The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep. Darkness Shines (talk) 15:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pakistani English (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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This article is mostly original research and is based on the writings of a single author named "Robert Baumgardner", an author who has written about the use of English in Pakistan. He is not a notable authority on the subject. Most of the article is unreferenced, with multiple misrepresentations. The section on "Further reading" appears to have been concocted to suit the requirements of the authors. Another author featured in the further reading section of this article is Ahmar Mahboob (who coincidentally has an article on Wikipedia) but is not notable as per WP:PROF. Upon further examination of the references in the article, I observe:

• The primary reference for the article does not use the term "Pakistani English" anywhere.
• E-commerce Times does not qualify as a reliable source.
• The use of the Guardian link to Shashi Tharoor's article is a misrepresentation.
• The UElowermall.edu.pk link (dead but was archived with the Way Back Machine) is a misrepresentation of the source.

Much of the article is concocted, unreferenced, and there is no credible proof for the existence of this English dialect in mainstream, academic sources. Parts of the article have been directly lifted from the article on Indian English.

I recommend deletion and redirect to Indian English. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 12:27, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Can you make clear why you do not consider Robert Baumgardner a reliable source? A quick google scholar search shows that he is the author of two books, one published by Illinois University Press and one (on South East Asian Englishes) by Oxford University Press. He also has several papers in refereed journals such as World Englishes. These are mainstream reliable sources. I am not sure whether this makes him a 'notable authority' but he is definitely a reliable source, which is what Wikipedia requires. Francis Bond (talk) 01:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep: The term is cited [1] [2] [3] [4] in reliable sources. Afd is completely inappropriate here. --lTopGunl (talk) 12:35, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Analysis of citations:
    • Pakistan Research Repository, hosted by the Government of Pakistan. The author is Mubina Talat, a casual google search proves that she has no credible works on the subject.
    • Debate on Pakistani English, this article refers to Tariq Ahmad, and focuses on the use of English in Pakistan and does not make any claims to it being a separate dialect.
    • Patterns of Pakistani English, by Wajdan Raza, who is not a credible authority on the subject of languages. The research is hosted by a site run by an Economics and Technology Institute in Karachi.
    • The author Tariq Rahman is a professor at Quaid e Azam University and has written on "English literature in Pakistan", not Pakistani English. Unfortunately, his work has been used as a source to misrepresent this by creation of another article on Pakistani English literature. His work has been published by his own University, and hence is not a secondary source required to establish notability.
  • None of the works by these authors qualifies for the creation of a new dialect based on your synthesis of their research. I would also like to note that you have previously edited this article and inserted unreferenced claims. This article is not different from the article on Indian English.
  • — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 12:59, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm sure I can source what I've previously added. And I assumed there is no WP:DEADLINE to work in progress (it can be seen I've been periodically editing the article) and this was on my to do list. Anyway, that is irrelevant to the deletion of article. As far as the citations I presented are concerned, HEC has been the official body for Pakistani education and this source is credible. You might want to read WP:ABOUTSELF for a source's credibility on them selves (which is the worst case of this being taken as a self published source). This is also backed up by WP:PRIMARY. But being an official body, this happens to be the appropriate source to cite this. The second source from dawn news (a main stream media source). This debate is exactly about this topic. Infact some of the content you pointed out to be added by me can simply be sourced by this. The third and fourth sources are academic work. The work itself does not have to be notable or have an article in wikipedia to be credible. Notability is different from credibility. --lTopGunl (talk) 14:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep This is a ridiculous AfD, to say the least. Pakistani English is just one among a number of many English dialects spoken throughout Asia (Sri Lankan English, Burmese English, Hong Kong English, Philippine English, Singapore English etc; see this template for a complete range of English standards throughout the world. Being a former British colony, and English being an official language of Pakistan, this article is independently notable. Mar4d (talk) 13:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The articles on Sri Lankan English and Burmese English are similar cruft articles constituting original research. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 13:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pakistan-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. If it's a notable dialect, we need to keep it. But Nick's analysis of the sources is pretty damning - are there others that the Keep editors above can point to? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a notable dialect covered in reliable sources. Here are a few more per request which precisely mention the term "Pakistani accent" or "Pakistani English dialect". [5] [6] [7]. Above citations are also credible in my opinion. --lTopGunl (talk) 14:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep Nick's analysis of the sources does not appear to be very accurate. For example, Tariq Rahman's "Pakistani English: The linguistic description of a non-native variety of English" is clearly a description of the variety of English and is not a collection of literary studies. Here is the table of contents. The author is a well cite academic, who has held posts all over the world. The book is published by a reputable university press. The page can definitely be improved (and I have done a little work) but the subject is definitely notable. Francis Bond (talk) 14:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • A non-native variant of English in Pakistan? How can it be that a "non-native" variant be the recognised variant of English as spoken by Pakistanis? Surely, Pakistani English, should it exist as a recognised contruct, would be spoken by natives of Pakistan, i.e. it would be a native dialect, not a non-native one? Plus the article is not available online to confirm the author's interpretation. AshLin (talk) 19:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikipedia does not require sources to be on-line. Francis Bond (talk) 01:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I fully agree and normally I do not comment and do accept offline sources in good faith. The problem here is the type and quantity of sources bandied around as "reliable" in this discussion does not engender any confidence in the issue. Granted that Baumgarten is an RS and discussed a wide varieties of English spoken around the world including Pakistan, is one scholar's treatment of this language adequate evidence of the existence of P. E. as a recognised form of English internationally by linguist? AshLin (talk) 01:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • You don't understand what "non-native" means in this context. Go and read doi:10.1017/S0272263100005805 and indeed Wikipedia's very own article on nativization. "Non-native" is not a synonym of "unrecognized". Uncle G (talk) 01:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. The new emergence of a new dialect in itself does not make it notable. In this regard a previous discussion on the talk page is relevant. I enclose below, the opinion of a respected editor on South Asian affairs : AshLin (talk) 17:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• You can always find one or two books that use the expression "Pakistani English," however, that doesn't mean that there is consensus among scholars that such a dialect (i.e. distinctive one) of standard English exists. There isn't even much of a controversy about the issue that we can report. It is more the case that "Pakistani English" has as yet not made it into the various corpora of English that are used in linguistics and descriptive grammars. The Oxford English Corpus, for example, includes only India (among South Asian countries) (see "full picture" section) and only Indian English among different (South Asian) standard dialects of Global English. If you want to claim that Pakistani English is a "highly differentiated local dialect of Indian standard English," then you'll have to produce sources that say that. It is more likely though that "Punjabi English" or "Sindhi English" might constitute such local dialects. Producing examples of English authors who are citizens of Pakistan is not enough because they don't write in the local dialect of English. As I've said above, perhaps Pakistani English might someday become an independent dialect or subdialect, but it hasn't yet. We can't, therefore, pretend that it does. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

  • And above I provided reliable sources which call Pakistani English a dialect and an accent (both of which are the scope of this article). --lTopGunl (talk) 17:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further analysis of sources:
    • See Ms Tallat's abstract (Ref 1 above) which says.... "Since Pakistani English is not any 'one stable' system, the process of 'ongoing' change is difficult to study." AshLin (talk) 17:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • That does not make it non-notable. Being difficult to define or unstable is something to be discussed in the article. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • It means that even amongst Pakistanis there is no one prominent form of English, much less one recognised as Pakistani English by linguists. AshLin (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Isn't that the issue with the whole of English language? Certainly stuff for inside the article. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • See Movie Review of "Love mein ghum" - Not only does User TG consider this a reliable source, he cannot understand the difference between an accent and a recognised form of English. AshLin (talk) 18:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I said the 'accent' and 'dialect' are both in scope of the article. Do not say things on my behalf. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • My mistake, if you intended to include refs about Pakistani accents, they are not necessary. Pakistani accent is uncontested. Pakistani English is disputed. But do you feel a movie review is a RS about a distinct Pakistani accent? AshLin (talk) 18:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Fair enough. The idea was to prove notability - the publisher was reliable and it was not being discussed within the fiction. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • See Mind your pronunciation - A self-improvement oriented article about the need for correct pronunciation, the author says with reference to a common speech pattern..."a mistake found almost naturally among people here and is part of Indian-Pakistani English dialect." The word "dialect" is used nowhere else in the text. The article does not refer to an internationally recognised Pakistani dialect/variant of English . AshLin (talk) 18:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The discussion is about the same. The term is once used to refer to it, but the notability is proven in my view as the dialect is being discussed. Another reference given above is purely on this subject. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • See BBC Article on British PM Cameron. The article is nothing about Pakistani English being a recognised form of English. It could as easily have been an Indian accent, the journalist chose to mention. AshLin (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • You might have missed to notice that the author mentioned the "Indian" English separately. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • The crux of the matter is that this cannot constitute as "significant coverage" which is required to establish notability (see WP:GNG). Even now, we are discussing "Pakistani English" (a dialect) and not the accent, conflating both to prove notability is a bad idea. As AshLin pointed out earlier, there will be times when we will find passing references to the term "Pakistan English", but that does not establish notability as such. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 18:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • True, it mentions the Peter Sellers depiction too. Anyway, the point is it does not say that Pakistani English is a recognised variant. You need to make a different argument. AshLin (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • See Dawn article on Pakistani English - The article reports on various aspects of a symposium. One session Dr Tariq Rahman on misleading words in English - when spoken by a Pakistani and liable to be misunderstood by a British English speaker - refers to English spoken in Pakistan. The examples spoken are common to India too. It does not support by wording or insinuation that Pakistani English exists as a recognised variant. AshLin (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Thank you, AshLin. I find it intriguing that one of the participating editors here decided to create an article on Pakistani English literature, instead of "English literature in Pakistan", as it should have been. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 17:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sure English is spoken differently in Pakistan in context and accent than in other places. It also appears to be an evolving one. But the refs do not prove that it is an internationally recognised variant, which affects notability. Insisting that it is so, without suitable and relevant referencing, would be OR. Please add reliable sources. AshLin (talk) 19:16, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • One good aspect of this Afd are that slowly better sources are emerging. Imho, should the decision be "keep", the article needs to be rewritten to correctly portray the state of the language using only reliable sources. All the sources of the kind which User:TG has paraded before us need to be deleted. AshLin (talk) 17:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The sources need to be deleted? If you mean content related to that, don't think that applies either. Given that this is backed up by secondary sources now the primary source can easily be used to contribute to the content about self. The news articles are also relevant to the topic as explained above. Anyway, that is not the discussion for an AfD. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is the quality of sources which give the article its notability and reliability. If academic sources of the quality now coming into play were provided before, this issue of Afd would probably never have risen. It is defective sources that I am targetting. Usually, if the sources are okay, the content is generally okay, barring other considerations such as NPOV etc. That apart, I agree that it may not be the topic for discussion for this Afd, however since these absolutely irrelevant sources were also placed in the same Afd by you, I felt it was pertinent to mention this fact here. AshLin (talk) 07:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete & redirect per nom. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Change of vote, having discovered the first reference in the article is incorrect I went in search of the real one, it is Concise Oxford companion to the English language [8] Edited by this fellow Tom McArthur We also have A Handbook of Varieties of English A Multimedia Reference Tool. Volume 1: Phonology. Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax [9] with a full chapter devoted to it. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:44, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• No shortage of source on this topic, "The position English in Pakistan - Pakistani English - shares the broad characteristics of South Asian English in general and is similar to that spoken in contiguous regions of northern India" Legacies of colonial English: studies in transported dialects Darkness Shines (talk) 22:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. As Darkness Shines points out, a quick look through Google Books reveals a number of scholarly sources on this dialect. (Couple of things in JSTOR etc. as well.) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:27, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I've just tidied the references somewhat; it took me some time since there are plenty there, and all looking plenty scholarly to this librarian/ex-linguistics student. The article still needs a bunch of tidying, but it's notable and well-sourced. As far as I can tell, redirecting to Indian English would be as wrong as redirecting New Zealand English to Australian English, or Canadian English to American English. --Zeborah (talk) 03:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy Keep The nomination is wanting "deletion and redirect" to another article (Indian English). Deletion would be redundant and disruptive as redirection is performed by ordinary editing. Warden (talk) 09:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. There are plenty of sources which would allow the article to be expanded. Pakistani English may resemble Indian English, but it is certainly distinct enough to have its own article. Some loanwords are uniquely Pakistani, for example. See also this book. -- 202.124.74.17 (talk) 10:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Here's the google book search, 519 books with preview available, the search term in quotes. The subject of the article, "Pakistani English," is an appropriate topic for an encyclopedia. AfD is not "Articles Requiring Fixing." This AfD should be closed. Pseudofusulina (talk) 06:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - clear and convincing evidence shows this is generally notable. AfD is not the place to debate or quibble over the strength of particular sources or the credentials of a specific authority or academic. There are enough sources to make do right now, and the emerging overwhelming consensus appears to me to be a keep. Nursing in Pakistan is not the same as Nursing in India, and neither are their dialects, even only 65 years after the two nations split: "Pakistani English (PE) shares many similarities with Indian English, however since independence there have been some very obvious differences." Bearian (talk) 21:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Request to close: Per overwhelming consensus above. --lTopGunl (talk) 10:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I withdraw the AfD based on the discussion above. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.