Talk:Proto-English

Not sure we need this

I'm not quite convinced of this article. I am not familiar with any contemporary linguistic usage that treats "Proto-English" as a name of an identifiable historical language, much less so in the specific sense proposed here, i.e. the ancestor of English while still spoken on the continent. In my understanding, the various ancestor dialects at that time would likely not yet have formed any linguistic unity distinct from their other continental West Germanic neighbours. The only unity that is typically assumed as a node in the family tree is Anglo-Frisian. Of course, the term "Proto-English" is also used occasionally in the literature, in a rather ad-hoc way as far as I can see, to denote proto-forms of words – i.e. reconstructed word forms that are more archaic than attested Old English, but show reflexes of some one or other of the specific English (or Anglo-Frisian) sound changes (/a/ brightening, palatalisation of velars etc.) that set it apart from other West Germanic. But that's not the same as talking of an actual concrete language.

The article is of course also unsourced, as it stands. Potentially problematic statements would be the dating of its "formation" to "the 200s", or the claim that there is "evidence" about it that "comes from Germania".

Should we redirect to anglo-Frisian, perhaps, or to Old English? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)