Talk:Anglo-Frisian languages

Sprachbund

Were early Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon really different enough from each other to be considered a Sprachbund? According to that article, a Sprachbund is made up of unrelated languages (Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai) or distantly related languages (Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian). Perhaps dialect continuum would be a better term? Angr/talk 11:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Loanword from Norse

"kirk is a loanword from Norse" assumedly like bick, birk, breeks, sic, steek, thack and yeuk etc? 84.135.215.2 15:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Family tree

It seems confusing that four dead languages are mixed in with five living languages in the family tree. Is this inevitable, or would it be helpful to readers to identify in some way the modern languages dialects and creoles in the Anglo-Frisian family? 82.152.97.125 10:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

When I read your comment, I was going to add † after the dead ones, but discovering that they were just different time periods of English I decided it'd be better to remove them altogether. They're not separate branches after all.

We might want to remove Yola too, but I don't know enough about that (and the article isn't very enlightening). --Ptcamn 15:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to remove the older forms of English. If we do both that and remove the modern dialects (as we've already done), we'll be left with nothing in the list but English and Frisian, which is extremely unenlightening. User:Angr 15:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure that including Early Modern English is useful..

If anything, rather than listing them all on the same level, it should be something like:

• Anglo-Frisian
  • Anglic
    • Old English
      • Middle English
        • Modern English
          • Hawaiian Pidgin
          • Pacific Pidgin English
            • Bislama
            • Kriol
            • Pijin
            • Tok Pisin
            • Torres Strait Creole
          • etc.
        • Scots
        • Yola
  • Frisian languages
    • West Frisian
    • Saterland Frisian (also called East Frisian)
    • North Frisian

--Ptcamn 17:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

What ever you do don't add Early Scots and Middle Scots otherwise Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) will go ballistic. 84.135.234.174 17:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Let him go ballistic seeing as how he has no problem with the "Middle Ages" (a term that i doubt was used by the Middle Aged folks but which was just "made up later by historians"!!? As for "Middle English", can he provide us with a quote of the term "Middle English" in Middle English to justify its non spurious application to describe speech of the time as seen from the present day,or does he only object to Scots being referred to from a modern point of view!? I mean the idea of any modern term for something in the past being spurious renders such terminology spurious/dishonest/garbage etc. (ie all the words he uses on any page covering Scots/Middle Scots/Yola etc Check out the tangle he gets into over Irish/Gaelic on the talk Middle Irish page , its enlightening as to where his linguistic prejudices lie. And all because he didnt want to use the same word for the Irish language as the Scottish "native one" (which is in itself a spurious idea seeing as Cumric was the language of Scotland long before the Irish Gaels arrived!)80.192.59.202 03:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I almost wish that I hadn't started this by asking the question. However I tend to agree with Ptcamn that removing the historical forms of English makes the tree a little clearer. However Ptcamm's alternate suggestion of levels also achieves this aim, I feel. Can someone tell me if it is correct, linguistically, to include the English creoles in the Anglo-Frisian group? If it is not required for technical accuracy, a reader might find it helpful to see a family tree of the historic and modern European members of the family - perhaps like this,

• Anglo-Frisian
  • Anglic
    • Old English
      • Middle English
        • Modern English
        • Scots
        • Yola
  • Frisian languages
    • West Frisian
    • Saterland Frisian (also called East Frisian)
    • North Frisian

Of course the creoles and pijins could still be mentioned, but they all have a common parent (in this tree.) Now we have mostly living languages, with the historic languages clear, but one extinct language (Yola) as a leaf of the tree. I hope there is enough clarity there to inform a casual encyclopaedia reader. Did anyone notice that another user was reverting Ptcamn's and Angr's edits to the tree? They did not explain their motivation in talk or in the edit summary - so perhaps the three of us can continue debating? By the way, are my edits to the map ok? --82.152.97.125 23:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

What about Old Frisian and Middle Frisian? --Ptcamn 23:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point Ptcamn. I just re-read the Frisian language article and had the same thought. There seems to be a pattern in Wikipedia family trees not to include historic languages that are parents of modern languages - just groupings or divisions - which would mean reverting Angr's edit (again! - I just read Jkelly's apology for his accidental revert on Angr's talk page). We end up with this :

• Anglo-Frisian
  • Anglic group (Insular Anglo-Frisian)
    • Modern English
    • Scots
    • Yola
  • Frisian group (Continental Anglo-Frisian)
    • West Frisian
    • Saterland Frisian (East Frisian)
    • North Frisian

It is a little sparse, but probably informative. Are we any closer to a consensus? I suspect not. --00:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm new to this discussion, but one thing; if the older languages are left off (conforming with other trees in Wikipedia), can we list English instead of Modern English? Also, English language is a much more comprehensive article to link to, rather than Modern English language. If I don't find any argument otherwise in the next few days, I'll change it. Paxsimius 03:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Map

The map ought to be changed as it shows High German for the whole of Germany. While it is true that most Low Saxon dialects are nowadays seriously endangered or moribund and being replaced by the standard language (High German, Hochdeutsch), the northern half of Germany is traditionally shown as Low Saxon (or Low German) speaking. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Unoffensive text or character (talk • contribs) 12:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a disclaimer about this on the image description page. —Angr 12:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Why isn't Friesland hatched as "area where multi liguaism is common"?? They sure speak both Fryian and Dutch there. 79.75.117.176 (talk) 11:45, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I kind of object to all of Ireland being included here. Can't we grey-out some Gaeltacht regions?

There's nowhere in Ireland, even in the Gaeltacht, where English isn't the majority language. —Angr 06:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Frisian vs. West Frisian

In the examples should "Frisian" be relabelled "West Frisian"? I presume that is what is meant, but I want to double check. Ireneshusband 20:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It is, and I'll correct it, thanks. Bikerams 20:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Why is that section even there? "Swadesh list"-style charts without analysis don't provide any useful information, and with analysis violate WP:NOR. —Angr 14:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Aim was to expand the article somewhat, in line with the Dutch and (West) Frisian articles. What kind of analysis would be required? If the table is of no use, I won't be offended if it's deleted. Bikerams 15:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it would have to be illustrating something specific. A chart like that could show sound changes that are unique to Anglo-Frisian (assibilation of k before front vowels, Anglo-Frisian brightening, etc.), but then the examples would have to be specific to the topic, not just the numbers 1-10. —Angr 16:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:West Germanic languages vs. Category:Anglo-Frisian languages

Category:Anglo-Frisian languages is itself a category within Category:West Germanic languages. — Robert Greer (talk) 14:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

True, but this article is the head article of Category:Anglo-Frisian languages, so it can be included in higher-level categories too. It wouldn't be very helpful to navigation to have it only in Category:Anglo-Frisian languages and nothing else. +Angr 21:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Simularities West Frisian - English

Hi,

It might be easier to use a table with West Frisian and English words sorted in columns. Shall we include this table in the article?

Frisian	English	Dutch	German
dei	day	dag	Tag
rein	rain	regen	Regen
wei	way	weg	Weg
neil	nail	nagel	Nagel
tsiis	cheese	kaas	Käse
tsjerke	church	kerk	Kirche
tegearre	together	samen	zusammen
sibbe	sibling	verwante	Verwandte
kaai	key	sleutel	Schlüssel
ha west	have been	ben geweest	bin gewesen
twa skiep	two sheep	twee schapen	zwei Schafe
hawwe	have	hebben	haben
ús	us	ons	uns
hynder	horse	paard	Pferd
brea	bread	brood	Brot
hier	hair	haar	Haar
ear	ear	oor	Ohr
doar	door	deur	Tür
grien	green	groen	Grün
swiet	sweet	zoet	süβ
troch	through	door	durch

Maybe this link to YouTube can be used as well in the external links. It clearly shows some simularities between both languages. Kind regards --Kening Aldgilles (talk) 18:38, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Dead concept

Let me guess, this article was written from ancient public domain sources? The concept of "Anglo-Frisian" as an exclusive language family from which descended English and Frisian has been outdated for decades if not at least half a century. The two language families descend from the "Ingvaeonic" (North Sea Germanic). There was no Anglo-Frisian intermediate stage. (And contrary to what is stated in the "see also" parenthesis at the beginning of the article, Ingvaeonic also includes the Saxon languages!)

Similarities between English and Frisian are attributed to relative geographic isolation: these two languages retained common Ingvaeonic features longer while the other West Germanic languages diverged and evolved due to contact with other languages. In the period before the emigration of the Angles to Britain, there was no especial relationship or closeness between them (the Angles) and the ancestors of the modern Frisians on the European mainland.

For brief outside reference, see An Introduction to Old Frisian §225 ("The Anglo-Frisian complex"). This should be available for free online reading on Google Books. --Unedel (talk) 19:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, at least one of the references the article cites is from 1998 and uses the term "Anglo-Frisian". I don't think there is yet any thorough consensus on the issue of whether or not English and Frisian formed a group together after the departure of Old Saxon. The evidence probably is not sufficient for such a consensus to ever be found. At any rate the concept of "Anglo-Frisian" as a distinct grouping is certainly NOT outdated, it just doesn't enjoy universal agreement. And the same could be said of just about any grouping of West Germanic languages, including West Germanic itself. Angr (talk) 21:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Not every "verwante" is a "sibling"

In the table "Frisian/English vs. Dutch/German" the entry for sibbe/sibling/verwante/Verwandte should probably be removed.

In my native Dutch there is no equivalent (that I know of) for sibling; the dutch words for brother(s) and sister(s) are used instead. A "verwante" can be any relative.

German uses the word "Geschwister" for sibling(s) and "Verwandte" can also mean any relative. AlexFekken (talk) 09:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

And in German we have the Wort Sippe, which is not so common, but also mean Family. Sippe - Sibling... And WHY is no Low German in this list? I'm really sure Anglo-SAXON is closer to Old SAXON (the older form of Low German) then to Old Frisian. What I know the Anglo-Frisian idea is old and the Ingvaeonic idea is more populare at the moment. --84.46.11.97 (talk) 11:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The Ingvaeonic idea doesn't rule out Old English and Old Frisian being closer relatives to each other than they are to Old Saxon, and they do have more sound changes in common. But still, the three were almost certainly mutually intelligible as the differences between them are only very slight. Angr (talk) 20:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with AlexFekken. The English "sib," which appears to be closer in meaning to the German "Sippe," seems like it would fit this row better than "sibling," which is "siblin" in Scots, "Geschwister" in German and doesn't seem to exist in Dutch or Frisian. But it's such an odd word to include, in any language, in a table of otherwise common words. I agree that this row should be removed from the table. Metrowestjp (talk) 07:45, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

When and how of common Anglo-Frisian development

To my knowledge, the "Anglo-Frisian" theory is outdated, but I'm not really an expert. But if there are researchers who maintain the idea that there was a common development of these two languages for some while, they must have come up with a scenario as to when, where and how this development took place. If you say that two languages are more closely related than others, you must explain why. And the only ways are that there was either a common proto-language (When and where was this proto-language spoken? Why and how did it dissociate from Old Saxon and Old Franconian?) or that two languages were in close contact when already separated (When and how were the Anglo-Saxons in close contact with the Frisians, i.e. in closer contact than they had with the Saxons and Franconians?) All this should be clarified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.238.79 (talk) 00:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I would not be surprised if it were outdated. Linguists have recently begun to look at the West Germanic languages in a non-tree-like way, instead looking at the spread of innovations within the dialects. But as far as Anglo-Frisian goes, it is still a useful grouping (even if not genetic) because it can be used to characterise certain typical changes. CodeCat (talk) 02:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the most plausible scenario is this one: A Germanic dialect immediately ancestral to the West Germanic languages was spoken somewhere between Rhine, Danube and Elbe (maybe actually in Thuringia, see below) in the early first millennium AD, underwent the common innovations listed in West Germanic languages § Origins and characteristics, ended up strongly resembling reconstructible Proto-West-Germanic by the 4th century (the runic inscription from Frienstedt in Thuringia, dated to the 3rd century, already appears to show loss of final *-z, but not the subsequent loss of new final *-a) and then began to spread and diverge. A northern dialect of West Germanic (either spoken around the mouth of the Ems, or, according to Peter Schrijver, actually in Britain because some of these developments can be explained as the result of contact with Brittonic) then underwent the following changes listed in the article, becoming Proto-Anglo-Frisian:

1. Backing and nasalization of West Germanic a and ā before a nasal consonant
2. Loss of n before a spirant, resulting in lengthening and nasalization of preceding vowel
3. Single form for present and preterite plurals
4. A-fronting: West Germanic a, ā → æ, ǣ, even in the diphthongs ai and au (Anglo-Frisian brightening)
5. palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k and *g before front vowels (but not phonemicization of palatals)

Note that change 1, 4 and 5 are absent from Low Saxon, thus proving that Low Saxon, while it may have been in areal contact with Anglo-Frisian, and thus shared developments 2 and 3, diverged from Proto-West-Germanic without an intermediate Proto-North-Sea-Germanic stage.

The Anglo-Frisian unity lasted only for a short time, however, and already in the 5th century Proto-Anglo-Frisian diverged into English and Frisian, with Early Old English spoken in southeastern Britain and Early Old Frisian around West Frisia. It's possible that change 2 and 3 above diffused from Early Old Frisian into Old Saxon only later, in the 6th or 7th centuries, and that Old Saxon was still a conservative dialect of West Germanic, almost identical to Proto-West-Germanic and also to the contemporary ancestor of Old Dutch, in the 5th/6th century. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:07, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I take issue in the usage of the word "prove" here. The fact that Modern English house, mouse etc. on the one side and Standard German Haus, Maus etc. are pronounced much more similarly to each other than to Low Saxon huus and muus does not prove their closer connection to each other.

Please don't take offence in this simplistic example, I just want to make my point clear and I think this provocative comparison does the job here, especially as I found the word "prove" similarly provocative. I get the idea of trying to find common innovations, but there aren't really any good arguments for common Anglo-Frisian innovations which actually hint at a common ancestor not shared with Low Saxon, which don't have better arguments against them. This is well explained in , among others.

Apart from the arguments directly against an Anglo-Frisian language, a lack of traits in Low Saxon could be explained in other ways. For example, many dialects have lost the pronoun us and replaced it with uns under recent Standard Dutch/Standard German influence. This has made them seemingly more "conservative" in the context of West Germanic languages.

West Germanic languages always influenced each other strongly. I'm sure you know all of this, you probably know more and better examples for it. Simply put, the arguments for an Anglo-Frisian grouping just don't stick. Forcing the tree model upon this situation seems to do more harm than good and happening out of scholarly habit. It feels like trying to explain the movement of a small group of particles with the help of thermodynamics, because one did not know where to stop.

Nevertheless, I do not deny the value of this grouping in general. You simply seem to prove my thought about how it can lead to misconceptions, even amongst those well familiar with comparative linguistics. Liekveel (talk) 10:38, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

It is true that the relevant period is poorly attested or completely unattested, reducing the absolute probability of hypotheses compared to better attested periods – I was simply presenting the, in my opinion, most plausible scenario. That is, the scenario best compatible with the (numerous) facts. The simplistic example you gave is really not helpful. I don't have access to Stiles, so I can't weigh in on his arguments. However, the fact that English and Frisian share innovation #1 but Low Saxon does not, even though they all share #2 and #3, is pretty decisive and hard to argue with or deny – in view of everything I'm aware of. I don't know how Stiles deals with these facts. I'm well aware that the West Germanic dialects and languages have kept influencing each other all the time, which I acknowledged and incorporated as a factor into my scenario.

Otherwise, you're only offering platitudes and "could"s (but "possible" is not "probable"), no concrete facts or arguments. It's possible that I've overlooked something, but you haven't mentioned it, so my hypothesis stands; a hypothesis is better than plain denial or agnosticism (unless it is clearly supported by arguments) because it's better to propose a bold hypothesis and to be able to be disproved than to stick to a vague unfalsifiable position, and plain denial of the tree model is methodologically infertile. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:08, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

You got me worried for a bit there. At first, I couldn't find the paper anymore either. But it's fully and freely available on academia.edu, just don't get spooked by the scammy-looking "download" and "login" options and scroll down. It's right here, with recent additions by the author even, so he seems alright with it being there: https://www.academia.edu/37163852/Remarks_on_the_Anglo_Frisian_Thesis_1995_ I don't think I could do his arguments justice by trying to summarize them here, since he argues on many levels to show how extremely improbable the Anglo-Frisian stage really is. The article seems to contain exactly what you are asking from me here, so I would be very interested in your opinion in regards to it.Liekveel (talk) 18:55, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

The paper doesn't display for me. However, a friend has helpfully summarised the main thrust of the article for me. Stiles argues that Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon share #1 (nasalisation only, without the backing), #2 (Nasalspirantengesetz), #3 (Einheitsplural), and #4 (not in the above list) merger of PWG word-final *-ā and *-ē into *-ǣ, as well as the lowering of PWG *-ō to *-ɔ̄. Only two changes are exclusive to Anglo-Frisian: #5 (#4 above) A-fronting (not in diphthongs), and #6 rounding of nasalised *ā.

Even if I grant, for the sake of the argument (and because I can't inspect the paper right now), that this may all be true, in my reckoning this doesn't amount to a fully fledged refutation or even disproof of Anglo-Frisian, only to a qualification. Two certain early innovations (sound changes only; there may well be more, including morphological innovations) may not be much, but enough to posit a Proto-Anglo-Frisian stage, even if it may not have been greatly changed from the previous stage from which Old Saxon branched off. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:10, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe I got "scammed" without noticing and that's why I can see it, I can even download the paper, I've just noticed. But I have to say, even though that was kind from your friend, this is not the main thrust of the article as a whole. It is the main thrust in regards to that particular phonological argument, that much is true, but important parts of the bigger phonological argument are lost nevertheless. Besides, arguments regarding runes, morphology and alternative explanations are not addressed at all. I will only try to reproduce small parts here: Stiles states that no common relative chronology for English and Frisian can be developed beyond the point of a-fronting. The following monophthongization, according to him, even suggests a closer relationship between Old Frisian and some dialects of Old Saxon, which also experienced a-fronting, even though he does not argue for such a grouping. There are more arguments like this where each of the branches fall together similarly at times. According to Stiles and a few other scholars he quotes, the influence of non-Ingvaeonic West Germanic varieties on Old Saxon was demonstrably strong, even in prehistoric times. This suggests that a dialect continuum might just be a more appropriate way of looking at the situation, both historically and "prehistorically", with Frisian and English having more highly conserved Ingvaeonic features. Stiles does however find a closer relationship between the dialects of Old English and Old Frisian likely, as they probably shared more isoglosses exclusively, even though dialects of Old Saxon shared exclusive isoglosses with either one of them as well. I think that, if he is correct and a common grouping of Old Frisian and Old Saxon could be argued for more conclusively, an Anglo-Frisian grouping can be considered "disproved", as far as that is even possible. Liekveel (talk) 22:04, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, again your argument is falling prey to the "possibly is not probably" fallacy. Even though Stiles could argue for a closer affinity of Old Frisian to Old Saxon, he does not. Conversely, it could equally be argued (as I did) that Old Saxon was originally more conservative and Anglo-Frisian (or Frisian in particular) exerted areal influence on its dialects, which sounds like a more appropriate assessment of the situation, honestly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Earlier you wrote a hypothesis is better than plain denial or agnosticism (unless it is clearly supported by arguments), with which I very much agree. Furthermore, I think that dropping the tree model completely for something like the wave model is an extremely bad idea, with which you clearly agree. This would not do justice to either the nature of linguistics (with categorizing things which are hard to categorize at its very core, what even are languages?) or the value (or methodological fertility) of the tree model, even though the wave model is formally always a more adequate model, whenever horizontal transfer of information is possible.

So generic arguments for using the tree model have already been implied as a premise by all sides, which legitimizes your approach. They have, however, then been negated by various arguments specifically tailored to the situation in these three branches of language. As the argument stands, the tree model seems to be confronted with a situation in which its obvious shortcomings are demonstrably (!) very relevant. By still applying the tree model to this situation and holding your version up as the better solution in contrast to plain denial or agnosticism, you are committing all of the fallacies and intellectual dishonesties you are accusing Stiles and me of and more:

This is plain denial or agnosticism of alternatives to the tree model.

You imply the applicability of the tree model and assess the probability of your tree afterwards, which could be viewed as the Base rate fallacy, since you don't take the probability of the premise into account.

The premise here is just an argument left unspoken. By not taking its probability into account, you are committing the "possibly is not probably" fallacy.

The tree model has always been an option, even before the wave model was formalized. A pure tree model would only include two branches from every node, as it would be very unlikely that any two changes happened in different regions at the exact same time. This is not how the tree of the West Germanic languages is usually presented. So linguists have agreed for a long time that not every hypothesis is better than no hypothesis.

Even if we stay in the domain of the tree model, by denying the North Sea Germanic character of Old Saxon, you are doing what you are accusing me of doing with the Anglo-Frisian languages. It might be possible that every North Sea Germanic characteristic of Old Saxon was caused by close proximity to the Anglo-Frisian languages and not by common development, but that does not make this probable.

For me, this just proves that the flaws of the tree model are glaringly clear on a larger scale. By arguing against a Proto-North-Sea-Germanic language containing at least most of the predecessors of Old Saxon, you are really arguing against the applicability of the tree model to West Germanic languages in general, if we allow questioning this premise. Questioning the premise more broadly, like this, does not seem as important to me. I think the situation is different for the more general branches, since there are very clearly better arguments for classifying North Sea Germanic languages together than, for example, classifying Old Saxon and Old Frankish into one branch. It is also much easier to create a plausible chronology of innovation and argue for some level of isolation. I personally think that the pros outweigh the negatives for classifications like North Sea Germanic or especially West Germanic as a whole, and that we would come very close to abandoning the tree model completely, if we did not apply it to West Germanic languages at all, even though there probably never was a North Sea Germanic Proto-language which wasn't part of a dialect continuum. Weighing the pros and cons of further classifying Old English, Old Frisian and Old Saxon creates a very different image. If you want to compare them, I would really just recommend reading the paper by Stiles. Liekveel (talk) 06:53, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

You claim that the tree model does not apply here, and you've still not shown how. Handwaving towards Stiles' article does not suffice; you have to explain your reasoning.

Moreover, I haven't argued against Ingvaeonic. I'm just saying that Stiles' argument doesn't strictly disprove Anglo-Frisian. Instead, Anglo-Frisian can still be viewed as a subgroup of Ingvaeonic (as is the common view, also reflected in this article's infobox). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:11, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

By the way: a common perception is that the tree model and the wave model are somehow competing models. They aren't. The wave model applies to existing dialect continua, the tree model to newly arising or unfolding dialect continua (even if these overlay existing continua, as usually). The tree model does not deny inter-dialectal interaction. Language change and language contact, divergence and convergence, are both omnipresent phenomena that no linguist I'm aware of denies. However, whenever divergence is studied in detail, it turns out tree-like in practice.

Moreover, the tree model does not necessarily imply a tree that is always binary. There is no "pure tree model", or at least I haven't advocated for one. And I've never denied alternatives to the tree model (especially when they can be conceived of as complementary rather than competing), I've merely advocated for continuing to use the model. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

First I want to address your third and fourth paragraph. As you know, the tree model is based on the phylogenetic trees from biology. Languages are analogues to species here. The development of species is usually much more clear-cut than the development of languages. While a continuum of intelligibility across related languages usually exists (it could even develop from unrelated languages!), a continuum of individuals which can produce fertile offspring across species is very rare, even in the same genus, at least among vertebrates. This is why it's also unlikely for three species to develop (this can also mean 'stay virtually the same' for one of them) from the same root at exactly the same time and why bifurcating trees are the classical trees in biology. Also, horizontal gene transfer is recognized as a big challenge to the idea of developing a tree of life, even though it rarely affects multi-cellular life. Now, with the knowledge that the wave model is used to describe the horizontal distribution of innovation in languages: How can the horizontal transfer of information between species be such a great challenge to the tree model in biology, but the derived tree model in linguistics stays completely unscathed by it? Of course the tree model and the wave model are conflicting ideas!

I'm a chemist. Chemists work with conflicting and plain wrong models all the time, simply because they are so useful. One example: molecular orbitals. Another example: atomic nuclei as fundamental particles. As far as a chemist is concerned, they are fundamental particles (but with a specific distribution of different masses - we know, that we are wrong) even though that's just wrong. For us, there is no value in trying to derive everything from Theoretical Physics, even though its approach is formally correct and much more complete, when it can't even give us an easy solution to the classical three-body problem. So, obviously, I'm all for employing useful models, even when they are wrong. I don't want argue against the tree model in general. It is extremely useful and does exactly what historical linguistics set out to do. At the same time, I wouldn't write a Wikipedia article about how nuclei are fundamental particles.

My strict definition of the original/pure tree model comes from biology, as you have probably gathered from this. That might explain our differing views on this to some degree. Nevertheless, the Wikipedia article on the tree model in linguistics explicitly refers to the definition of the tree model in biology. The problems, inconsistencies, flaws, whatever you want to call them, of the tree model, both in biology and especially in linguistics, are mentioned in the introduction to said article. The cladistic representation on the very top of the article is a strictly bifurcating tree, assumedly not by accident, as is the example by Schleicher himself. I will now quote a related passage from the article: The purpose of phylogenetic software is to generate cladograms, a special kind of tree in which the links only bifurcate; that is, at any node in the same direction only two branches are offered. The citation is missing here, but from the context in the article, this seems to be the definition used for phylogenetic networks, which are build on top of these trees. This might not be the predominant definition of language trees, but this more narrow meaning certainly exists in linguistics.

You can organize a lot of things in trees, without the trees being clades or the things having most recent common ancestors (or common ancestors at all). As an example well known to you, writing emerged independently at least two times in human history. You could organize the writing systems in independent phylogenetic trees, but you could also classify all of them by qualities and innovations and put that into one tree. This brings me to the comment in your second paragraph. You can find groupings like Continental Scandinavian or High German in info boxes all the time, without them having a most recent common ancestor. These groupings have their value, but not within the context of the tree model. This is how I see Anglo-Frisian: a valuable grouping, but I do not think there was a common ancestor with exclusive innovations that would justify this grouping as a clade. The reason for this, and I will now address your first paragraph, lies in the paper from Stiles and, more recently, the discussions I have had with linguists. I have great passion for the topic, as you can conclude from this discussion. But even with my great scientific passion, I do not see why a chemist should paraphrase a paper for a linguist, which he could easily read himself. I would need much more time, wouldn't know how to prioritize the arguments to convince you, as I cannot look into your head, and even if I would manage to not make stupid mistakes a linguist wouldn't, I would still be much less credible than any actual linguist, or in this case, Stiles.

As it stands, his article is used in the introduction of the article to clearly state, that this is not a branch as one would understand it coming from the tree model. If you want to change this and you still do not want to read the paper, I would recommend finding recent articles which argue for a Anglo-Frisian language. I could find a ton of other papers, many of which he quoted, where the authors also take this opinion, so I would hope, it's quite the good paper! Liekveel (talk) 18:07, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

References

We need a new article on the "English languages"

The old one was moved to "Anglic languages" and then, under the guise of a "merge" to History of English, an editor simply deleted the entirety of its content (0 edits occurred to the new article at the time of the "merge") and replaced it with a bad redirect.

If English is the single and only member of the "English languages" then the redirect should point to English language (not the history article). If there are several members, then there should be some article developed that discusses and links to them. — LlywelynII 03:22, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

English is not a Germanic language anglo frisian

Please let us not deceive ourselves, the lexic of English is mostly Latin and French (58%) and 26% is germanic then what remains is the Greek and propper names. So is a creole language in the sense, the old English if it was germanic (Anglo-Frisian). The only anglofrisian languages ​​that remain are the Scots (because Scotland had no French and Roman penetration as "England") and Frisian in Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.218.117.110 (talk) 00:07, 25 September 2016 (UTC) User:Derekitou

Languages are not solely defined by lexical origins. If you have reliable, verifiable, published sources which question English being a Germanic language, then please cite them. - BilCat (talk) 20:00, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

it is a settled fact that English is considered a Germanic language. Whether or not that is true is another thing, but this is just listing the place on the tree. Spiel (talk) 08:52, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

'Scotland had no French and Roman penetration'???? Sorry but that's way off the mark. The Scots were Christian and before the Reformation used the Latin bible for century upon century, whilst the Norman French, headed by King David, invaded and conquered Scotland whose Norman aristocracy for long thereafter spoke French rather than English or Gaelic. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.114.33 (talk) 10:57, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

The Catholic Mass was not understood by anyone beyond the nobility for those centuries-after-centuries because the common people were illiterate. Any Latin influence on the Scots language came via French.104.169.39.45 (talk) 11:18, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Northumbrian and Cumbrian

I don't understand why these are listed. They are dialects according to the article. If we are adding those, the tree is much bigger. The USA alone has over twenty. Spiel (talk) 08:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)