Talk:Europe

New structure

I have set up a new structure in the hope of attracting contributions on a broader range of subjects than is covered by the current draft. Nick Gardner 20:58, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

States of Europe

It is gratifying to see a fresh contribution so soon! The table seems to me to be a valuable addition to the article, but it interrupts the flow, and is inconsistent with the existing format, so I propose to delete it from the main page and add a link to it on an addendum subpage. I have created an addendum subpage for that purpose and copied the table to it.

However it is not my practice to make changes without providing an opportunity for discussion, so I shall defer the deletion for a few days. Nick Gardner 21:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced. A synthetic table containing basic facts is always useful inside an encyclopedic text. However, you are the main contributor of this article and I can understand that you perceive an unpleasant interruption in the flow. The table could be displaced at the end of the text, as an appendix, but it should remain in the main page; moving it to an "addendun subpage" would make it invisible. Something else: the table should be improved with two new columns at least: area and population--Domergue Sumien 22:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's great to have this table, and to extend it. I don't share Domergue's reservations about moving it to a special page. The subpages are very valuable for dense detail - timelines subpages can be more interesting (and more work) than the main article. But I'd consider giving the subpage an informative name rather than just 'Addendum', and of course flag its presence prominently in the main article. In a subpage the references to the sources of data on population and area could be included (dates of data are important to note). Data on GDP might also be worth adding, if you've the energy?Gareth Leng 23:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I am content with an appendix provided that there is a prominent link to it in the text, but I prefer to use the CZ facility of subpages. I plan to develope a broad chronology as well, but I think that should be on a subpage rather than an appendix. I have added a panel above the lede, on the assumption that the subpage option is acceptable. Nick Gardner 06:44, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

So, my opinion is minoritary. I let you move the appendix to a subpage.--Domergue Sumien 10:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

If I may make a suggestion, entries in the language column could be annoted (R), (S) or (G). A link to the table could then be added to the languages paragraph on the main page, enabling tedious cataloguing there to be avoided. Nick Gardner 10:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Ethnicity

Domergue: Would it be a good idea to add some reference to genetic origins to your (admirable) paragraph on ethnicity? If so, this might help. Nick Gardner 06:46, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Done (here)!--Domergue Sumien 14:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The treatment of history

I have been struggling with the problem of what to say about European history in an article on Europe. After a few attempts I realised that it would be foolish to attempt to summarise two thousand years of history in one paragraph - and that even to do so in a five-page article would be a challenge. I concluded that all that was needed was a brief account of those aspects of history that are having a significant influence upon the present state of Europe. That meant that many events of major importance in themselves could be omitted. I realised, for example, that Europe's colonial adventures needed no mention since - although important to those affected - they have litle or no influence on present-day Europeans. I concluded that the colonies would be an important part of the - yet to be written - article on the history of Europe, but would only be a digression in an article on Europe. I came to the same conclusion about the three modern wars - their origins and conduct would be an important feature of a history of Europe article, but the peace settlements are the only matter that is needed in the Europe article. The same would seem to apply to the rise and fall of Bismark, Napoleon and Hitler, and of Communism and Fascism. To include that sort of thing is not just unnecessary itself - it is apt to distract the reader's attention from the matter in hand. The current history paragraph and its supporting timelines reflect those conclusions. Nick Gardner 08:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Endangered?

In the Addendum subpage (no separate talk page?), Cornish, Manx and Welsh are listed as endangered. In fact

1. there have been no native speakers of Cornish for centuries
2. Ned Madrell, the last native Manx speaker, died in 1969
3. Welsh is the native language of a fifth of the population of Wales

If this sample is any indication of the reliability of the source(s) used, maybe the whole lot should be deleted. (While I'm about it, why are there 2 lists of countries, in the Catalogs and Addendum subpages?) Peter Jackson 11:27, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

If no-one objects, I will delete the text on the catalogs subpage. I do not consider myself qualified to make judgements about the interpretation of the term "endangered", nor about proposed amendments to the other material on languages. Nick Gardner 11:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

These languages are objectively "endangered" according to a sociolinguistic point of view. You can check this in many surveys, for example in the book mentioned in a note (BADIA I CAPDEVILA Ignasi (2002) Diccionari de les llengües d’Europa, coll. Diccionaris temàtics, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana)

1. The loss of native speakers in Cornish and Manx doesn't impede the fact that these languages have still speakers nowadays, even if non native (in fact, there are now new native speakers of Cornish in some families); these languages are spoken by a few speakers, thus they are endangered.
2. Since Welsh is the native language of only a fifth of the population of Wales, this means logically that Welsh is endangered due to the advance of English.--Domergue Sumien 00:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, then how about including Latin? There are certainly Latin speakers in Europe, as there have been for millennia. There may even be some native ones, as there are of Esperanto. Peter Jackson 10:43, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) I agree that Welsh counts as an endangered language, despite the advancement of the tongue in the last few years (it was recently made an official language, too). But fewer than a million speakers, in global terms, is not just endangered, but almost dead, especially given the advancing years of many speakers. As for Cornish and Manx: yes, they died out, and what is spoken now is certainly not Cornish or Manx as spoken in the past - they have been revived using other Celtic languages, texts and so on, and in linguistic rather than socio-linguistic terms are really new languages, spoken by very few people. But in both cases, socially something is there and endangered. So, if we mention 'Cornish' or 'Manx' as an endangered language, then their statuses needs to be clarified at the same time. Latin: although it's still spoken and new words are coined for it, it's really a historical rather than modern language which split into various varieties which became the modern Romance languages, whose speech communities behave more like the Latin speakers of millennia ago than the Latin speakers of today. Effectively, counting Latin among Europe's languages would entail counting it twice - once as Latin, and once as its modern manifestation, the Romance varieties. So Latin is 'represented' by those Romance languages today, and so need not be counted as an endangered modern language. John Stephenson 14:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, it certainly was the case that Welsh looked on the way out - my father spoke Welsh as his first language, but my mother spoke lttle although her grandfather spoke no English at all. But Welsh was actively repressed in the early 20th century, and when I was a child my school was English speaking (although most of my friends spoke Welsh out of school). Now in that part of Wales all children are taught solely in Welsh until the age of 11 and many beyond that. Going back to that part of Wales, you seldom hear English spoken these days except to and by visitors - it certainly doesn't feel endangered there, and most jobs require a knowledge of Welsh - and the young are speaking it. Yes there may be only as few as 250,000 people who speak Welsh as a first language - but that's about as many as speak Icelandic (and they seem all to speak English too). I don't object to calling it endangered, but it's demise doesn't look imminent.Gareth Leng 21:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

"Endangered" shouldn't be just a matter of absolute numbers. If the whole of an ethnic group speaks a language then it's only endangered if the group is. Is that defined by numbers? Peter Jackson 12:12, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

John doesn't seem to have answered my point about Latin. Let me try to generalize. What exactly is the criterion for inclusion in this list? It says "current, autochthonous languages of Europe". What exactly does that mean? What exactly is "current"? What exactly is "autochthonous"? For that matter, what exactly is "Europe"? And of course what exactly is a "language"? Peter Jackson 12:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Specifically, then, why are Cornish and Manx "current, autochthonous languages", but not Latin? For that matter, what about Hebrew? There've been speakers in Europe for millennia, though not native ones. Peter Jackson 12:20, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

How long does a language have to be around to count? Kalmyk (Mongolian) has been in Europe about 4 centuries and is listed. Chinese has been in Europe for about 2 centuries and isn't. Does the threshold come between? What about Norwegian, which was a dialect, not a language, before 1905? Peter Jackson 12:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Clemenceau's definition was that a language is a dialect with an army. There may be the beginning of truth in that, not specifically an army, although that does apply to Hebrew. A good test for including, but not excluding, a given language may be "is it used in governance, literature, or anything outside language preservation?" Howard C. Berkowitz 12:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Endangered 2

Peter Jackson has asked many questions. Some of these questions are certainly very interesting, but they may be excessively basic and their place may not fit in this talk page. When you test a linguist by asking him: "what is a language?" or "why Latin is not counted among the current living languages of Europe?", it's like if, in the 'Periodic table of elements' talk page, you tried to test a chemist by asking him something like: "what is an atom?" or "why fire (or phlogiston) is not counted among chemical elements?". So, now, as a linguist, and in accordance with my dear colleague John Stephenson, let me give some basic answers:

• One of the best solutions concerning the delimitation of a "language", in a sociolinguistic view, is the response of linguist Heinz Kloss: "Abstand language" and "Ausbau language".
• Manx and Cornish are recognized as the common inheritances of Manx people and Cornish people. On the contrary, Latin is no longer a living, autochtonous language in Europe since no population recognizes Latin as its own, particular language (additionally, but less decisively, there are Manx-speaking and Cornish-speaking families; there are no Latin-speaking families). Latin still works as a specialized working code among certain specialists, in certain fields (the naming of species in biology, some circles of the Catholic Church, some networks of Latin teachers), but this has nothing to see with what is considered as the autochtonous language of a population. As the language of a population, Latin has been replaced by (or has evolved to) its dauhgter languages: the current Romance languages.
• The last native speaker of Manx died in 1974 but here has been a continuity between that speaker and the current non native speakers. Thus Manx has never been a dead language.
• Cornish was almost dead between the 18th century and its revival in the beginning of the 20th century, however, some residual knowledge of Cornish (songs, proverbs) survived hardly in the popular memory of Cornish people during the so-called period of death. The current revival of Cornish is based on a quite good, historical documentation concerning basic grammar and basic lexicon. Other Celtic languages are used by Cornish revivalists in order to reinforce, confirm or complete this knowledge. But the core of the genuine Cornish language remains well documented and, thus, is revived on a solid basis.
• Chinese has never been the particular language of any population in Europe. On the contrary, Kalmyk is the traditional language of Kalmyk people.

--Domergue Sumien 19:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)