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Morality

Morality is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness", "appropriateness" or "rightness".

Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics, which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology, and normative ethics, which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."

Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards and/or principles.

Ethics
Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality'... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics, sometimes distinguish between ethics and morality.

Philosopher Simon Blackburn writes that "Although the morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant, based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for the more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue, and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations."

Descriptive and normative
In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores from a society that provides these codes of conduct in which it applies and is accepted by an individual. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to that which is considered right or wrong. Descriptive ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense.

In its normative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything) is actually right or wrong, which may be independent of the values or mores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense.

Realism and anti-realism
Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics) are broadly divided into two classes:
 * Moral realism is the class of theories which hold that there are true moral statements that report objective moral facts. For example, while they might concede that forces of social conformity significantly shape individuals' "moral" decisions, they deny that those cultural norms and customs define morally right behavior. This may be the philosophical view propounded by ethical naturalists, but not all moral realists accept that position (e.g. ethical non-naturalists).
 * Moral anti-realism, on the other hand, holds that moral statements either fail or do not even attempt to report objective moral facts. Instead, they hold that moral sentences are either categorically false claims of objective moral facts (error theory); claims about subjective attitudes rather than objective facts (ethical subjectivism); or else do not attempt to describe the world at all but rather something else, like an expression of an emotion or the issuance of a command (non-cognitivism).

Some forms of non-cognitivism and ethical subjectivism, while considered anti-realist in the robust sense used here, are considered realist in the sense synonymous with moral universalism. For example, universal prescriptivism is a universalist form of non-cognitivism which claims that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives, and divine command theory and ideal observer theory are universalist forms of ethical subjectivism which claim that morality is derived from the edicts of a god or the hypothetical decrees of a perfectly rational being, respectively.

Morality with practical reasoning
Practical reason is necessary for the moral agency but it is not a sufficient condition for moral agency. Real life issues that need solutions do need both rationality and emotion to be sufficiently moral. One uses rationality as a pathway to the ultimate decision, but the environment and emotions towards the environment at the moment must be a factor for the result to be truly moral, as morality is subject to culture. Something can only be morally acceptable if the culture as a whole has accepted this to be true. Both practical reason and relevant emotional factors are acknowledged as significant in determining the morality of a decision.

Tribal and territorial
Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality. She characterizes the latter as predominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines a person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant's 'categorical imperative' and Geisler's graded absolutism. Green relates the development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status.

In-group and out-group
Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people depending on their membership of an "in-group" (the individual and those they believe to be of the same group) or an "out-group" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules). Some biologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe this in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because it enhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simple computational models of evolution. In simulations this discrimination can result in both unexpected cooperation towards the in-group and irrational hostility towards the out-group. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falger have argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of this in-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted that experimental observation indicating an in-group criterion provides one moral foundation substantially used by conservatives, but far less so by liberals.

In-group preference is also helpful at the individual level for the passing on of one's genes. For example, a mother who favors her own children more highly than the children of other people will give greater resources to her children than she will to strangers', thus heightening her children's chances of survival and her own gene's chances of being perpetuated. Due to this, within a population, there is substantial selection pressure exerted toward this kind of self-interest, such that eventually, all parents wind up favoring their own children (the in-group) over other children (the out-group).

Comparing cultures
Peterson and Seligman approach the anthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areas and across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues have prevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues they identified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity; justice; temperance; and transcendence. Each of these include several divisions. For instance humanity includes love, kindness, and social intelligence.

Still, others theorize that morality is not always absolute, contending that moral issues often differ along cultural lines. A 2014 PEW research study among several nations illuminates significant cultural differences among issues commonly related to morality, including divorce, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, gambling, abortion, alcohol use, contraceptive use, and premarital sex. Each of the 40 countries in this study has a range of percentages according to what percentage of each country believes the common moral issues are acceptable, unacceptable, or not moral issues at all. Each percentage regarding the significance of the moral issue varies greatly on the culture in which the moral issue is presented.

Advocates of a theory known as moral relativism subscribe to the notion that moral virtues are right or wrong only within the context of a certain standpoint (e.g., cultural community). In other words, what is morally acceptable in one culture may be taboo in another. They further contend that no moral virtue can objectively be proven right or wrong Critics of moral relativism point to historical atrocities such as infanticide, slavery, or genocide as counter arguments, noting the difficulty in accepting these actions simply through cultural lenses.

Fons Trompenaars, author of Did the Pedestrian Die?, tested members of different cultures with various moral dilemmas. One of these was whether the driver of a car would have his friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protect the driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting a pedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quite different expectations, from none to definite.

Anthropologists from Oxford's Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (part of the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography) analysed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources and discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect others' property.

Evolution
The development of modern morality is a process closely tied to sociocultural evolution. Some evolutionary biologists, particularly sociobiologists, believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (although to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors.

On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and biologically driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation. Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, although sophisticated and complex relative to the moralities of other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness.

On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction (inclusive fitness). Examples: the maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect, where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding.

The phenomenon of reciprocity in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return the favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984)

Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and a sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social politics prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management.

Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities.

Psychology

In modern moral psychology, morality is sometimes considered to change through personal development. Several psychologists have produced theories on the development of morals, usually going through stages of different morals. Lawrence Kohlberg, Jean Piaget, and Elliot Turiel have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages or domains. In the Ethics of care approach established by Carol Gilligan, moral development occurs in the context of caring, mutually responsive relationships which are based on interdependence, particularly in parenting but also in social relationships generally. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathan Haidt emphasize social and emotional development based on biology, such as empathy. Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordechai Nisan, see moral commitment as arising from the development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Of historical interest in psychology are the theories of psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud, who believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance. Theories of moral development therefore tend to regard it as positive moral development: the higher stages are morally higher, though this, naturally, involves a circular argument. The higher stages are better because they are higher, but the better higher because they are better.

As an alternative to viewing morality as an individual trait, some sociologists as well as social- and discursive psychologists have taken upon themselves to study the in-vivo aspects of morality by examining how persons conduct themselves in social interaction.

A new study analyses the common perception of a decline in morality in societies worldwide and throughout history. Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert present a series of studies indicating that the perception of moral decline is an illusion and easily produced, with implications for misallocation of resources, underuse of social support, and social influence. To begin with, the authors demonstrate that people in no less than 60 nations hold the belief that morality is deteriorating continuously, and this conviction has been present for the last 70 years. Subsequently, they indicate that people ascribe this decay to the declining morality of individuals as they age and the succeeding generations. Thirdly, the authors demonstrate that people's evaluations of the morality of their peers have not decreased over time, indicating that the belief in moral decline is an illusion. Lastly, the authors explain a basic psychological mechanism that uses two well-established phenomena (distorted exposure to information and distorted memory of information) to cause the illusion of moral decline. The authors present studies that validate some of the predictions about the circumstances in which the perception of moral decline is attenuated, eliminated, or reversed (e.g., when participants are asked about the morality of people closest to them or people who lived before they were born).

Moral cognition
Moral cognition refers to cognitive processes implicated in moral judgment and decision making, and moral action. It consists of several domain-general cognitive processes, ranging from perception of a morally salient stimulus to reasoning when faced with a moral dilemma. While it is important to mention that there is not a single cognitive faculty dedicated exclusively to moral cognition, characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes to moral behavior is a critical scientific endeavor to understand how morality works and how it can be improved.

Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists investigate the inputs to these cognitive processes and their interactions, as well as how these contribute to moral behavior by running controlled experiments. In these experiments putatively moral versus nonmoral stimuli are compared to each other, while controlling for other variables such as content or working memory load. Often, the differential neural response to specifically moral statements or scenes, are examined using functional neuroimaging experiments.

Critically, the specific cognitive processes that are involved depend on the prototypical situation that a person encounters. For instance, while situations that require an active decision on a moral dilemma may require active reasoning, an immediate reaction to a shocking moral violation may involve quick, affect-laden processes. Nonetheless, certain cognitive skills such as being able to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions to oneself, and others is a common feature of a broad range of prototypical situations. In line with this, a meta-analysis found overlapping activity between moral emotion and moral reasoning tasks, suggesting a shared neural network for both tasks. The results of this meta-analysis, however, also demonstrated that the processing of moral input is affected by task demands.

Regarding the issues of morality in video games, some scholars believe that because players appear in video games as actors, they maintain a distance between their sense of self and the role of the game in terms of imagination. Therefore, the decision-making and moral behavior of players in the game are not representing player's Moral dogma.

It has been recently found that moral judgment consists in concurrent evaluations of three different components that align with precepts from three dominant moral theories (virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism): the character of a person (Agent-component, A); their actions (Deed-component, D); and the consequences brought about in the situation (Consequences-component, C). This, implies that various inputs of the situation a person encounters affect moral cognition.

Jonathan Haidt distinguishes between two types of moral cognition: moral intuition and moral reasoning. Moral intuition involves the fast, automatic, and affective processes that result in an evaluative feeling of good-bad or like-dislike, without awareness of going through any steps. Conversely, moral reasoning does involve conscious mental activity to reach a moral judgment. Moral reasoning is controlled and less affective than moral intuition. When making moral judgments, humans perform moral reasoning to support their initial intuitive feeling. However, there are three ways humans can override their immediate intuitive response. The first way is conscious verbal reasoning (for example, examining costs and benefits). The second way is reframing a situation to see a new perspective or consequence, which triggers a different intuition. Finally, one can talk to other people which illuminates new arguments. In fact, interacting with other people is the cause of most moral change.

Neuroscience
The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by multiple quantitative large-scale meta-analyses of the brain activity changes reported in the moral neuroscience literature. The neural network underlying moral decisions overlaps with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy). This supports the notion that moral reasoning is related to both seeing things from other persons' points of view and to grasping others' feelings. These results provide evidence that the neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global (i.e., there might be no such things as a "moral module" in the human brain) and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems.

Cognitive neuroscientist Jean Decety thinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experience what another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in the evolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. The inability to feel empathy is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathy, and this would appear to lend support to Decety's view. Recently, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, social neuroscience, and psychopathy, Jean Decety argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary.

Brain areas
An essential, shared component of moral judgment involves the capacity to detect morally salient content within a given social context. Recent research implicated the salience network in this initial detection of moral content. The salience network responds to behaviorally salient events and may be critical to modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes.

The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a region involved in valuation, while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area, a region that plays a key role in understanding intentions and beliefs.

Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation, or neurological lesion, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming a moral judgment. According to such investigations, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and non-harms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to the RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. Based on this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and non-harms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as to the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in the case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own.

Similarly, individuals with a lesion of the VMPC judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action.

Genetics
Moral intuitions may have genetic bases. A 2022 study conducted by scholars Michael Zakharin and Timothy C. Bates, and published by the European Journal of Personality, found that moral foundations have significant genetic bases. Another study, conducted by Smith and Hatemi, similarly found significant evidence in support of moral heritability by looking at and comparing the answers of moral dilemmas between twins.

Genetics play a role in influencing prosocial behaviors and moral decision-making. Genetics contribute to the development and expression of certain traits and behaviors, including those related to morality. However, it is important to note that while genetics play a role in shaping certain aspects of moral behavior, morality itself is a multifaceted concept that encompasses cultural, societal, and personal influences as well.

Politics
If morality is the answer to the question 'how ought we to live' at the individual level, politics can be seen as addressing the same question at the social level, though the political sphere raises additional problems and challenges. It is therefore unsurprising that evidence has been found of a relationship between attitudes in morality and politics. Moral foundations theory, authored by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, has been used to study the differences between liberals and conservatives, in this regard. Haidt found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and the remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest. Haidt also hypothesizes that the origin of this division in the United States can be traced to geo-historical factors, with conservatism strongest in closely knit, ethnically homogeneous communities, in contrast to port-cities, where the cultural mix is greater, thus requiring more liberalism.

Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs and is often codified to regulate behavior within a culture or community. Various defined actions come to be called moral or immoral. Individuals who choose moral action are popularly held to possess "moral fiber", whereas those who indulge in immoral behavior may be labeled as socially degenerate. The continued existence of a group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community (a positive example would be the function of Cistercian reform in reviving monasticism; a negative example would be the role of the Dowager Empress in the subjugation of China to European interests). Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that a nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of its content.

Political morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. The Sentience Institute, co-founded by Jacy Reese Anthis, analyzes the trajectory of moral progress in society via the framework of an expanding moral circle. Noam Chomsky states that ... if we adopt the principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others—more stringent ones, in fact—plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil.

In fact, one of them, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow.

Religion
Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption". According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and a religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides."

Positions
Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious value-systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks such as consequentialism, freethought, humanism, utilitarianism, and others. There are many types of religious value-systems. Modern monotheistic religions, such as Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and to a certain degree others such as Sikhism and Zoroastrianism, define right and wrong by the laws and rules as set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted by religious leaders within each respective faith. Other religions spanning pantheistic to nontheistic tend to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism, the intention of the individual and the circumstances should be accounted for in the form of merit, to determine if an action is termed right or wrong. Barbara Stoler Miller points out a further disparity between the values of religious traditions, stating that in Hinduism, "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism, this relativity of values and obligations is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand".

Religions provide different ways of dealing with moral dilemmas. For example, Hinduism lacks any absolute prohibition on killing, recognizing that it "may be inevitable and indeed necessary" in certain circumstances. Monotheistic traditions view certain acts - such as abortion or divorce - in more absolute terms. Religion is not always positively associated with morality. Philosopher David Hume stated that "the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere."

Religious value-systems can be used to justify acts that are contrary to general contemporary morality, such as massacres, misogyny and slavery. For example, Simon Blackburn states that "apologists for Hinduism defend or explain away its involvement with the caste system, and apologists for Islam defend or explain away its harsh penal code or its attitude to women and infidels". In regard to Christianity, he states that the "Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women", and notes morally-suspect themes in the Bible's New Testament as well. Elizabeth Anderson likewise holds that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Christian apologists address Blackburn's viewpoints and construe that Jewish laws in the Hebrew Bible showed the evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing slavery and treating slaves as persons and not as property. Humanists like Paul Kurtz believe that we can identify moral values across cultures, even if we do not appeal to a supernatural or universalist understanding of principles – values including integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness. These values can be resources for finding common ground between believers and nonbelievers.

Empirical analyses
Several studies have been conducted on the empirics of morality in various countries, and the overall relationship between faith and crime is unclear. A 2001 review of studies on this topic found "The existing evidence surrounding the effect of religion on crime is varied, contested, and inconclusive, and currently, no persuasive answer exists as to the empirical relationship between religion and crime." Phil Zuckerman's 2008 book, Society without God, based on studies conducted during 14 months in Scandinavia in 2005–2006, notes that Denmark and Sweden, "which are probably the least religious countries in the world, and possibly in the history of the world", enjoy "among the lowest violent crime rates in the world [and] the lowest levels of corruption in the world".

Dozens of studies have been conducted on this topic since the twentieth century. A 2005 study by Gregory S. Paul published in the Journal of Religion and Society stated that, "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies," and "In all secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows" with the exceptions being the United States (with a high religiosity level) and "theistic" Portugal. In a response, Gary Jensen builds on and refines Paul's study. he concludes that a "complex relationship" exists between religiosity and homicide "with some dimensions of religiosity encouraging homicide and other dimensions discouraging it". In April 2012, the results of a study which tested their subjects' pro-social sentiments were published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal in which non-religious people had higher scores showing that they were more motivated by their own compassion to perform pro-social behaviors. Religious people were found to be less motivated by compassion to be charitable than by an inner sense of moral obligation.

title: Morality


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User talk:Edolin

Seen you Recent Changes here for a while. Sorry I didn't greet you earlier, but I usually wait until a user (or as in this case somebody else) creates his or her user page. BTW I like what you have done to the place. Welcome aboard! Cheers. --maveric149

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:Edolin


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Talk:Czar

Transferred here from article text for discussion:

The word however comes from latin Caesar, after this name became a synonym for commander, leader. It is supposed that it reached russian language through gothic kaisar, which would have produced in german the quite similar kaiser (another name for a Russian king, also may ba a branch of the Russian Royal family)and in russian the contracted form k'sar, later turned into a smoother, yet still similar pronunciation. It has to be remembered that latin classical pronunciation for caesar is not similar to the english one, being letter C read as K (as in kid), so it sounded like "kai-sahr".

The root itself could be not originally latin: on Rosetta stone there is a hieroglyphic cartouche that has been transcripted as k-e-s-r-s and supposed as related to the latin sense. More interesting, it has been said that latin caesar could be a derivation of persian Kasrá=Chosroës and its plural form Akásirah (the title of four great dynasties of Persian Kings), through Ahasuerus or Khusrau (Cyrus the Great); eventual relationships with kisri and kasra have been seen as less meaningful, also because mostly referred to later times (Sassanides). Another hypothesis of possible derivation from Xerses (grandson of Cyrus the Great) has been advanced, but with more doubts. Most of this relates to "Caesar" rather than the word in the title, while I don't think any of it works for czar/tsar: for one thing, there's no uniform pattern of descent of pronunciation of Latin consonants (cf. English, French, Italian forms, which to my ear have more similarity with tsar than kaiser); for another, I don't see why Bulgarians should have taken their cue from Goths or Germans when adopting the term 650 years before Ivan IV.

You seem to be implying throughout that "czar" is somehow the earlier form, when I know of no evidence of any language adopting that form prior to the cyrillic form commonly rendered nowadays as "tsar", still less pronouncing it "ksar/kzar" (which again makes no sense in any language I know). All I ask is supporting evidence. Speculation is fine, but it shouldn't be the main content of an article.

To my mind, if there's one thing that links Rome, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia it must surely be Byzantium: can anyone shed light on the evolution of the term through Greek? User:David Parker

At least encyclopedia.com holds the same opinion as the original author above. See http://www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/02123.html

My german encyclopedia Das moderne Lexikon also begins its article on Kaiser as well as Zar with: von lat.: Caesar.

This is no proof, but strong indication, that the above theories are at least in wide use. JeLuF You're missing the point, JeLuF: there's no dispute that Kaiser and tsar derive from Caesar or that czar is an attempt to render the same word as tsar. The issue is, where does czar come from, and does it have any claim to legitimacy as a transliteration of the cyrillic form otherwise rendered (correctly, in my view) as tsar.

There's no evidence in what you've cited to support or to refute either view above. I think you're falling into the same trap as the earlier contributor of assuming (because it has a "c", and a "z" whose usual English pronunciation sounds - we assume - like the "s" in Caesar) that the word derives from the same original source as tsar when there's nothing to suggest it's any more than a poor rendition of the latter (which is how it's pronounced, not "kzar").

My point remains that "czar" represents no valid transliteration of the cyrillic form of tsar in any language I know of. I'd originally suggested it was from the Polish, but a contributor pointed out quite correctly that it doesn't work in Polish either: my suspicion remains that it's just an obsolete English rendition predating consistent transliteration (perhaps indeed inspired by the Polish car, with the "z" added to differentiate it from English "car" (pron kar). User:David Parker

Whether or not "czar" is a correct transliteration or not, it IS the most used form in English; the dictionary redirects you to it from "tsar", and a Google search on 'English' language pages gives twice as much hits for "czar". Therefore, per Naming conventions, we should put the article from tsar at czar and redirect tsar to it. Wikipedia should not try to change the dictionary. I will make the change if there are no objections. Jeronimo 00:10 Jul 30, 2002 (PDT)

I don't know -- My personal experience is the Czar is used more often. I did a Google search on this only looking at English language webpages and this is what I found:

1) tzar+Russia got 4,580 results 2) tsar+Russia got 60,400 results 3) czar+Russia got 51,400 results
 * tzar got 45,900 results
 * tsar got 153,000 results
 * czar got 256,000 results

Take this info or leave it, but I vote for Czar (which appears to be the most widely used). --mav

 * Maybe I was unclear, but that was exactly my point... Czar is the place were everything should be. Jeronimo

Hey idiots, Czar is WRONG, open open a book it is TSAR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:984:8100:130:3CBB:A3E5:675D:54C3 (talk) 01:30, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

-- what dictionary redirects from Tsar to Czar? - I vote change it to Tsar. It is the more accurate transliteration, and is the preferred form in British English. Czar may be the preferred form in American English, and that is probably why Google shows it as more common (the Internet is rather US-centric); but where there is this kind of British/English spelling difference of a foreign word, and one spelling is closer to the original language, we should use the spelling closer to the original (be that spelling British or American). -- Anonymoues

 * I vote for Tsar, if only because I speak Russian and find Czar to be an annoying source of mispronunciation. -Smack 18:12, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Tsar which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 14:29, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Czar


text:
Talk:Romance languages

Portuguese: first, or second language for Africans?
The article says Portuguese "is spoken as a first language by perhaps 30 million residents of that continent, most of them second-language speakers." It looks like a contradiction to me. Kotabatubara (talk) 22:58, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * My bad. I replaced first language with primary language, which doesn't imply native. A quick search on the internet makes me think that the figures for Portuguese speakers in Africa are not reliable, and in any case they're growing with every year. --Jotamar (talk) 06:17, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi,
 * Is appears now that they are native speakers now.
 * Native Dark Blue Circle in Luanda, Angola per sources:
 * Angola in particular - Portuguese is the native language of almost half the country.
 * Link 1:
 * https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-languages-are-spoken-in-angola.html#:~:text=The%20official%20language%20of%20Angola,most%20spoken%20language%20of%20Angola.
 * " According to a 2014 study, nearly 71% of the population of Angola speak Portuguese. The language is the mother tongue of 39% of the population of the country while many more speak it as a second language. Portuguese is also the most spoken and sometimes the only language that is spoken by younger Angolans. Portuguese speakers are more common in the urban areas of Angola where 85% of the population converse in Portuguese. "
 * Link 2:
 * Other sources put the number much higher:
 * " The 2016 CIA World Fact Book reports that 12.3 million, or 47% of the population, speaks Portuguese as their first language. However, many parents raise their children to speak only Portuguese"
 * Angolan Portuguese
 * https://www.britannica.com/place/Angola
 * "Portuguese is often the only language spoken in Luanda and in much of the interior extending beyond the city and in other parts of the country"
 * Basically the whole coast only uses Portuguese, with native languages being used in land. IntelloFR (talk) 01:06, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[ reply]
 * Have Kikongo and Umbundu really given way to Portuguese on the coast? I would think those two languages at least would be robust. — kwami (talk) 02:14, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * 2. Native dark blue circles in Libreville Gabon and Younde, Cameroon, and Lafayette LA.
 * Libreville, Gabon:
 * "It has been noted that French is increasingly be-coming the mother tongue and the initial language of the younger generations in urban Gabon (Pambou, 1998:147; Ndinga-Koumba-Binza, 2005a:72 & 2005b:141; Idiata, 2008:85; cf. Blanchon, 1994). In fact, studies by Ntong Amvame (1984), Bouché (1998), Mbondzi (1998), Ompoussa (1998), Itembo (1999) and Mouloungui Nguimbyt (2002) have shown that pupils of various ages and grades at schools learn French more efficiently than any other Gabonese language. Idiata (2008:200 & 2009:126) has also noted that some pupils do not speak any of the Gabonese native languages at all. One of the reasons for this phenomenon (i.e. French being the mother tongue of younger generations) is cross-ethnic marriages.
 * In fact, many couples of mixed ethnicity prefer French rather than Gabonese native languages as the code for better communication within the family. Children from a family of this kind have no choice but to acquire French as their first language. The children learn the language at home from the parents before they even get to school, therefore lessening the chances of learning any of the Gabonese native languages.
 * This urbanisation is also to be considered as a cause for French being the initial language of Gabonese younger generations. In fact, “in certain urban contexts there is a large degree of learning by contact at an early age” (Lafage, 1993:216)."
 * While this does not give a specific number, it states clearly that language transmission in the urban areas is French to French - making French natively spoken per evidence in Gabon.
 * 2. Younde, Cameroon:
 * In Cameroon, per research: "French usage twenty years ago and in 2004 show a loss of the LWDs, which goes along with a loss of Cameroonian languages in urban areas. Bitjaa Kody has further found that the national languages are disappearing even in endogamic households where family members speak the same national language. Francophone adults used French in 42 percent of the domestic communications which were studied, whereas the young (10–17 years old) used French in 70 percent of the communication. In addition 32 percent of the young between ten and seventeen years old interviewed in Yaounde did not know any national language and had French as their L1 (Bitjaa Kody 2001a). There is a clear change in language use from the parent generation to the generation of their children (Bitjaa Kody 2005:95). As a result, there will be even less national language speakers in future, since the future parent generation will not be able to transmit a Cameroonian language to their children."
 * Additionally here, this map shows Douala at 91% Francophone: https://translatorswithoutborders.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Cameroon-Language-Map-option-2.png
 * This again does not give a specific number, but points to the fact that in urban Cameroon, language transmission is French to French - showing French is spoken natively.
 * 3. Lafayette, Louisiana :
 * The history of French in Louisiana has not allowed the vast majority of francophones the opportunity to learn to read and write French. CODOFIL states, In the 1990 census, approximately 250,000 Louisianians responded that French was the language they spoke at home. The 2000 census showed 198,784 Louisiana francophones over the age of 5, including 4,470 who speak Creole French. Programs such as the Centre de la francophonie des Amériques and CODOFIL continue to identify future avenues of research and encourage francophone to produce knowledge that will lay the foundations for the future.
 * "This generation of new speakers, often younger than 40, represents a generational shift that developed after home transmission of French faded in the mid to late 20th century. Their grandparents likely spoke French as a first language, "
 * https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/louisiana/2023/05/30/sustainability-and-economic-developments-of-the-french-language-in-louisiana/70244915007/
 * https://www.theadvocate.com/curious_louisiana/curious-louisiana-how-many-people-speak-cajun-french-in-our-state/article_947551b6-a982-11ed-b305-d7c4959e9102.html
 * https://www.krvs.org/2023-05-30/new-speakers-of-french-in-louisiana-continuing-a-legacy
 * @Kwamikagami IntelloFR (talk) 03:29, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Kotabatubara @Jotamar IntelloFR (talk) 03:30, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Salvabl @Kwamikagami Open to your thoughts here IntelloFR (talk) 16:04, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm out of towwn and haven't had an opportunity to look into this further. — kwami (talk) 23:47, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Counting and listing Romance languages in the lead
This archived discussion is still relevant Erinius (talk) 23:00, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

 * Thought I'd revisit this now that the Dalby URL no longer works (at least it's available on the Internet Archive).
 * Something I think worth mentioning is that several reliable sources (The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages and The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages) I've found just don't even attempt a comprehensive listing or counting of Romance languages. The Encyclopedia Britannica's article on the Romance languages doesn't attempt a comprehensive list either, although it does offer a rather unsatisfactory map of the Romance languages in Europe.
 * Points made by and  are still relevant - the current "list" and paragraph above still have their problems. They can still mislead readers into thinking they're a complete listing of all Romance languages, they don't go far enough in explaining the Romance dialect continuum for the unaware reader, and they can give the impression that mutual intelligibility is an unproblematic criterion for establishing different languages. Also, they can give the impression that the largely "geohistoric" language groups used (ie Ibero-Romance) are valid, well-established and uncontroversial clades with no overlap between them.
 * Also, the current list in the article's lead isn't even the same as Dalby's list.
 * A whole "Languages" section may be too ambitious for now, but it might be possible to fix up this vague list of Romance language areas in the lead and its associated paragraph and avoid misleading any uninformed readers. Erinius (talk) 23:40, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Erinius, bullseye. The editors of the CUP and OUP works you mention are serious Romance linguists who know their stuff, and (thus) are not going to engage in the fool's errand of attempting to count Romance languages. Illustrated explanation of why not could fill a thick tome, but just clicking on Occitan in Dalby's typological list eventually leads to the crux of the impasse:
 * "...there is no single written standard language called "Occitan" [...] "Occitan is fundamentally defined by its dialects, rather than being a unitary language. That point is very conflictual in Southern France, as many people do not recognize Occitan as a real language and think that the next defined "dialects" are languages." [...] every settlement technically has its own dialect, with the whole of Occitania forming a classic dialect continuum that changes gradually along any path from one side to the other."
 * The same can be said of the subtypes listed that haven't been subjected to what someone once called "the dead hand of standardization" -- and note even with that, the odd classification French/Oïl languages, i.e. highly engineered national standard along with autochthonous local "dialects" (in the terminology adopted for Occitan).
 * As you say, the list is very misleading as it is, in more than one way. But it could be salvaged as layered typologies with some judicious editing and the appropriately informative text, making it clear that the list is not of "languages" but of types, all of which exist in varieties, such as Gallo-Romance > Oïl languages > Picard (> Rouchi, etc.). Oh, and drop, explaining why, the notion that Romance languages can be counted. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:15, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * A "Languages" section is not that hard to create. As a first emergency step, just move the final paragraph of the lede down to a section of its own. The section "Samples" also needs to be moved down.
 * But: I've just intended to do that and scrolled down to find a proper place, down and down and down...the page is endlessly long! The section "Classification" has 40k of code (the corresponding "main article" only 30k!), "Sound changes" has 60k! The first is a classic case of content forking, and the second one is a highly notable topic of its own ("Phonological history of the Romance languages"). Let's put this into a more readable shape. –Austronesier (talk) 20:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There are some big swaths of content that are just unsourced (including in the "Classification" section), possibly misleading and/or largely irrelevant - I'm hoping none of you would object to them being deleted. Likewise the "samples" section seems to be just a vague listing of as many Romance languages as possible, alongside translations of an example sentence. It's possible that one or two of the translations for a language with relatively few speakers is totally inaccurate, but since none of them are sourced, who would know?
 * I agree with you that a simple "Languages" section would be a good idea, and I think it would make the most sense to put it right above "Classification". Erinius (talk) 21:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh and of course I agree that much of "Classification" should be transferred to the subject's main article. As for "Sound changes", there is already a main article "... to Proto-Romance" and the related article on Vulgar Latin, although I think a lot of these sound changes would take place a little after "proto-Romance". Erinius (talk) 21:30, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I just did a preliminary rewrite of the paragraph in question - I'd appreciate further changes to phrasing, since I really wasn't sure how to explain things best. Also, IIRC, the Encyclopedia Britannica article, and the "Classifications" chapter of The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages, explain why counting the Romance languages is impossible, a bit about how the whole language vs dialect thing is based on social factors as well as purely linguistic ones, and how a lot of somewhat medium-level classifications (ie Ibero-Romance) are largely geographical. Erinius (talk) 23:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Erinius, pressed for time just now, but I've made one little tweak, from various languages to numerous languages, to open the way for what's to come. I think you've done an excellent job of editing. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 01:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * "One, two, three, many". might be interested in this. 04:28, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Content to remove
While a lot of the "Classification" section should be transferred to the corresponding main article, and most of "Sound Changes" should also go in a separate article, there's a lot of content on this page that I think should be removed entirely because it's either totally unsourced (and possibly misleading) or totally irrelevant to this article's scope. I don't want to start deleting things en masse, and I can see reasonable arguments being made in favor of keeping some of these things, so I'll just make a list here of everything I think should be purged from the article: My current mood is that we should delete first and, if citations show that certain content actually should be included, restore later. I'd appreciate any feedback. Erinius (talk) 23:42, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * the "Samples" section - Totally unsourced, might not be entirely relevant for this article, possible that one or two of the smaller languages have really unnatural or inaccurate translations (who would know since it isn't sourced), and the "Vulgar Latin" example seems really reconstructed-y
 * Within "Classification":
 * Within "Proposed Divisions"
 * The giant table showing verb conjugations in different languages, supposedly ordered from conservative to innovative - unsourced which leaves the door open to possible errors, not very relevant for a classification of the Romance langs, selection of languages may be questionable, the relative ordering of languages in relation to each other as more/less innovatory may also be questionable and seems OR-y. Selection of verb conjugations is arbitrary, and the table falsely presents each language's verb forms as largely mapping onto the others' one-to-one
 * The "conservative" vs "innovatory" bullet point - neither of its sources actually establish conservative vs innovatory as a widely-used way of classifying different Romance languages (sorry, Dante!)
 * Three consecutive paragraphs beginning with "The usual solution to these issues...", "Probably a more accurate description..." and "This would explain why some of the "northwest" features..." - unreferenced and misleading
 * " Outcome of stressed Classical Latin vowels in dialects of southern Italy, Sardinia and Corsica" - It's likely that all the info in that table is accurate and that it's compiled from one or more good sources - but the question marks on the reflexes for Latin /au/ and the parentheses and the lack of citations make me inclined to delete it
 * Gallo-Romance languages - not particularly relevant for a very high-level classification of Romance dialects, and uncited
 * Conlangs - Not sure how they're relevant to this page
 * "Writing systems" - "Romance orthographies" actually is a coherent topic (which surprised me - Encyclopedia Britannica article does include a section on orthographies, and the Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages has a chapter on writing systems as well) - but this section doesn't need to be as long as it currently is - it certainly doesn't need to include every consonant digraph and trigraph
 * Vocabulary comparison - the big table feels OR-y, while the lexical similarity table could be moved to the "classification" page

 * This seems reasonable; I've a few questions, as I feel the Latin pages are suffering from similar problems of focus / bloat.
 * does WP have a guide or a good model by example of how a language topic should be constructed?
 * or are there other examples; for instance, what topics does Britannica cover in its Romance languages article?
 * is it possible to spin sub-pages off for any of this where the content is decent, eg "writing systems"?
 * In general, these pages seem to fill with changes to linguistic patterns, and other quite technical information, which may interest someone with a deeper interest in linguistics, while the page contents tend to lack thematic discussions or other information which would engage someone whose interest was more general, I would say. Jim Killock (talk) 06:47, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Super pressed for time just now, but I'm chiming in -- I hope it's clear in a collegial spirit -- to urge restraint in executing bold deletions and other sweeping changes. Issues in no specific order...
 * Samples. Such a list seems very useful in that most readers probably have no idea of the variegated richness of Romance, find themselves stuck at national languages with maybe Catalan and a couple of others tossed in. The sample list also makes it clear that the little list under Languages is the iceberg's tip only, not exhaustive and not intended to be (notwithstanding the unfortunate Dalby input). Agreed that the list is bloated in terms of variants in subgroups. Emilian, Ladin, Lombard, for example; one will do, readers can turn to specific articles for detail. The main issue in Samples is attribution. That does need resolution, which a concerted effort should be able to reach. ("Vulgar Latin" is pretty much by definition a reconstruction; there's no real need to have it in the list, though.)
 * Writing systems. This is pretty well done, though running text can be made a good bit more concise. Seems to me the question is whether to edit carefully or just present a summary paragraph of high points in this article, and move the detail to an article "Romance language writing systems".
 * Vocabulary comparison. Not just sound shifts, but also lexical selection, and, like Samples, surely informative for the neophyte. A bit of a mess as it is, though. Especially for that readership who can't correct as they read (no, Italian 'man' is not phonetically [ˈwɔmo], but [ˈwɔːmo]), it needs a lot of cleaning up for inconsistencies and inaccuracies in IPA -- though presented as phonetic, many entries look phonemic, or partially one, partially the other. And then there's French, all phonemic, yet said to represent pronunciation. OR doesn't seem to me an issue, as they're all basic dictionary entries easily available to one and all. Definitely check suspect entries for accuracy, though: e.g. is Sicilian 'water' really [ˈakːua], with [u]?
 * Classification. If the main article were a good bit fleshed out, I'd say sure, just a paragraph or two here, with a see... the main article. But the main article is still far from containing even the (à mon avis, useful) Extent of variation table and much else that's informative that is present in this Romance article.
 * Basta. Must run. Once again, I'm just urging let's take it easy. Babies and bathwater sort of thing. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe the first issue is actually the content order. The sections run in an odd order. The most helpful parts are probably "modern status" and "history" which are in the second half of the running order; "name" and "Languages" are also introductory, while "samples" is to my mind background information. I would also give these sections more helpful titles, eg:
 * The Romance Language family [combine 'name' and 'languages']
 * Romance languages today
 * History
 * On 'classification of Romance languages', move this to a separate article and add a simmar to part 1 above
 * Then look at the rest of the page and work out if it needs slimming down / separating out Jim Killock (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the replies! I won't go ahead with any big deletions. Erinius (talk) 22:54, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I completely agree. It is very odd to find the History chapter for example mid-way trough the article. Aristeus01 (talk) 12:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The majority of the content in Classification section has now been moved to the main article. There are still a lot of improvements needed but all the content that should be kept in Romance languages was saved/moved to the appropriate section and the further remaining changes to be made (such as citing the elements of the big table) can be done on the respective page. This page's history has suffered enough for it. Aristeus01 (talk) 16:32, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Sound changes
Looking at the article flow a big chunk in the middle is taken by the "Sound changes" part. The topic is too complex to be compressed in a satisfactory manner. I suggest moving most of its content to "Phonological changes from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance". It would add to the main article's depth, and, at the same time, improve readability of the Romance languages article. Aristeus01 (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

 * Agree, and I'm not sure anyone would disagree. Most of that content should be in a separate article. A word of caution though, not all the changes in the "sound changes" part affected all of Romance, so they wouldn't strictly be sound changes to Proto-Romance. I'm not totally sure what should be done about those. Palatalization which affected all of Romance to some degree, but some varieties more extensively, is already briefly mentioned in Phonological changes... so I think transferring most of this article's Palatalization section there would be fine. I guess we should also see what some of the main contributors to the Proto-Romance articles (namely ) have to say and I'm also curious if other language families have their own sound changes articles. Erinius (talk) 16:15, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You could certainly add a section labelled 'subsequent regional sound changes', or similar, to the article about Classical Latin > Proto-Romance changes. Nicodene (talk) 16:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I ask only that whatever content transferred there be cited to the same standard as the rest of the existing article. Nicodene (talk) 17:00, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A fair request. We should start by adding refences to our current text in question and when we are happy with the result we can look again at all the suggestions and decide on the best way to move forward. Aristeus01 (talk) 18:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that the historical phonology in the Romance languages article is in some ways too detailed -- though in an article of its own, one could argue not nearly detailed enough, starting with too many languages not even mentioned. Before venturing into that quagmire, though, Phonological changes from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance as basis for a revised more complete version would have to be re-named ("moved"), but the present title (reduced to Latin to Romance) and content could provide an excellent first portion if the new article were to be articulated in two phases, either Latin to Romance, then local developments as two large sections, or each feature or set of features in two phases. The present text would need some massaging (e.g. glosses supplied, sources updated, statements such as this cleaned up: In cases where a long vowel precedes a geminate consonant, one of the elements often shortens unpredictably). The other task, deciding on how much historical phonology remains in Romance languages, is a bit thorny, but it can be done. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:21, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Length of the Roman rule and the Romance Languages Map
Proposing to remove the map due to not meeting quality standards of an academic material. General issues:
 * it arbitrarily and subjectively sets the time frames based on the length of rule of Dacia and Britannia, then on a 100 years basis, then on a generic "over 500" with no clear explanation of the relevance of such categorisation.
 * it sets the end of Roman rule on the end date for the Western Roman Empire, misrepresenting the rule in Moesia that lasted until the 6th century under Eastern Roman Empire ( so "over 500 years")
 * it ignores the difference between rule in most of Italian peninsula and the other areas presented as "over 500".
 * it misrepresents the gradual conquest of Iberian peninsula that took over 200 years, possibly misleading the reader to think it happened in two waves.
 * as above it makes no distinction between southern France and the territories added by Julius Caesar.
 * it completely misrepresents North African provinces and timeline, including the geographical extent of Roman border along Libyan coast, and the length of rule in Mauretania Caesariensis ( should be "over 500")

Language specific issues:
 * it mixes representation of national languages with regionally recognised languages, oddly showing only some of the latter.
 * it draws the Jireček Line in an amateurish manner, following neither Jireček's indications nor one of the latter academic proposals.
 * controversially assigns "Romanian" speaking label to Aromanian language (which is very poorly illustrated, by the way).
 * confusingly shows a single clade of languages ("Galloitalic") touching on the subject of clades then refuses to elaborate.

Overall, the map adds little to no value to Romance languages' history and grouping, and poorly illustrates the chronology of the Roman Empire and its limits. Aristeus01 (talk) 10:00, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

 * 1. It is a well known fact that most Romance languages are spoken in lands that were under Roman rule for more than 500 years, so the time frames are not arbitrary in the article's context.
 * 2. Roman rule came to an abrupt end along the Lower Danube with the arrival of the Huns in the first half of the 5th century, and the Romans reclaimed the territory only decades after the fall of the Hunnic Empire.
 * 3. And why is it important?
 * 4. According to the map, the conquest of the Iberian lasted for about two centuries.
 * 5. Why should if both territories were ruled by the Romans over 500 years?
 * 6. We should not ignore that Mauretania Caesarensis was lost to the Vandals in the early 5th century and reconquered by Justinian in the 530s.
 * 7. I think you refer to Gallego and Gallo-Italic when speaking of "regional languages". Actually, the list of Romance languages is still uncertain.
 * 8. New archeological finds continuously move the Jireček Line since it is a theoretical line based on inscriptions.
 * 9. In scholarly literature it is not unusual that Aromanian (or Macedo-Romanian) is presented together with Daco-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian (see, for instance ) Borsoka (talk) 11:13, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand your concerns; however, I feel that the map should be improved, rather than deleted. The original author in Commons is Andras Bereznay (probably no longer active), and it's been modified by commons:User:Liviojavi. Why don't you try to contact them? --Jotamar (talk) 11:18, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * A re-do is definitely in order if the map is to be kept. In addition to sorting out the time questions, there's this concern: "It mixes representation of national languages with regionally recognised languages, oddly showing only some of the latter.", troublesome in multiple ways. If regionally recognised means the usual here, the designation is far more political than linguistic, thus misleading at best, and guaranteed to be less informative than might be helpful to non-expert readers. This is then compounded by the labeling of e.g. French through almost all of France and Italian for most of Italy, with nods to very few local languages or typologies (Galloitalic), not just misleading, but misinforming the non-expert. None of this is easy to deal with in a small map, but attempts at coherent language labeling can be made. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 14:28, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've contacted both editors a few days ago bit so far no reply. It's possible that the map, with improvements, could be useful for the topic but I do not have high hopes the authors will make any changes. Aristeus01 (talk) 09:17, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Historical stages of palatalization
I've been combing through the sources available to me and none seem to mention the 5 stage model presented in the Wikitable at the Palatalization paragraph (see for example: Palatalizations in the Romance Languages by Daniel Recasens - Oxford Research Encyclopedias site). Could someone with a better knowledge of the topic confirm this is not OR? Aristeus01 (talk) 16:23, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

 * It's not, or not necessarily, OR, but it could use some sourcing, even if as basic as Boyd-Bowman's From Latin to Romance in sound charts. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:02, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Decided to scan through From Latin to Romance in sound charts and I'll note here where the changes in question are mentioned - the palatalizations in that chart are mentioned in rules 5 (CA-, GA-, pp. 28-31), 6 (k-/g- before e/i/j, pp. 32-34), 18 (yod, gj-/dj-, gi/ge, these consonants all merging as yod, p. 65), 19 (intervocalic yod/-gj-/-dj-/-gi-/-ge-, merged as yod, p. 68), 22 (-lj-, p. 77), 26 (-gn- and nj-, p. 89), 32 (p/r/s/m/b/v before j, p. 106), and 40 (tj, p. 129). Also there are sections on the development of the Spanish and French sibilants.
 * I haven't read through the notes on each palatalizing environment, so I can't say for sure whether or not they support the model presented there. Erinius (talk) 22:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Guess I should add - I accessed it through HathiTrust - url here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112058502060&seq=7 The scan is NOT perfect, the left edges of some pages have been cut off Erinius (talk) 10:26, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * @Barefoot through the chollas and @Erinius, thank you for the source and indications! I added a few refs from it, will add more as time permits. I'm still of the opinion the 5 stage model might need to be part of a larger conversation on timeline and phases of palatalization, but that would probably be better to do after moving the paragraph. Aristeus01 (talk) 11:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I also have been reading about the outcomes of palatalizations. I just corrected a blatant error (this article formerly indicated that Sardinian did not palatalize kj and gj, which is false) but the overall topic seems to have many complex details ("The Early History of Romance Palatalizations", Marcello Barbato 20 June 2022, is another helpful resource that can be accessed via the Wikipedia Library). I think it would be a good idea to split "Palatalization in the Romance languages" out to a separate article so it can get more room for coverage and so that this article can be shortened; does that sound like a good idea?--Urszag (talk) 17:01, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure. It sounds to me like that absolutely has enough coverage and notability to be its own article. Erinius (talk) 00:33, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree. At this stage the paragraph is perhaps too detailed for the article but in an article of its own could and should be expanded considerably. I suggest we keep the first 3 lines and the table as brief description while the body can be moved to the new article. Aristeus01 (talk) 12:18, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea to me. At present it suffers from lack of examples in the table; perhaps those could be included. Also, a decision should be made as to what to do with -NN- and -LL- > /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ and initial PL-, CL-, FL- in Spanish (and a few other languages), and whether to treat historical restructuring and modern allophony together or separately. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:44, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Move completed. Please see Palatalization in the Romance languages. Aristeus01 (talk) 14:20, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Languages Map
@Cush

I feel like we need to modernize the 'Romance Languages in the World Map'. Was there any specific reason you changed it back to the old one?

It is in need of modernization for sure, if we could get one made! IntelloFR (talk) 00:45, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Page should be moved to "Latin Languages"
People refer to "Romance Language" as "Love Language" in modern times, it would be less confusing & more accurate if wemoved the page to "Latin Languages" & replaced all the text of "Romance Language(s)" with "Latin Language(s)". 😎😎PaulGamerBoy360😎😎 (talk) 16:32, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * True enough that the Romance languages are all evolutions of Latin, thus all Romance languages are "Latin, only later" in the words of a well-known Romance linguist. But try googling Romance languages to see what pops up. The term in English is Romance, pretty much parallel to the term in those languages -- langues romanes, lenguas romances/románicas, lingue romanze, etc. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:25, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A Google Books search on books with the phrase "Latin Languages" in their titles returns 59 books for me. Most of their titles refer to "the Greek and Latin Languages", rather than using "Latin Languages" to refer the likes of Italian or Romanian. Most of the rest refer to "the English and Latin Languages". There are a couple of uses of "Neo-Latin Languages", and, yes, a couple of uses of "Latin Languages" with the meaning you have mind. In contrast, a search for books with the phrase "Romance Languages" in their titles yields 128 books.
 * A Google Scholar search for "Latin languages" yields 15,600 results while a search for "Romance languages" yields 251,000. Looking at the first ten results for "Latin languages", in addition, we find:
 * The lexicon of emotion in the neo-Latin languages
 * The Greek and Latin languages in the papyri
 *  A compendium of the comparative grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin languages
 * Zipf and type-token rules for the English, Spanish, Irish and Latin languages
 * The Principles of Sound and Inflexion as Illustrated in the Greek and Latin Languages
 * A hybrid approach for the management of FAQ documents in latin languages
 * Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin: Languages of New Testament Judea
 * A Statistical Survey of College Offerings in the Greek and Latin Languages
 * On the prosodies of the Greek and Latin languages
 * Dictionary of Merchandise: In the English, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish & Latin Languages
 * A look at the next few pages shows a similar mix. So, from the 15,600 results, chop off maybe 60%-80%, where the phrase "Latin languages" isn't being used in the manner in which you're using it.
 * The term "Romance language" is accurate because it is a long-time, well-established phrase with that meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary provides usage examples from as early as 1421, followed by three 18th century examples.
 * I hope this clarifies the situation! Largoplazo (talk) 22:07, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, you have to go to the last book on the first page to find one that isn't over 150 years old! Johnbod (talk)

 * Oppose per Largoplazo. Just not the WP:COMMONNAME at all. Johnbod (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

 * Proposal Withdrawn: per @Largoplazo 😎😎PaulGamerBoy360😎😎 (talk) 14:32, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

"Latin languages" should be removed from the opening sentence of the lede. Having it there in bold font creates the misleading impression that this alternative term could be of more than just very marginal usage. This version by User:Barefoot through the chollas has a much better opening sentence. –Austronesier (talk) 20:09, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, "Latin languages" does redirect here, usefully I think, so if mentioned should be in bold. But have a go. Johnbod (talk) 20:57, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems to me that something like this below is a maximally clear opening line. It's mercifully brief; with the possible exception of vernacular (which might be made a link to hover over), easy to understand; it leaves no room for reinforcing the notion that Latin died; there's nothing likely to be misleading or confusing, yet it stretches so as to not avoid the common but unfortunate (for English, at least) Vulgar Latin label. The Romance languages are languages that evolved from vernacular spoken Latin, traditionally labeled Vulgar Latin. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 22:35, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Fine with that. Johnbod (talk) 03:01, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that the redirect (even if it is a quite unlikely search item) justifies a mention of "Latin languages" and "Neo-Latin languages" somewhere in the text. What about moving it down to the section "Name and languages" which among other things covers terminology. This is what I usually do with uncommon alternative names to avoid giving them undue prominence.
 * That would be ideal IMO. Erinius (talk) 19:01, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. That's an excellent solution. IF (ultralarge IF) "Latin languages" belongs here at all, observing that it's an infrequent colloquial label can be mentioned very briefly in Names. Also, although is seems that Tagliavini was happy to call his magnum opus Origini delle lingue neolatine, it's not much used in English, and when it is, it bumps into a quite distinct meaning in the world of scholarship (Neo-Latin). Good opportunities here for text that reduces rather than nourishes conflation, confusion, etc. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:33, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Huge table in "Proposed divisions"
Anyone else who is confused why "Proposed divisions" opens with a huge table illustrating the "extent of variation in development (very conservative to very innovative)"? I guess it's there because in the opening of "Classification and related languages" it says: Some other classifications can involve ranking languages according to the degree of differentiation from Latin.

Ok, some may classify Romance languages according to this criterion, but obivously, this is not the standard way to do it; in general and also in the special case of the Romance languages, languages (or varieties in a dialect continuum) can be classified based on shared synchronic features, shared diachonic paths of development, and speaker perception. So this table is a big distraction from the following parts that present the kind of classification schemes that most readers will expect to find here. Also, measuring the degree of conservativeness/innovativeness produces a ranking, not a classification (unless you cluster the ranking data).

The third bullet point following the table also mentions the conservative vs. innovatory "classification" approach. It's unsourced. At the current state of affairs, I suggest to remove the table as unsourced, undue and monstrous. Or move it down, trim it and provide a source for presenting Romance language data in this way. Austronesier (talk) 09:19, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree the table seems like it doesn't fit at the introduction to "Proposed divisions". If kept, it might be better moved to the end of the preceding section (which says "Some other classifications can involve ranking languages according to the degree of differentiation from Latin"), although it might be better at "Classification of Romance languages". In my opinion, it's a little excessive to include both Spanish and Portuguese, as despite the phonetic differences they are very similar in terms of morphological structure.

 * Speaking of tables, does anyone else agree with me that the "Evolution of stressed vowels in early Romance" table under the "Stressed vowels" header would be better placed on its own line rather than inline? The text to the left of it appears on my browser as a tiny column. --Urszag (talk) 10:38, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It will be just as distracting in the preceding paragraph. Moving it to "Classification of Romance languages" (the lesser fork of our huge section) sounds good once it is sourced and actually presents a classification.
 * As for the latter point, I am still convinced that we need to split the section "Sound changes" out to a standalone article Phonological history of the Romance languages (not sure if a fork already exists). The result of Talk:Romance_languages was a first step, but this article is still exeedingly long and has excessive detail about several sub-topics and sub-sub-topics, e.g. "Outcome of stressed Classical Latin vowels in dialects of southern Italy, Sardinia and Corsica" (super-interesting, but not stuff for a general overview article about the Romance languages). –Austronesier (talk) 18:04, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I had also been thinking about what other spits could be made and I was instead considering making something like "Vowels in Romance languages" into a separate article. Not sure what title would be best ("Vowel changes", "Vowel systems", "Vowel evolution", "Vowel development"?) I feel like a detailed history of all phonological changes in the Romance languages might be too long for one article, whereas this article seems a good place to have a summary of the major phonological changes.--Urszag (talk) 01:23, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

"Romance peoples" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Romance_peoples&redirect=no Romance peoples] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. #prodraxis connect 16:49, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Representation of Classical Latin–Vulgar Latin split in infobox?
I'm trying to figure out what the best way to represent the split between the Classical Latin-derived literary varieties of Latin (i.e. Late Latin, Medieval Latin, Renaissance Latin, Neo-Latin, the Hermeneutic style, etc) and the Vulgar Latin-derived Romance languages in the language family portion of the infobox. Does anyone here have any suggestions? The name used in the Glottolog database is Latinic, if that's worth anything. Arctic Circle System (talk) 09:43, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure we really need to represent that split in this article's infobox in the first place - and as it is, the infobox says the Romance languages are descended from Vulgar rather than Classical Latin. Some of the "ancestor" parameters (the ones which display as "Early Forms") ought to be either removed or put into the "Family" parameters though. Erinius (talk) 00:11, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Erinius Which ones do you think should be moved to families? Old and Vulgar Latin? Regardless, as it currently stands, the family sections of the infoboxes for the various Romance languages currently suggest that they split directly from proto-Latino-Faliscan or something, which isn't the case. I think maybe adding Latin itself to the language family sections would work? It'd show that the Romance languages split via a a branch of Latin well enough, I think. Arctic Circle System (talk) 01:21, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Linguistic classification should not be interpreted as a form of derivation or evolution, it is simply classification. The "Early forms" section demonstrates the potential path of evolution. So whilst the Romance languages are all derived from vulgar Latin, they are not classified as a type of vulgar Latin. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 03:23, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The classification in regards to language families is based on phylogenetic relationships (generally descent from a common ancestor). Saying that Dutch is ultimately derived from proto-Germanic is not the same as saying that it's a type of proto-Germanic. Arctic Circle System (talk) 22:05, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Could I construe your objection being the use of the term Latino-Faliscan as a classification that includes the Romance languages? Jameel the Saluki (talk) 03:01, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Not quite. What I'm saying is that the way the infoboxes are written currently implies that the evolution of the Romance languages into, well, the Romance languages went as follows: Indo-European → Italic → Latino-Faliscan → Romance, as if proto-Romance split directly from Latino-Faliscan. But that's not the case. It's more accurate to say something like this: Indo-European → Italic → Latino-Faliscan → Latin → Romance. Arctic Circle System (talk) 06:18, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * For this article only "Vulgar Latin" really needs to be in "Early Forms" (we certainly don't need to go all the way back to PIE), and I agree that putting "Latin" in the family section below "Latino-Faliscan" would be a good idea. The same goes for articles on individual Romance languages like Spanish language, "Latin" should go between "Latino-Faliscan" and "Romance" in the Families section. Erinius (talk) 22:35, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you're right on that, going back to PIE in those might be a bit much. Old Latin is probably the farthest that's reasonable. But that's beside the point of this discussion. Arctic Circle System (talk) 06:21, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Original research / non-neutral point of view
'The usual solution to these issues is to create various nested subgroups. ... Probably a more accurate description, however ...'

As soon as you have sentences like this, you are already admitting that you are violating the WP:NPOV policy and possibly also the WP:NOR policy. First, you are openly giving undue weight to a certain view which is not 'the usual one'. The usual view (among experts) is precisely the one that Wikipedia is supposed to represent first and foremost; minority opinions, if sufficiently widespread, may be included, but not presented as more accurate than the usual ones. Second, even these minority opinions must come from reliable sources; if the alternative 'more accurate description' happens to be your own and not attributed to any reliable source, you are also engaging in original research. And indeed, the only citation I see at a cursory glance is to some dialect map from a hundred years ago, implying that the text in the article is not the published position of any modern linguist, but the conclusions that a random Wikipedian has drawn from primary source data. This sort of thing has no place on Wikipedia and really ought to be eliminated on sight. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 08:09, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Please, do so, along with all the other problematic things you've pointed out here. God knows this bloated mass of OR could use a trim. Nicodene (talk) 17:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

At the time of the Vulgate or the Glosses?
"In all of the above examples, the words appearing in the fourth century Vulgate are the same words as would have been used in Classical Latin of c. 50 BC. It is likely that some of these words had already disappeared from casual speech by the time of the Glosses; but if so, they may well have been still widely understood, as there is no recorded evidence that the common people of the time had difficulty understanding the language. By the 8th century, the situation was very different."

Something seems wrong here. The passage appears to contrast the 8th century (when the text wasn't understood) with the Glosses (when it was), but the Glosses come from the 8th century. And the Glosses would have been unnecessary if the words really had been still 'widely understood' at the time when the Glosses were written. In that sense, the Glosses themselves are 'recorded evidence that the common people of the time had difficulty understanding the language'. Perhaps what the editor meant was that some of these words had already disappeared from casual speech (but were nevertheless widely understood) by the time of the Vulgate (and not the Glosses)? 62.73.69.121 (talk) 08:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

'Vulgar Latin already had...'
'Vulgar Latin is believed to already have had most of the shared features that distinguish all Romance languages from Classical Latin. These include the almost complete loss of the Latin grammatical case system and its replacement by prepositions, the loss of the comparative inflections, replacement of some verb paradigms by innovations (e.g. the synthetic future gave way to an originally analytic strategy now typically formed by infinitive + evolved present indicative forms of 'have'), the use of articles, and the initial stages of the palatalization of the plosives /k/, /ɡ/, and /t/.'

This may have been true of (very) late 'Vulgar Latin', but the way it is formulated, it sounds as if it had been true already of lower class speech of classical times (the late Republican and the early Imperial periods), which is decidedly not what 'is believed'. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 09:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Charlemagne's role
'During the late 8th century, Charlemagne, holding that "Latin of his age was by classical standards intolerably corrupt", successfully imposed Classical Latin as an artificial written vernacular for Western Europe. Unfortunately, this meant that parishioners could no longer understand the sermons of their priests, forcing the Council of Tours in 813 to issue an edict that priests needed to translate their speeches into the rustica romana lingua, an explicit acknowledgement of the reality of the Romance languages as separate languages from Latin.'

I can't check the source, but this seems wrong - someone should check it. The passage implies that until Charlemagne's unfortunate intervention, comprehensibility had been fine and the 'written vernacular' had been the natural, updated, 'corrupt' Vulgar Latin. This is definitely false; there are many preserved texts in Latin from the two or three centuries preceding Charlemagne's reforms (Bede, Jordanes, Isidore of Seville, Gregory of Tours) and while their language isn't exactly Classical Latin, it does not differ from it so significantly as to change whether they are intelligible or not. If you don't understand Classical Latin, you won't understand them either. They are most certainly not in some kind of Early Romance and a sermon written in their so-called 'Late Latin' would be about as unintelligible to a Romance speaker as one in Classical Latin. Written and official Latin had stopped being 'updated' long before Charlemagne; that was the reason why the 813 edict and the translation of sermons was necessary, not the Carolingian promotion of Classical Latin. Also, Charlemagne couldn't even read, so I suspect the pickiness with respect to varieties of Latin didn't emanate from him personally. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 09:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

No Latin from the 5th–8th centuries
'The critical period between the 5th–10th centuries AD is poorly documented because little or no writing from the chaotic "Dark Ages" of the 5th–8th centuries has survived, and writing after that time was in consciously classicized Medieval Latin.'

Again, this isn't true. We have a lot of 'Late Latin' texts from that time - Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, Gildas, Bede, to take but a few known authors, and there are many anonymous texts as well. And they are all still basically in normal Latin, with only minuscule details distinguishing them from the classical variety - they don't display anything like a natural and gradual transition into Romance. The problem here isn't that there is no surviving writing, the problem is that the written language just didn't reflect the changes taking place in the vernacular. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 10:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Vocabulary Comparison: Catalan-French Lexical Similarity.
Contrary to what is claimed in the article, Ethnologue publishes no data on Catalan-French similarity. You can go to both of their Ethnologue pages if you don't believe me, but I have gone back through the last 15 editions and found no evidence of the 85% figure ever being published. I believe that it is a mistake originating from someone misreading the identical 85% similarities of Catalan-Spanish and Catalan-Portuguese.

I have just edited the article for Lexical similarity to reflect this fact, but I am hesitant to make any changes here due to the (much neater) distance-matrix layout of the table. However, I strongly recommend that you either update the table with the correct information (and thus restructure appropriately), or remove the Catalan row entirely.

Multiple websites now tout the 85% figure as being published in Ethnologue, but it is not, so I think it's highly likely that their source is this page. Please update the data appropriately. 131.111.185.176 (talk) 19:38, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Inconsistency
I noticed that the language trees for Portuguese and Italian, were different than French and Spanish. We list the former pair as belonging to the Latin branch of languages, but we didn't list the latter pair under that branch.

I've gone ahead and made edits to French and Spanish so that their language trees match Portuguese and Italian. There shouldn't be a difference between these languages, right?

Or was the error in the Portuguese and Italian articles, and they were the ones needing an edit?

Either way it's my understanding that the trees for these 4 languages should be identical from the Indo-European through to the Italo-Western branch Jozsefs (talk) 06:22, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Map Updates
The map: File:Map-Romance Language World.png needs to be updated.

It is incredibly incorrect across the board.

To name a few things:

 * 1) The top of Brazil is missing
 * 2) Equatorial Guinea is not majority native Spanish speaking.
 * 3) French is not the official language many west african states now.
 * 4) French is not spoken in Syria.
 * 5) The top islands of Canada are missing.

IntelloFR (talk) 15:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

 * @Tonyandrew19 - could you confirm why you removed the previous map and put the old one back?
 * I don't mind using a different map, but the one currently on the page is incorrect. IntelloFR (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * it’s been used several times by other admins I spoke to and others alike that told me the same things that u raised but I think it’s a better map with Tonyandrew19 (talk) 16:00, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * ok. I don't feel good about putting a map out there that has wrong information, would you be able to update it? IntelloFR (talk) 16:39, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Romance languages