the status of Scottish Gaelic is not exactly "personal experience", it is general knowledge. Citing common knowledge is not only not necessary, it is actively discouraged by current policies. Kindly read WP:BLUE. As for the factual arguments, they remain the same. Jeppiz (talk) 13:31, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

The Caucasus

Whether the Caucasus is in Europe or not is one matter... but why are the North Caucasian languages included in the non-Indo-European section whereas Kartvelian languages are not? Is there a specific reason? 81.156.88.100 (talk) 23:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

That should be fixed.--Calthinus (talk) 05:07, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Regional official languages vs. minority languages in the table

I'm a little confused with the last column of the table (Official Status > Regional), since contrary to its name it contains a very mixed bag of entries, including regional languages (i.e. official in a specific administrative region/municipality), minority languages (i.e. recognised/protected languages of minorities) and even languages with no official status at all. Although some minority languages are also official/co-official in a regional level (or sometimes just in municipal level), that's not always the case and that's definitely not clear in the table. I think that we should either update the name of the column, or be more consistent in the entries included. Any opinions? --Argean (talk) 09:01, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Azerbaijan etc

@TU-nor and KIENGIR: let's start with this -- the table says 23 million Azeris. There are only 10 million inhabitants of Azerbaijan, not all of whom are ethnic Azeris as we also have Lezgins, Juhuris, Talysh, etc etc. Most of the rest are in Iran. Okay some expansive definitions of Europe include all of Azerbaijan, not just the 1/3 of it north of the Greater Caucasus -- sure. Side note: I take issue with the fact that we are using the most possibly expansive definition with regard to the South Caucasus so as to include Armenia, yet somehow this does not apply to Turkey -- I don't think there is any definition of Europe that includes Armenia but not Anatolian Turkey. That aside, I also don't think there is a single definition of Europe that includes Iranian Azerbaijan in Europe. But correct me if I'm wrong?--Calthinus (talk) 05:07, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

In this case we actually have clear inclusion criteria: The intro to the table says that we follow the traditional Caucasus/Ural line and only include people in the European parts. I have reverted the "expansion" of Azerbaijan and removed the second(!) entry for Armenia. --T*U (talk) 07:22, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

@TU-nor and Calthinus: To play "devli's advocate", perhaps it is high-time to adapt our criteria of the definition of Europe for this article. While yes, in fact most of the Caucasus is geographically in Western Asia- politically, culturally and linguistically all three have more connections to Europe then Asia. This is reinforced by Georgia's, Armenia's and Azerbaijan's membership in the Council of Europe. The main criteria for membership is that a state must be "European". The Council of Europe has also affirmed that the Caucasus as a whole has geopolitical and sociological connections with Europe. It seems that the definition of what should and should not be included is a tad bit archaic- there has been many adjustments over the decades to the concept of what is "Eastern Europe" and "Greater Europe" since the collapse of the Soviet-Union and the emergence of the EU. Academically speaking, we can all agree that the concepts of "Eastern Europe" and "Greater Europe" has pushed ever more eastwards since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And at the very least- for consistency sake- the three Caucasus countries, Cyprus, Turkey and Russia should be included as all six countries are accepted on the main article of Europe. As editors have done there, notes have been included beside Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Russia and Turkey stating that while yes, geographically these countries are partially in Western Asia, they are included for their geopolitical and sociological links. So, perhaps the same can be done here? Furthermore, I agree with Calthinus that Anatolian Turkey should be included if the Caucasus is and by no means should Iranian Azerbaijan be included- I mean, we do have to draw the line somewhere! Just wanted to share my thoughts but I do not wish to be combative with anyone, so if you vehemently disagree, lets just please be respectful. Cheers! Archives908 (talk) 13:47, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I would be fine with adapting the criterion so as to include Asian Turkey plus the "South Caucasus" geopolitically defined. I just want consistency and not a bizarre gerrymander where Turkey is surrounded by Europe on all sides (South -- Cyprus, East-- Armenia) but not Europe itself. However, if we implement this change, there would need to be many changes in the table. Turkish, Kurdish and Laz have to be increased/added, and the large concentrations of speakers of Arabic, Balkan languages and Caucasus languages would need to be accounted for.--Calthinus (talk) 14:47, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: Yes, I couldn't agree more- consistency is paramount. There will be much work to be done should we progress with these additions. Above-all, this article should display a level of consistency with other Euro-related articles which include these countries; especially as they are all listed in the "50 nations of Europe." Should they be added, we can add notes much like editors have done on List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe in order to appease editors who follow more out-dated definitions of Europe. Furthermore, if we update the leade to a more holistic and inclusive definition of Europe it may hope to finally limit the almost never ending "revisions battle" of what should/should not be included. Any thoughts from other editors? Much appreciation for your input, Cheers! Archives908 (talk) 15:29, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

@Archives908, Calthinus, and TU-nor:, thank you for all of your comments. My point is - as a geography enthusiast as well, even commensurating older and recent views about Europe inlcusion, including even FIFA as well - that regardless of some fair points introduced and explained, but Turkey is not included or counted to Europe (but it is acknowledged a little part is geographically part of Europe). It is true that after the fall of the Soviet Union the inclusion and the politically rendered west-east divisuon has been updated (as falsely any central-being has been ignored), henceforth Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia has been counted to Europe, also per fair geographic argumentation (the question and relation btw. to Asia is another, better cultrual and historical aspect). Thus I consider anything consisent and until, if we follow this - since almost 30 years - traditional grouping a do not include any region of Iran or Turkey itself or similar (i.e. FIFA may argue that 200 km2 of Kazakhstan is geographically part of Europe, so their switch to UEFA is somehow explained, however Israel is a traditional member since AFC rejetcs them, but apart from football that really does not count here, just because of that 200 km2 Kazakhstan will not be a European country...also we don't include Hungarians residing in Asia, or the U.S., i.e. regardless in the Caucasus adjacent countries and their populations may lie compactly thorugh the borders of Europe and Asia, we should stick the the healthy combination of officialy included countries & geographic Europe).(KIENGIR (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR eh there are many ways to look at that. In terms of folklore, food, music, physical appearance (architecture, clothes, people...), Armenia and Azerbaijan are both rather Iranian; Georgia and Turkey too but tangibly less so. Geopolitically, from a Middle Eastern perspective, Turkey is "West European" (in addition to Middle Eastern), geography be damned, in the sense that Cyprus/Greece are i.e. they participated in Western structures and have a different political culture than countries in the former East bloc. Georgia is Georgia; Armenia and Azerbaijan are kind of "states between Iran and Russia" (and this defines them). Culturally, Turkey is again more like Greece on a wide range of matters; not just food/music but also exposure to the Western cultural trends, i.e. one thing that's measurable is that 40-50% of Turks support govt recognition of LGBT relationships, and that includes many Islamists who think so. In the S Caucasus, outside of parts of Baku and mayyyybe the most cosmopolitan of vegetarian restaurants in Tbilisi or Yerevan........ people tend to think "sodomy"/"perversion" etc should not be tolerated by society (it is still worse in the N Caucasus -- Muslims and Christians alike). I.e. see LGBT rights in Armenia#Public opinion; Georgia and Azerbaijan are probably not so different (maybe slightly more liberal by Azeris are richer, less religious and less rural, while Georgia is slightly more Westernized). The 97% oppose for Armenia in 2017 is actually less "Westernized" than Iran's 94%, notwithstanding the legal situation in Iran vis a vis the Islamic Republic. Actually in this matter Turkey is, if you ignore the occasional honor killing and just look at that 40%+ large minority, more "Western" than the non-Greek parts of the Balkans too. Geographically, a possible Europe-Asia boundary separating Iran from Azerbaijan is clear, a river, but the same cannot be said of Armenia's boundaries except for that with Iran. The Lesser Caucasus cuts across borders and rather slices up Armenia (alas most Armenian history happens on the "Asian" side of it in areas that are usually now part of Turkey, and it took one of the most horrific demographic events to push "Armenia" out of its historical core territory). Obviously all these places are also Middle Eastern, in addition to European, in different ways if we are talking culture/politics. I'm just showing another angle to demonstrate out how subjective this all is.

For what we should do, why dont we go with what's most useful? Does anyone really want to calculate language stats for regions and sub regions of countries -- based on what side of the Greater Caucasus/Bosporus countries are on? No, that would make most stats involving Azerbaijan and Turkey a headache. Better to just have all or nothing. 15 million plus Turks geographically in unambiguous Europe plus millions of Azeris north of the Greater Caucasus deeply complicates that however. So lets have them both in total. Then it's ridiculous to not have Georgia and Armenia once we have Turkey and Azerbaijan. I think this way puts the least burden on our stat collection. Thoughts?--Calthinus (talk) 07:41, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus and KIENGIR: For the sole reason of consistency- it is best to include all 3 Caucasus countries and Turkey as a whole; while clearly providing notes which make mention to the their transcontinental fluidity. It's the 21st Century, and the very definition of Europe has expanded and evolved- we cannot turn a blind eye to that. All encyclopedias change over time- they must in order to keep relevant. Wikipedia is no different. I have been browsing several "Euro-related" articles and again, the Caucasus countries and Turkey seem to be included- irrespective of geography. So, my argument is- why not update this article? Why not be consistent? Putting aside ones personal biases or preferences, the least we can do as editors is maintain a degree of consistency. Archives908 (talk) 12:36, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I am currently able to access Internet only periodically, but just now I have a very limited "window". I agree that the traditional geographical definition currently used in the article is not necessarily the best (and certainly not the only) possible definition. It gives, however, well-defined inclusion criteria. I have nothing against including countries or parts of countries outside the current definition, but only if it can be done according to a new definition (or new inclusion criteria) that is supported by reliable sources. "I think country X should be included" is not an acceptable argument. We should not be discussing which countries or parts of countries to include, but the criteria themselves. --T*U (talk) 16:07, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

@TU-nor and Calthinus: Very well put! It seems the majority of us agree that the current inclusion criteria- and its limited, out-dated scope- is not the best. Establishing a new definition can get messy, so I'll put forth the first suggestion. Mind you, it is very simple, but a good way to avoid endless debate and confusion while also establishing a fair and inclusive definition of "modern Europe". In addition to the various regions and languages currently present on the list, I suggest the definition should include the languages present in all 47 member states of the Council of Europe and Belarus. Article 1(a) of the Statute states that any European State may become a member of the Council of Europe. Therefore, as ratified by the Council itself, the 47 current participating full members, are European. This is a good "place to start"- at the bare minimum. We can still keep (for the most part) the existing geographic constructs already present on the list. We would now focus on adding the remaining states of the Council of Europe which are not present, ie. Turkey and the Caucasus nations and include the languages within their respective geographic boundaries. This would also help to (finally!) set an "end point" for what is considered "Europe"... ie. no Israel, no Morocco, no Cape Verde. Again, it is a very simple suggestion- but one that is workable, to the point, efficient and above all, consistent with other articles. Archives908 (talk) 17:03, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

References

Careful, neither of us said which definition is "right". That's not our job. Some people think Europe is this, some think it's that, some exclude all of Russia, some think Europe is not a valid unit and prefer "West Eurasia" all the way down to Yemen, some prefer no subdivision of Eurasia. Not our job to adjudicate this. But I'm fine using the OSCE definition as it does make our job easier.--Calthinus (talk) 17:29, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I never once said that it was the only acceptable definition of Europe; I was merely providing a suggestion of how to structure/refine the list for this particular article. Agreed- that was my main point... by sticking to CoE or even OSCE definitions, it will make our job easier. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 17:50, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Archives908 sorry that came off a bit spicy; I just didn't want to be misunderstood (choice of "careful" was unfortunate, my b).--Calthinus (talk) 21:21, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Calthinus, yes you gave a good cultural, historical and ethnographical description of the situation, however I approached to topic the combination of geographical Europe and the most widely accepted-consensus (outside WP as well) about European countries and their inclusion. Thus I concur with T*U. However to as well agree in a way your argumentation and partially Archives908's, that we should take into account those states a way, which are not part of Europe on the whole, but geographically have some part it, so regarding Turkey, East Thrace may be mentioned and calculated primarily, but Turkey proper should not be included, just marginally in brackets may be mentioned data for the overall country (and similarly to AZE, ARM and GEO - regarding the parts outside Europe-proper [= I mean i.e. in clearly non-Eruopean countries, like Iran]), as they are not considered or accepted - even officially - as part of Europe. Because Russia's case has been mentioned, I have to add officially Russia is considered a European country, however, most of her part is lying in Asia. This shows as well the controversies more of us highlighted here. Hence the best is to tend to the most official classification (I know, this may be also debated what would count to that...maybe there should be a narrowed inclusion criteria, and an extended list of where the "debated" cases may be shown...)(KIENGIR (talk) 01:19, 8 February 2020 (UTC))

I am afraid it is not as simple as just "choosing" CoE membership as criterion (and certainly not OSCE). They are both organisations with their own agenda, and their membership criteria will always be dependent on what suits them as an organisation, in the same way that UEFA includes Israel and the European song contest includes Israel – and Australia. If CoE finds out that it would be convenient to have, say, Mongolia or any of the Central Asian republics as member states (as OSCE already has), the border of Europe will not move accordingly.

There is also nothing that forces us to include whole countries in the definition. If it was, we would also have to include the whole of Russia, and I somehow find it difficult to accept Vladivostok as a European city...

What we would need, is one or more WP:RS sources that defines Europe with a more "modern" definition, preferably also explaining that the traditional definition is obsolete. If not, we are stuck with what we have. --T*U (talk) 10:25, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

@TU-nor: TU-nor, I must respectfully disagree. By the logic of your argument, then none of the Caucasus countries, Cyprus, Russia or Turkey would be included in the main article of Europe- but they all are. I suggest all editors have a read through and examine the terminologies used and rationales provided for including those six countries. Nonetheless, my main argument was completely overlooked. I am arguing that we should display a level of consistency. Most euro-related articles do include these six countries within their parameters, so why are we choosing to exclude them from this article? Finally, I do not understand why countries like Iran, Israel, Australia and Mongolia are being brought up- to hypothesize that "one day they will become part of Europe" is crystal-balling and speculating to the extreme. Iran, Mongolia, Israel are not included on the main Europe article so I think it's a safe to say we should focus our attention on the 6 countries which sparked this discussion (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Turkey and Russia). At the end of the day, I will agree with whatever the majority consensus is. But I do not agree that we should "stick with what we have" by default or because it is the easy thing to do. Cross-related articles should maintain a level of consistency- and this article is no exception to that rule. Thanks to all for this interesting conversation and hope everyone has a great weekend! Archives908 (talk) 14:54, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: It's all good Calthinus, thanks so much for your input- I appreciate it! Archives908 (talk) 14:58, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Of course the Caucasus countries, Cyprus, Russia and Turkey are included in the Europe article. Even according to the traditional definition, all of them except Armenia and Cyprus are partly in Europe, and those two have also traditionally often been included in an European context. Also do not forget Kazakhstan, which is also a transcontinental country in the traditional definition.

I have not recommended that we shall "stick with what we have". But we cannot just choose to use a definition that is convenient for us. That would be WP:OR. We need to have reliable sources for a new definition. If not, we will have to "stick with" the traditional definition, but of course making explanatory notes about every country that is straddling the border, or for other reasons being "borderline cases". --T*U (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Archives908, T*U, I have to reinforce again Turkey is not included on the whole even in the Europe article, just 3% European part of it (correctly), similarly to Russia, though which in fact is considered European, but because her partial part in Europe that is even bigger then any other European country, however as well geographically only until the Ural mountains (correctly), etc. Soon we will see that any RS or the most accepted consensus would rely generally on the relevance and the the degree of extension of territories into Europe of transcontinental countries (even commensuarted with the fully involved ones).(KIENGIR (talk) 02:16, 9 February 2020 (UTC))

@TU-nor and KIENGIR: TU-nor, if you do not recommend that we should "stick with what we have", then what do you recommend? Both you and KIENGIR seem to be very experienced editors (which I respect); what workable suggestions can you bring forth? Because it seems that my argument of consistency isn't being recognized. Further, I tried to provide a logical base of where we can start (ie. using CoE definitions) which was not accepted. So in the spirit of improving this article (and maintaining a level of consistency), I'm quite curious to know your thoughts/ constructive ideas of what could work. Cheers! Archives908 (talk) 17:02, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! In my behalf (though I consider Tu-nor fully consistent) I think gave a clear line. Shortly reiterate: next to RS and common acceptance and official stance, the common segment of these with the geographic boundaries (with the partial addendum of affected countries statistics lying on non-European soil in brackets). However, my last comment pointed out, the trascontinental countries are decided to be counted to Europe by the size of the area they share from Europe (in accordance with the earlier sentence's content) = (Turkey not because of 3%, while Russia yes because it has even largest than any other European country. Regards!(KIENGIR (talk) 23:16, 9 February 2020 (UTC))

Imo, although the Ural range is a much more dubious boundary than the Greater Caucasus or the Bosporus (it tapers out long before coming anywhere near the Caspian), we're not discussing Siberia or Kazakhstan, so it's irrelevant. The Europe/Asia boundary -- by far the most contentious boundary and many geographers just use "Eurasia" -- is most disputed where it is actually most geographically justifiable, that being the Greater Caucasus and the Bosporus, because of solely cultural and geopolitical factors. KIENGIR, you're correct Wiki doesn't really discuss a geographic definition where Anatolia is in Europe, whereas we do have line J on this [[17]]. But that is not a majority view among geographic definitions, which favor either F or G on that map. The southernmost boundary of Europe that would exclude Anatolia would be the Lesser Caucasus, line I, but that excludes almost all of Armenia too (edit: upon further inspection, I is not the Lesser Caucasus, which should indeed go further into Armenia -- but still leaves the more populated areas in "Asia"). Furthermore, both J and I exclude Cyprus, yet this page includes Cyprus -- or are you saying it should not? If I understand your position correctly, the proper implementation would be the exclusion of Turkey, but also Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, and Azerbaijan -- all of these have the majority of their populations residing in Asia. If we revise that to use the minority Lesser Caucasus definition, we can add back only Georgia and Azerbaijan. So I am a bit confused. This started as a dispute about Armenian and Azeri. What exactly is your stance for what we should do?--Calthinus (talk) 23:34, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi, no Cyprus I've never mentioned & never excluded. It is officialy acknowleged as a European country (though we know about de facto split and dispute with Turkey). As well I've never excluded Armenia, Gerorga and Azerbaijan for the same reasons I summarized and outlined before. As I summarized earlier my argument take usually as "mathematical" approach. Set A: RS and common acceptance and official stance, Set B: geographic inclusion. Result: Common segment of AB, having those transcontinental countries that are not included, but they share a part of Europe geographically, should explain anything regarding Asian parts in brackets...

Example: Russia is member set A? Yes. Russia is member set B? Only partially -> Result: Russia is part of the common segment of AB -> so considered a European country (but the Asian part are discussed in brackets)

Example: Turkey is member set A? No. Turkey is member set B? Only partially -> Result: Turkey is not part of the common segment of AB -> so not considered a European country (only the European part is discussed, but the Asian part are discussed in brackets)

In a way you may say memberhsip of Set A is definitive, for the end result, concerning the most inclusive line the map you provided it would as well coincide in ratio with the size of being part of Europe (= in other words, the bigger area shared from Europe, the more possible member of Set A).(KIENGIR (talk) 00:15, 10 February 2020 (UTC))

Yeah, excuse me, it's long. I do have some questions about how "RS and common acceptance/official stance". Acceptance by whom? Whose official stance? All five of these countries self-identify as European; in terms of international organizations they all likewise can go either way in terms of lay people acceptance, EU stance, I don't really think song contests and football dshould be decisive etc. The US definition, NATO notwithstanding, counts all five as Asian (NATO allows only for the invitation of "other European states" -- well, Georgia almost getting a MAP arguably started a war too). The only one for whom this is not contentious geopolitically is Cyprus. National Geographic has this definition [[18]]: Today, Europe is home to the citizens of Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and Vatican City. -- so, for Nat Geographic, which is honestly a less controversial source than political organizations, Turkey, Cyprus and Russia are in, South Caucasus is out. I'm not saying this is what we should do. I'm demonstrating how RS ... go both ways.--Calthinus (talk) 00:46, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Calthinus, it seems based on the edit history, that this debate was sparked following your removal of content. If I may ask, what was your precise rational/reasoning for removing long-standing, sourced content PRIOR to seeking consensus on the talk page? In terms of the map you referenced previously, you do realize that it was created in 2008, right? Surely if we are trying to improve this article, we should probably use more current references. KIENGIR I must agree with your rationale/ mathematical take on this. Perhaps we should reconsider restoring the article as it was for the time being? If any editors have any objections, they should state their claim and provide academic sources. Otherwise, the list seemed to actually be pretty in-line with CoE definitions prior to Calthinus' revisions. And, if anything, we can improve the list further by making notes regarding geography as KIENGER has suggested. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 00:51, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Erm well, the page explicilty stated its definition -- "Europe" is taken as a geographical term, defined by the conventional Europe-Asia boundary along the Caucasus and the Urals. .... and then the two Armenian lines and the inclusion of Azeris all the way into Iran pretty flagrantly violated that. Long standing is more of an embarrassment in that case. If you state a policy on a page, you follow it.--Calthinus (talk) 01:04, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

And now that I have presented RS on the "acceptance" of Turkey as part of Europe under some definition by a fairly authoritative source (National Geographic) which simultaneously excludes the S Cauc... the variables in KIENGIR's mathematical equation have changed. Not that I endorse this idea. To me, having seen a wide range of different versions of "which countries are in Europe", the RS are no less divided than the laypeople. --Calthinus (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

You literally just confirmed my point- following your revision, this article is no longer consistent with other euro-related articles which do include Turkey and the Caucasus- irrespective of geographic boundaries. And this is not acceptable either. Those articles all have notes which clearly state that these countries are included due to their sociological and political links with Europe, while also confirming geographic connections with Asia. If I'm not mistaken, KIENGIR had eluded to possibly doing the same for this article- thus establishing a degree of consistency. Also, I would question how much emphasis you are placing on National Geographic as determining "what Europe is". National Geographic has certainly not been able to legally ratify any definition of Europe. The Council of Europe on the other hand (a stable, credible, nearly 70 year old institution representing 820 million people across 47 nations) has passed legally bounding treaties confirming the "Europeanness" of these countries, irrespective of any geographic boundaries set. Surely, this must count for something. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 03:17, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Before my edit, no, the page was not consistent with pages like Geography of Europe because it excluded Turkey. I am not unambiguously calling for the S Caucasus to be excluded. What I was disputing here was KIENGIR's assertion that relevant RS widely do not consider Turkey to be "European" while applying the term to the S Cauc-- apolitical Nat Geo does the opposite and it is apolitical National Geographic-- unlike CoE, as TU-nor pointed out. Nevertheless I have indicated that I can support a position where we do use a geopolitical definition which broadly includes the S Cauc, Turkey and Cyprus (but on no grounds whatsoever Iranian Azerbaijan) -- this I believe is where I diverge from TUnor who doesn't want us changing definitions for convenience, and from KIENGIR on Turkey specifically. What I cannot accept is this hybrid gerrymandered definition where clearly non-geographic considerations are applied for 4 countries but not the one enormous country that separates all 4 of them from the bulk of Europe-- and worse, even East Thrace appears excluded for calculating speakers of Bulgarian, Bosniak, etc. As I have demonstrated, RS dont actually back this weird gerrymander -- and Nat Geo does the inverse. We either use a broad geopolitical definition ( all 5 in), geographic (all 5 out except for E Thrace, Quba/etc, and Tusheti/Svaneti/etc), a consistent geographic+RS "acceptance" (Cyprus in, the other 4 are disputed), or a narrow geopolitical definition (again only Cyprus is in). No double standards, no gerrymandered "continents". Id like to point out that in linguistic typology -- since this is a language page -- there is again an argument for specifically Cyprus being in "Europe" (specifically Greek being part of the Balkan sprachbund) and none of the others (the Caucasus has it's own speech area which is quite different typologically from both the Near East and from Europe). Also, I'd be willing to consider a separate table for these 5 states (again, not grouping them with Siberia and Kazakhstan, which they have obviously nothing to do with) as a sort of compromise.--Calthinus (talk) 17:44, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: I understand your point Calthinus, although I do find it a tad odd how you stated that your not "unambiguously calling for the S Caucasus to be excluded", but you were the one removing them in the first place. Nonetheless, I think we can agree on a compromise! Other well written euro-related articles (I've come across five or six) do include these countries in various tables (with notes), however I think your suggestion of including these countries in a separate table is an excellent idea. We can included a few sentences which clearly outlines the sociological connections to Europe and a geographical connection to Asia. Have we reached a consensus? Are all editors on board with Calthinus' proposal? Regards, Archives908 (talk) 18:53, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

What I was removing was the violation of the page's self-described policy. Not removing the SC for the sake of removing the SC. We may yet have a consensus for some way to include the info. Regarding the separate table for "geopolitical extended Europe" (this is a page about languages -- relevant to geopolitics after all), what do @TU-nor: and @KIENGIR: think of our agreement? --Calthinus (talk) 19:16, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I am not quite sure I understand what you mean by "including these countries". If you mean to include all of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey plus Armenia in the numbers for the relevant languages, then you will have to include all of Russia, both Russian-speakers and other languages spoken in all of Russia, and I can somehow not see Yakut as a "language of Europe". My suggestion would be to keep the geographic limitation as it is, but make an addition to the introduction in the section "List of languages". There it could be stated that the table also includes main languages of transcontinental countries (Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan) and other countries closely associated with the continent (Armenia, Cyprus). The entries for the languages in those countries would then need to have explanatory notes just like it is currently done for i.e. Azerbaijani and Kazakh, specifying how many speakers there are inside geographical Europe, but also giving total numbers. --T*U (talk) 19:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

TU-nor to clarify -- yes, I am referring to Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Georgia -- all Euro/Near Eastern countries, not Euro/Central Asian. Kazakh, actually, is already handled on the page. Explanatory notes yes. As I understand it presently, what Archives908 and I appear to agree on is as separate table for these five edge cases, where their entire territory, European or not, is included. This would also mean that the speakers of Russian in the S Cauc are handled there, likewise for Balkan langs in Turkey, et cetera. Russia east of the Urals, imo, should be handled separately... perhaps with its own table. The reality is that the cultural and geopolitical factors -- nothing remotely geographic in consideration -- that apply for these five countries, simply don't apply to Siberia which is neither geopolitically integrated in "Europe" nor aspires to be, nor is it much involved with "European" history [buuuuuuut another reality is that speakers of Sakha/Yakut... probably have a diaspora in Moscow, but let's ignore that for our sanity.] --Calthinus (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Seems like a good workable option; it's realistic, modernizes the inclusion criteria while still respecting traditional geographic views, consistent with other articles, and provides the reader with a greater scope of information. If executed well, it can definitely be a good overall improvement to this article! Archives908 (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Only I do not understand how this extra table shall be construed, since it is the languages that are the defining factor, not the countries. Cyprus has two languages, and both of them are already in the main table. Should they also be in the additional table? Do we really need an extra table at all? --T*U (talk) 21:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

TU-nor It is done on the basis of political geography purely, with language stats on the basis of residence in those five states only. Numbers would be subtracted from the main table, WP:CALC is not syn. Admittedly this is solely for the purpose of compromise. So essentially like this:

• Greek: numbers from Cyprus subtracted from old table and placed on new table; these are (when possible) added to numbers from Istanbul and Pontus still in Turkey plus the small communities in Georgia and Armenia. Same style as the existing table -- note where official, and where it is a(n) (un)recognized minority lang
• Bulgarian: numbers from Turkey (currently not under Bulgarian) are absent on the table currently although they are in E Thrace (ironically). We just include them in the table here, separate from Bulgarian in the main table. Likewise for Albanian, Bosniak, Meglenoromanian, Circassian, Crimean, et cetera.
• Armenian: restored to new table but not including the narrow-European diaspora, just the ones in the five countries for the table (AGACT). For its Europe-proper diaspora, it is treated as such. If we really care the autochtonous Cherkesogai community in Armavir alone can be counted under the narrow Europe table. No one really cares though.
• Georgian: for now, just like Armenian. In the future if we really care, the autochtonous Georgian communities in the N Cauc (small -- in N Ossetia) are counted under narrow Europe.
• Azeri: for now, like Armenian. In the future, autochtonous Azeri community in Dagestan is counted in the narrow Europe table only (this one is a bit more significant than Armavir, N Osset. Georgians as it has Derbent etc etc). Rest in the new table.
• Turkish: autochtonous Turkish(-speaking) communities in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Kosovo, Romania are counted under the main Europe table. On the other hand those in political Turkey, or in Georgia or Cyprus, are counted under the new table.
• other languages to be added for this new table only (ignoring newly established diaspora): Svan, Laz, Mingrelian, Kurdish, Zaza, Udi, Batsbi, Kryts, Khinalug, and Talysh. I'm sure I missed at least one but you get the idea. Regarding the communities in Azerbaijan speaking languages also spoken in Dagestan, as a matter of fact, none of these (Lezgin with 0.8 mil speakers plus some less significant ones) seem to not be on the table yet anyways, so clearly no one actually cares about them and we don't have to worry (:.

... et cetera. Make sense? --Calthinus (talk) 01:41, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Calthinus, I also did not say else that surely I won't decide this question regarding UEFA or Eurovision. Archives908 understood and reinforced I made a good equation, "RS (= x) and common acceptance (= y) and official stance (=z)" has to be considered as well a common segment, as x, y or z may differ at some intances, but more measures of them will produce an inclusive subset (hence, NatGeo I as well do not consider the best source, but in any ordinary case in WP if there are more RS - even conflicting ones - per rule the majority would win, but there are also cases, where a majority falsity is the most often cited, in that case good faith should lead and use the best accurate source - i.e. reference to non-existent Czechoslovakia between 1939-1945). Also Archives gave good point regarding what we should consider common acceptance or official stance, more detailed the latter about some competent organizations, "common acceptance" may be on the borderline of RS and i.e. geographical maps regarding the inclusion or borders - mathematically at all inclusion criteria we produce common segments, as we can safely assume if for a country x, y, z holds consistently at more samples, then it would satisfy inclusion. Still concur with T*U's arguments. However, the issue became so complicated, I am afraid we may hardly visualize now what the end result of the planned agreement would be, I think you should present here in the talk in a way the new table or similar, before launching it, then I could exactly react and answer regarding support (and yes, my cutting edge is Turkey, and we should not confuse the fact that if it is listed, it is listed becase of East Thrace, not because the full of it or the country would be considered European. Also per my supposed "equation", Turkey is not excluded totally, geographically East Thrace has to be mentioned (in brackets the Asian-part related data), but Turkey cannot be listed as a European country because of Set A).(KIENGIR (talk) 02:55, 11 February 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR conceptually I found your solution attractive. It became less so when I considered the task of locating and "weighing" RS (which "weighs" more UEFA or National Geographic? Well one shows what geographer elites think, the other shows what it means for a sport that touches the lives of billions of people... how on earth do we compare apples to orange colored doorknobs?)--Calthinus (talk) 13:38, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

As a compromise I find Calthinus' solution workable. It keeps the main table consistent with the given geographical definition. After all, language is distributed gegraphically rather then geopolitically, often not "willing to" follow given borders. I do think, however, that Kazakhstan – as an undisputedly transcontinental country – has to be included in the additional table. --T*U (talk) 07:47, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Ok, we can include Kazakhstan by my book. What do you think Archives908?--Calthinus (talk) 13:25, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the both of you, seems very reasonable. I gather the consensus is now established. In order to avoid doing duplicate work does any editor wish to take the initial lead with this project? Regards, Archives908 (talk) 13:59, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Calthinus, maybe you misunderstood me, UEFA and Eurovison I mentioned ironically should not be included by any means their approach, sport and song contest have no influence on geography or any inclusion to Europe. Archives908, consensus is established when we all agree. I still wish to see an outline in the talk, how the grouping will be made (at least titles or similar).(KIENGIR (talk) 03:12, 12 February 2020 (UTC))

Oops, my bad.--Calthinus (talk) 03:37, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

However, Calthinus already made an outline before, including main tables and new tables...this should be clear, which countries would be included and where.(KIENGIR (talk) 03:16, 12 February 2020 (UTC))

Any updates on this? Any editor willing to draft up a table for review? Tables aren't my forte but I can help out (as best as I can) if requested. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 19:17, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm busy at the moment. Will be more free the Monday after next. --Calthinus (talk) 17:31, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good, Calthinus! Archives908 (talk) 17:39, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Calthinus Do you need assistance, Calthnius, with the project below? I just don't want the project to be neglected or become null, especially considering the amount of work you already put into the chart below. It's been nearly 4 months since we agreed to draft up a table, please let us know if you are open to other editors stepping in/ if this is still a priority project for you? Regards, Archives908 (talk) 23:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

of course I am open to help Archives908. I did forget about this. --Calthinus (talk) 23:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

That said, the table looks nearly ready. It is only missing Arabic, Tat and Talysh I think... wait, there is also Batsbi language. For the remaining (not Batsbi) Northeast Caucasian languages, the non-Abkhaz Northwest Caucasian languages and the Ossetic language my understanding is we do not need to put them in this table as their "homelands" are mostly entirely in Europe (Ubykh was in the South Caucasus, but it is now extinct). --Calthinus (talk) 23:33, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi Calthinus, I have been reviewing the article thoroughly since our last discussion and I have found some items which arise contradiction and has led me to pull-back from our plan. I don't know how we missed all of this, but these following examples clearly highlight that the nations in discussion are and have been historically included throughout the body of this article. 1) In the lead (2nd paragraph), Languages of the Caucasus is mentioned and linked. This can imply that the Caucasus nations are included within the scope of this article (which they were before you removed them). 2) Under "Non-Indo-European languages- Turkic Languages", Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani are clearly listed and even Kazakhstan/Kazakh is mentioned. 3) Under "Non-Indo-European languages- Other", Cypriot languages of Cyprus are included (despite Cyprus being entirely in Western Asia like Armenia). 4) Under "Linguistic Minorities", it mentions the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In order to accede to these conventions a member must a) be "European" and b) be a member of the Council of Europe. The 3 Caucasus nations participate to varying degrees in both. 5) Under "Scripts", there is a map labelled 'Alphabets used in national languages in Europe:' in which the 3 Caucasus nations, Turkey, Cyprus, and yes even Kazakhstan are included as being in Europe. As such, it is evident that these nations are in fact included in other sections of this article and your removal of them from the main list back in February, was erroneous. It is therefore not necessary to create/include another list, rather it's best to maintain consistency within this article and re-add these nations to the main list of languages. And if physical geography is still your main concern, then there is no reason why we can't include footnotes (as other editors have already suggested) and is successfully demonstrated in other "Euro-related" articles where these states are included with notes highlighting their geography. I believe this suggestion is a good compromise to both sides of the argument, will be an improvement in terms of accuracy and above all, will maintain consistency with the rest of the article. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 13:03, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I think we should let Calthinus to work on his progress as we agreed, and not to turn upside down anything, as you have been as well part of the discussion. If he is ready, then before launching we may discuss anything that would arise.(KIENGIR (talk) 15:28, 11 June 2020 (UTC))

A talk page is meant for discussion. Discussions, ideas, and consensus's can alter and evolve as new information is brought to light. I have brought up some valid points which should not be neglected or ignored and it will have to be addressed at some point. For now then, Calthinus and others may continue with the project initially agreed upon. However, should no progress be made, we will have to reevaluate this discussion at some point and figure out how best to move forward. We cannot leave this project "up in the air" indefinitely, as it is not fair to the readers or to this article. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 16:11, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't really think any of the new points change anything, and as I said the table (which only I did any work on) is ready to be added. It is "in the air" because there was no green light. And I really don't want to have another long discussion that is going to just reiterate the points of the old one. The table establishes that the area considered is in some sense in Europe -- hence there is no inconsistency with listing alphabets or whatever on other parts of the page. --Calthinus (talk) 20:42, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Well it does. If we realized that this article did, in fact, encompass these states (regardless of their geography) then this entire discussion and your hard work in the table below could have been avoided. Nonetheless, I too would like to avoid a never-ending debate. I agree with you, Calthinus, that these states are European "in some sense" and their languages should not be excluded from this article. I also appreciate your work in the table and I for one give it the "green light", once complete. Would any other editors like to comment on the chart below, provide feedback, or have anything else to add? Can we finally put this matter to rest and proceed with adding the table to the article? Regards, Archives908 (talk) 21:51, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Archives908 it's complete. Okay it doesn't have Talysh or the gazillion North Caucasus langs it could have, but these are missing from the main table too so they can be added later. Green light to add? --Calthinus (talk) 04:00, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Calthinus I agree and absolutely, I think it will be a great addition/improvement to this article. Archives908 (talk) 12:16, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

(I will perform the add in a bit. Editing from my phone at the moment.) --Calthinus (talk) 09:13, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good, Calthinus! Archives908 (talk) 16:11, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Table in progress...

Name	ISO- 639	Classification	Speakers in expanded geopolitical Europe		Official status
			L1	L1+L2	National	Regional
Abkhaz	ab	Northwest Caucasian, Abazgi	Abkhazia/Georgia: 191,000 Turkey: 44,000		Abkhazia	Georgia (Abkhazia)
Adyghe (West Circassian)	ady	Northwest Caucasian, Circassian	Turkey: 316,000
Albanian	sq	Indo-European, Albanian	Turkey: 66,000 (Tosk)
Arabic	ar	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, West	Turkey: 2,437,000 Not counting post-2014 Syrian refugees
Armenian	hy	Indo-European, Armenian	Armenia: 3 million Artsakh/Azerbaijan: 145,000 Georgia: around 0.2 million ethnic Armenians (Abkhazia: 44,870) Turkey: 61,000 Cyprus: 668		Armenia Artsakh	Cyprus
Azerbaijani	az	Turkic, Oghuz	Azerbaijan 9 million Turkey: 540,000 Georgia 0.2 million		Azerbaijan
Batsbi	bbl	Northeast Caucasian, Nakh	Georgia : 500
Bulgarian	bg	Indo-European, Slavic, South	Turkey: 351,000
Crimean	crh	Turkic, Kipchak	Turkey: 100,000
Georgian	ka	Kartvelian, Karto-Zan	Georgia: 3,224,696 Turkey: 151,000 Azerbaijan: 9,192 ethnic Georgians		Georgia
Greek	el	Indo-European, Hellenic	Cyprus: 679,883 Turkey: 3,600		Cyprus
Juhuri	jdt	Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Southwest	Azerbaijan: 24,000 (1989)
Kurdish	kur	Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Northwest	Turkey: 15 million Armenia: 33,509 Georgia: 14,000 Azerbaijan: 9,000			Armenia
Laz	lzz	Kartvelian, Karto-Zan, Zan	Turkey: 20,000 Georgia: 2,000
Meglenian	ruq	Indo-European, Italic, Romance, East	Turkey: 4-5,000
Mingrelian	xmf	Kartvelian, Karto-Zan, Zan	Georgia (including Abkhazia): 344,000
Pontic Greek	pnt	Indo-European, Hellenic	Turkey: greater than 5,000 Armenia: 900 ethnic Caucasus Greeks Georgia: 5,689 Caucasus Greeks
Romani language and Domari language	rom, dmt	Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indic	Turkey: 500,000
Russian	ru	Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Slavic	Armenia: 15,000 Azerbaijan: 250,000 Georgia: 130,000	Armenia: about 0.9 million Azerbaijan : about 2.6 million Georgia: about 1 million Cyprus: 20,984	Abkhazia South Ossetia	Armenia Azerbaijan
Svan	sva	Kartvelian, Svan	Georgia (incl. Abkhazia) : 30,000
Tat	ttt	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Southwest	Azerbaijan: 10,000
Turkish	tr	Turkic, Oghuz	Turkey: 66,850,000 Cyprus: 1,405 < + 265,100 in the North		Turkey Cyprus Northern Cyprus

Status of Serbo-Croatian

I'm confused. Wikipedia usually treats Serbo-Croatian as one language, but in this article, section List of languages to be exact, treats Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin as separate languages and lists only number of speakers of those languages, for which Wikipedia says are only "dialects" or "standardized varieties" of Serbo-Croatian, but there is no Serbo-Croatian in this list. Is there a specific reason for this? Should Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin be treated as separate languages or be under Serbo-Croatian as it is common on Wikipedia and among Western linguists? --Thebeon (talk) 19:56, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Oghuz languages

Hello. Information about Oghuz languages is incomplete. My suggestion is:

• Oghuz languages in Europe include Turkish, Azerbaijani, and Gagauz. Turkish is native to a set of countries in Europe, which are Turkey, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, North Macedonia, and Cyprus (when Cyprus is counted as Europe). Azerbaijani is native to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia and Turkey. Gagauz is spoken in Gagauzia in Moldova.

What would be your opinions? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meurglys8 (talk • contribs) 12:02, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Campidanese and Logudorese Sardinian

@L2212: According to Glottolog, Ethnologue, and the Endangered Languages Project, Campidanese and Logudorese Sardinian are considered separate (though related) languages, at least from a linguistic standpoint. ~Red of Arctic Circle System (talk) 03:08, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Arctic Circle System:Those sources are not reliable. Literally no scholar considers them as two different languages, the only point of discussion during the decades has been whether to consider them two macro-dialects needing different orthographic standards to represent them appropriately or not, and even that has been refuted since Michel Contini's studies in the '80. Even way before those studies, anyway, during the times of Francesco Cetti (the first one to propose such a division for administrative and political reasons, not linguistic ones) or Max Leopold Wagner, Logudorese and Campidanese have always been considered intelligible parts of the same language. You can find a lot of sources about it here and here. By the way, there are also other errors in those three websites: Glottolog includes Corsican in the "Southern Romance" group, while it is actually part of the Italo-Romance or Italo-Dalmatian one according to most linguists. Only Old Corsican, now extinct, was supposed to be part of the Southern Romance group, that right now only includes Sardinian. And the other two websites, that use a different classification, include Gallurese and Sassarese as part of Sardinian, and as you can see from the sources I've already used in the section or the ones in their respective articles that's just not the case. L2212 (talk) 09:07, 13 October 2022 (UTC)