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There is a discussion about whether there is a linkage between Germanic, Frisian and English peoples and languages at Talk:English people#Germanic and Frisian links. It would be helpful if editors could hold fire on making edits related to this topic until a consensus has been reached. Thanks. Bermicourt (talk) 13:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE applies. There is nothing in the article about Saterland Frisians being "related" in some sort to "Germanic peoples" (the linked page is about the ancient Germani, broadly defined), so it cannot be in the infobox either. The infobox serves to summarize [...] key facts that appear in the article (emphasis added). –Austronesier (talk) 12:56, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bermicourt it doesn't seem there's any consensus for your position. Alssa1 (talk) 13:41, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Alssa1:. At the moment there is no consensus full stop. All you're doing is waiting until you think the coast is quiet and then editing a controversial topic without consensus. Bermicourt (talk) 14:10, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well that is not true either (happy to discuss that in depth if necessary). But this dispute is specific to this particular page: As Austronesier pointed out last year: There are no sources on the page that say that Saterland Frisians as a people are "related" to some sort of "Germanic peoples" or "English people", therefore can you explain why we should not apply WP:UNSOURCED in this instance? Alssa1 (talk) 14:52, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That the Frisian and English languages are related seems to be a well-established view among scholars, both stemming from Anglo-Frisian. There are definitely sources for that as a search on Google Books will show. If your point is that the languages are related, but the peoples somehow are not, then that is a different issue. It seems unlikely that there is no relationship, but I'm sure sources can be found that confirm it one way or another. Bermicourt (talk) 20:13, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So it appears there are sources that indicate a people link e.g. "Thus the Saxons who, according to Bede, had migrated to England, were also Frisians (Anon/Melis Stoke, Rujmkroniek van Holland, lines 76-8; Burgers 1999, 168-9)," in Hines and Ijssennagger (2017). Bermicourt (talk) 20:25, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So during the Saxon settlement in Britain of 410AD, some Frisians were involved. Why does that equate to a close link between modern ethnic groups? It sounds very much like you're engaging in (or sort of semi-bordering on) WP:SYNTH. Alssa1 (talk) 21:44, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The linguistic link of Anglo-Frisian is clear. But to derive a closer link between the modern ethnic groups from this linguistic affiliation alone is not valid unless a reliable sources do so. –Austronesier (talk) 21:14, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also no one is disputing a link between the English and Frisian languages, this is about modern ethnic groups, and those ethnic groups alone. Alssa1 (talk) 22:00, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's helpful. Meanwhile, the article on English peoples says this:
This is followed by four citations, viz:[1][2][3][4] Perhaps we could cite one of those sources here. Bermicourt (talk) 09:59, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
^Martiniano, R., Caffell, A., Holst, M. et al. Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons. Nat Commun 7, 10326 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10326Archived 21 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine
^Michael E. Weale, Deborah A. Weiss, Rolf F. Jager, Neil Bradman, Mark G. Thomas, Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2002, Pages 1008–1021, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a004160Archived 21 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine
I would happen to disagree with the wording on the English people page, namely because I think it gives a false impression of what the sources say. The sources are referring to a movement of people that took place between 400-~600AD. And the results of DNA (published in the previous source) state: "We estimate the proportion of Saxon ancestry in C./S England as very likely to be under 50%, and most likely in the range 10%-40%." What your latest reversion seems to suggest is that because people from the Frisian ethnic group of 400-~600AD played a role in the migrations from the continent to England, the modern English ethnic group is "especially related" to the modern Frisians. That particular conclusion does not appear to be supported by any source, and I would ask how you're seemingly justifying your reversion based on the sources you've just posted. Alssa1 (talk) 13:34, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's interesting. Unhelpfully the template, "Infobox ethnic group", doesn't say what "related" means or how closely related ethnic groups need to be to qualify. The word "modern" is not used.
Setting that aside, let me go back to the beginning. A lot of text on Wikipedia is uncited, often because it is simply awaiting citations or because the sources are in the bibliography. The latter is often true of articles from German Wikipedia because they accept the bibliography as sources (although they are moving towards more inline citations too). Uncited text is not automatically incorrect, nor does English Wiki insist it is removed. Usually editors assess it and tag it with "cn" if it is doubtful. In this case, the text seems to have been added in good faith and I felt it was not unreasonable. Hence when it was deleted, I reinstated it and began the discussion (see link above). In hindsight, I should have tagged it too. The discussion didn't reach a consensus before being archived. So I guess the best solution is to tag the text (as has been done here) and encourage editors to track down sources that confirm whether or not it is valid. A definition of "related" at the template would also be useful. HTH. Bermicourt (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly true, the term "modern" is not used. However the present tense is used; "English people are...", "Frisians are...". Furthermore, the English people page states: "The English largely descend from two main historical population groups..." The sources you've cited to justify your reversion refer the Frisians explicitly in the context of 600AD and in the same sentence that they refer to the Angles, Saxons and Jutes; I don't think those sources allow us to add the strictly modern day populations of Schleswig-Holstein, the Jutland Peninsula and Lower Saxony as being related either. Finally, having taken a gander at the German wiki entry for the Frisians and noted/translated the following (though I must admit my German is not wonderful); from the Time of Migrations (Zeit der Völkerwanderung) section: "Up until about 1950, the opinion was held that the Frisians had settled with the Jutes in Kent . The justification for the proponents of this thesis was that the "Kentish" ( English: Kentish ) still has a great similarity with West Frisian . Today, this thesis is no longer considered tenable and is hardly ever advocated. [10] However, it is historically recorded that the Jutes invaded Britain via what was then Friesland, which also explains their south-eastern settlement area there. The shortest way to reach this was via the coastal areas of today's provinces of Zuid- and Noord-Holland . These belong historically to the former settlement area of the Frisians. Today, based on archaeological finds, it is considered certain that the Jutes settled south of the later city of Dorestad and lived there for a long time. During their stay at the mouth of the Rhine, the Jutes probably adapted their language to their Frisian neighbors, which explains the similarity between Kentish and modern West Frisian." (translated poorly).Alssa1 (talk) 11:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC) [1][reply]
The "related"-parameter often has been a source of frustration for me, especially because its function is not well-defined in the template doc. And this is quite diametral to WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, which tells us that the infobox presents key facts that are further elaborated in the article text (with obvious exceptions such as ISO-codes or geographical coordinates that better are only mentioned in the infobox). Something not that is not even well-defined cannot be a key fact.
There are many ways to look at ethnic groups being related. The most obvious one is on the same level as the definition of ethnicity itself, which primarily entails cultural aspects. Shared histories or shared linguistic/genetic affiliations are less obvious and more secondary to this question. The historical Frisians contributed to Anglo-Saxon ethnogenesis which is also visible in the close linguistic link between Old Frisian and Old English. But is this how modern ethnography perceives the contemporary Saterfrisians? Also, relevant sources ideally should depart from the Saterfrisian angle; if a source about the English people lists Frisians among the ethnic groups that are "related" to the former, that's of course fine, but I'd prefer sources that talk about Frisians (and especially Saterland Frisians) in the first place. –Austronesier (talk) 20:26, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Given the fact that none of the sources refer specifically to Saterland Frisians, I don't think the sources legitimise the current format of the page, I'll revert. Alssa1 (talk) 14:17, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
^Wolfram Euler: Das Westgermanische von der Herausbildung im 3. bis zur Aufgliederung im 7. Jahrhundert – Analyse und Rekonstruktion. Verlag Inspiration Un Limited 2013, ISBN 978-3-9812110-7-8, S. 22–23.
