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reducing the english and french sections

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There are a few long standing questions about how to handle the French section. I intend to reduce it quite a lot so we can focus this article on the early German Saxons. What we have currently is a collection of notes including some speculations. Some of it can be handled in other articles. Most of it can be compressed a lot. Perhaps the Bayeux Saxons deserve their own article, but the material we have collected here does not yet give much to work with. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:31, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

English speakers?

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Ermenrich not a big thing but concerning this edit [1], given that the article is about the continental Saxons, is it really clear that Anglo-Saxon as an identifiable language already existed on the continent? In general infoboxes can be awkward for anything which might require special justification, and is not discussed in the article. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:40, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is or should the article only be about the continental Saxons? We have a section mentioning how Celtic languages use Saxon to mean English, and terms like the Saxon Shore seem to predate any clear Saxon identity in northern Germany. What do other encyclopedias do?—Ermenrich (talk) 13:11, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've been moving it towards being at least mainly about the continental ones. The British ones clearly have their own article(s) because of their other names. In the past the article was written about a mixture of different topics, and that was obviously not working IMHO. To me this seemed an uncontroversial approach, and I couldn't think of another approach. It means that when the early Saxons are still raiding Britain then they are still a topic here, with strong inter-linking to the Anglo Saxon articles. I think in English Anglo-Saxon is the main term for the British ones, but there is an old tradition of using the word Saxon for the earliest settlers, which I think goes back to Bede. The fact that Celtic languages have a different approach is interesting but not necessarily more important than the fact that, say, German works also have another approach to what Sachsen means?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:27, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to check two other encyclopedias. Britannica has a very brief article but does discuss the Anglo-Saxons and some of the differences to the continental Saxons [2]. The Reallexikon discusses a lot more of course: 1) the Old Saxon language; 2) the etymology; 3) history. The last section actual begins by discussion the many meanings of the word Saxon:
Unter dem S.-Namen werden hier das nhd. Wort (die) Sachsen sowie die etym. gleichen Wörter anderer Sprachen und ält. Stufen des Dt. verstanden. Während der zu betrachtenden Zeit erscheint der S.-Name am häufigsten in lat. Gestalt, nämlich als Saxones (Nom. Pl.). Im Laufe seines Daseins hat er nicht immer und nicht überall die S. bezeichnet. So bedeutet eine seiner finn. Entsprechungen, nämlich Saksalaiset ,Deutsche` (von Saksa ,Deutschland`).
(By the way, I don't think we mention Finnish). It therefore discusses not only "Old Saxony" but also how the name came to be applied to modern Sachsen and how imprecise it originally was. After that we go through the sources and it does seem to mostly be about the continental Saxons.
So I'd say your general approach is probably justified, but maybe a more unified discussion of the problems of the name is needed. Right now we have the bit about Celtic at the end for some reason, for instance, but we can expect that Celtic writers in Latin probably call the early English "Saxones".--Ermenrich (talk) 14:45, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, the topic of "Saxonness" is perhaps so complicated it deserves its own article. That would clear out some of the confusion here.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that special name section as we have it is "legacy" material I was leaving for now, but it could potentially be standardized and worked into a name/terminology section like we have on many articles like this. Actually there is a bigger such section at the end of Franks which I would like to eventually shorten and work into the name section there as well.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:07, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Time span covered in article

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I'm thinking mostly about the language section, but depending on the answer this has major implications for the rest of the article as well:

What is the end date we want the article to cover? The section in history "Duchy of Saxony" currently ends at around 1500. That would imply that the article ought to cover the expansion of Saxon identity in Germany to the southeast into modern "Saxony", for one thing, but also that the language section ought to cover Middle Low German in a bit more detail than I've currently added.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:26, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a simple answer. After an initial struggle to work out how to disambiguate this article from the more British topics I've been treating the article as mainly concerned with pre duchy phase, because the duchy has another article, and the language has its own artice. I've also included the Roman era piracy phase (which is of course also mentioned in the British oriented articles). Theoretically there could one day be other ways to break up the Saxon/Saxony topics perhaps even turning Saxons into a dab page, but for now...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:33, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Obenritter: any thoughts on this?--Ermenrich (talk) 13:37, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After thinking about this some more, I think we need to decide whether the article is about a people or a toponymic legacy. Since the article's scope points to the ethnolinguistic group of early medieval Saxons, terminate that narrative by the High Middle Ages, at which point the ethnonym loses analytic purchase. Then consider reframing later usages of "Saxon" (both political and linguistic) as distinct phenomena with separate articles altogether. Of course that might be too extreme. Taking Andrew's comments in mind, it seems the section is already being handled with the understanding that it is not intended to duplicate the history of the Duchy of Saxony or the later political and linguistic developments associated with the name. Making that organizing assumption a bit more explicit in the article might help readers follow the intended scope more easily. If the focus is primarily on the pre-ducal and early medieval phases, then the existing emphasis makes sense, and later Saxon polities and language developments can continue to be treated largely by reference and linkage rather than expanded coverage. --Obenritter (talk) 14:35, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ermenrich's concern makes sense to me if the article is read as extending the history of Saxony as a territory. If, however, the focus is on the Saxons as an early medieval people, then the later southeastward shift of the Saxon name and fuller treatment of Middle Low German do not necessarily follow. In that case, later political manifestations of Saxony and follow-on linguistic stages are best treated as contexts in which the name persisted, rather than as continuations of Saxon ethnolinguistic history, allowing the language section to remain proportionate without implying continuity.--Obenritter (talk) 14:38, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we probably all roughly agree to follow the typical WP split, making this about a people (and only secondarily about the region(s) and language(s) and other related topics. If the main question here is whether to continue the the timeframe further forward than I can't see any problem with that at all. (Is there much to say about the people in this period as opposed to the Duchy's external politics? Thinking of Ermenrich's interests I suddenly realize that there is!) To be clear I am not AGAINST discussion of the Duchy or the language either, I just note that they also have other articles. To me the more tricky topics have been about how to disambiguate the earlier phases which were previously overlapping with the British and French Saxons in a confusing way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:31, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, perusing the religion section today I certainly found lots of missing material (and also continued including of the Anglo-Saxons). There's more to add on Saxon paganism, the conversation, and other cultural topics, I'd say. There's probably also the possibility of adding archaeology.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would be great, yes. As I'm sure you know there is a big fuzzy discussion about whether the old Frisii, the later Frisians, and the Saxons were really different cultures, or about how they were connected. Its something we of course need to address eventually.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:20, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew, do you have access to Spring 2004? I don't, but it looks like he offers a good brief overview of Saxon paganism, which would be a useful addition to the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:17, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
LOL, I was about to ask Spring of which journal, but I guess you mean Springer. Yes I own a copy of that book. I see that chapter 8 is called Die sächsische Heidentum, but I've not really used that chapter much. A bit more 10 pages. Maybe I should try to get a copy to you? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:50, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you can, I'd appreciate it!--Ermenrich (talk) 14:52, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]