Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Prime Ministers of Canada by languages spoken

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 delete. postdlf (talk) 16:31, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

List of Prime Ministers of Canada by languages spoken

List of Prime Ministers of Canada by languages spoken (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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As with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Presidents of Iceland by languages spoken, this is not a topic that requires a dedicated article of its own. While I'll acknowledge that the question of whether a non-francophone Prime Minister's skills in French are adequate or not does come up as an issue in Canadian politics (usually in regards to their ability to participate in the French-language election debates), the appropriate place for any discussion of that would be in Prime Minister of Canada and/or Bilingualism in Canada, not a standalone spinoff list -- and a Canadian prime minister's fluency or lack thereof in Gaelic, German, Greek, Latin or Russian is simply irrelevant trivia. And this isn't based on sources which analyze the language skills of Canadian prime ministers as a topic, either -- it's based on glancing mentions of their language skills in sources which aren't about that, with the result that the comparison table is entirely missing seven of the prime ministers because sourcing for their language skills hasn't been located at all -- which means that the article is synthesizing sources to create an article topic that hasn't been comprehensively analyzed as such. There's a place in Wikipedia for a small amount of content about the English-French issue, certainly — but that place is in other articles that already exist, not as a standalone article in its own right, and there's no need at all for any content about whether they can speak Greek or Russian. Bearcat (talk) 17:14, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 17:17, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 17:21, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 17:22, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• Delete per a very cogently-presented argument from the nominator. It piques my interest this early on a Friday morning, but that's about the kindest words I'll have for this article. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:59, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. English/French is all any of us in the Great White North take any notice of. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:28, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
• Keep. Unlike with List of Presidents of Iceland by languages spoken, for which I have recommended "delete" in the ongoing AfD, there are sources which discuss the comparative language skills of Canadian prime ministers; see http://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/liberals/leaders-language.html and http://www.fluentfrenchnow.com/bilingualism-canada-prime-ministers-part-1/, for example. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Those two sources, at least, only discuss their bilingualism in French and English (which, as per others, is occasionally an issue), rather than their command of other languages, although I note there's a passing mention of one claiming to speak Russian and not being able to do so. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:20, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

"Fluent French Now" is a professional language coach's personal advertising blog, not a media source. And the CBC link certainly permits us to properly source something about this, but it doesn't really help us reach the depth of sourcing needed to support a full standalone article about it. A short subsection in Prime Minister of Canada and/or existing articles on language in Canada about the fact that it's considered important for a Prime Minister to be able to speak both English and French would be fine — but it's not systematically analyzed in depth by enough sources to justify a whole separate article about it. Bearcat (talk) 15:12, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• Delete Might merit a mention in Languages of Canada but it still seems trivial. Just because news sources and blogs write about something doesn't automatically mean it's notable (WP:NOTNEWS). --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:34, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:33, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:33, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I appreciate the work that has gone into this but agree with Bearcat. That extensive lead section to this list duplicates content that is best found in one of a number of main articles linked to above. And the ability of prime ministers to speak other one or both of Canada's official languages does seem trivial. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
• Delete. cant see the point of this article per WP:LC. A Guy into Books (talk) 14:00, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

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.