File talk:EuropeArticleLanguages.png

The article on Article (grammar) has been updated to show that Arabic has envowelated indefinite articles, which are optionally written and pronounced as postfixed syllables. This is referring to the Arabic tanwin or nunation. A very clear reference point in Arabic is here. This needs to be corrected in the map as well.

What do hatched lines mean? --JWB (talk) 15:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be wrong. According to this chart at Popis there are many minority languages in Slovenia, but if you combine all the speakers of all the languages with articles, it isn't even 2% of the population. I will alert the creator of the map.  Randall Bart   Talk  08:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the lines from Slovenia. I've also added light blue for Sorbian in Germany, although in both Upper and Lower Sorbian the definite article is really only used in colloquial language. It's avoided in the literary language. —Angr 15:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The map is wrong, Norway and Sweden should both completely purple; the northern lands are inhabited and Norwegian and Swedish are the largest languages up there (which means, they should have the same colour as the rest of Norway and Sweden). I don't know exactly which colour the Faeroe Islands shall be, but it is either purple or pink, at least not light blue. 85.166.3.122 (talk) 16:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think northern Norway and Sweden are showing what the Saami languages have. Although they're minority languages, for the purposes of this map it's convenient to pretend they're the only languages up there. Notice how the Celtic languages are also implied to be the only languages in western Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, as if English weren't spoken there. I've just done the same for Sorbian in Germany. It's the only convenient way for minority languages to show up on the map at all. —Angr 15:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Angr about that. As for Finland, it's good that the map shows that there are Finland Swedes but the area that is marked doesn't correspond well to the areas where Swedish is spoken. The map found here Finland Swedish indicates the traditional Swedish speaking areas of Finland.JdeJ (talk) 09:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I still think it's quite misleading. At the very least, it should be explained in the caption. — Pladask (talk) 12:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

The south and west of Jutland is famous for having a prefixed article, so it should be dark blue. See Danish language#Dialects for a map. The area is that west of the red line. I am a native speaker of Jutlandic myself.

As for Finland, the Swedish speaking area should be corrected. See Finland Swedish for a map.

I like the idea of showing the Saami language area, but it needs some fine corrections. The Torne Valley is actually a heavy Finnish-speaking area (possibly speakers of Meänkieli, a Finnish variety, are actually a majority). Here is a useful map of Swedish municipalities with official minority languages: sv:Minoritetsspråk i Sverige, but note that the Saami pocket on the coast (it must be the city of Umeå) and all coloured minicipalities in the Stockholm area are a result of recent migration. Contrarily, the coastal strip of Norway all the way up to Hammerfest, at least, has been Norse-speaking since the Viking age, so it should be marked as Norwegian. --Sasper (talk) 22:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The information about Bulgarian is not quite accurate: Bulgarian has indefinite and definite articles, which are both postfixed (I can give as a source, but it's in Bulgarian). So, "indefinite and postfixed definite articles" should be more appropriate, although it's not 100 % accurate, but better than "only postfixed definite articles" which means it has no indefinite articles at all! For example: "stol" (chair) - "stola" (a chair) - "stolat" (the chair). 84.179.22.170 (talk) 12:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I’m not sure how to read this map and the legend, either Sweden needs to be recoloured or the legend reworded. As for Swedish, articles and/or postfixes can be used for definiteness (called ‘species’, ‘bestämdhet’ or ‘definithet’ in Swedish):

• SG.NOM.DEF (“the house”): “huset” and in certain constructions “det huset” or “det hus”
• SG.NOM.INDEF (“a house”): “ett hus”

Further forms are possible when considering combinations with the plural number and the possessive case. kess (talk) 19:47, 10 July 2016 (UTC)