Wikipedia:Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia

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All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

This page catalogs some mistakes and omissions in Encyclopædia Britannica (EB) and shows how they have been corrected in Wikipedia.

Some claim that Wikipedia and other open media projects can never be as "authoritative" as EB and other credentialed projects. Given that Wikipedia can be updated anonymously in real-time, it is a fair claim. Some also argue that—at present—EB is more complete and accurate than Wikipedia.

This page illustrates a possible advantage derived from the open nature of Wikipedia: given a sufficient number of informed readers, errors may be spotted quickly, offering the opportunity for rapid correction, which is not possible in printed reference projects such as Britannica.

Conversely, the risk remains that with enough ill-informed or ill-intentioned readers, the number of errors can just as easily exceed those of a static, printed reference such as Britannica.

History

Birth year of Abraham Bosse

Research deemed recent at the beginning of 2004 has uncovered that Abraham Bosse was born around 1604, not 1602, as previously thought. As of May 2005, Encyclopedia Britannica still gives 1601 as his birth year.

Education of Thomas Bradwardine

Britannica's article says that Thomas Bradwardine, the Archbishop of Canterbury studied at Merton College, Oxford. However, he studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and moved to Merton subsequently on a fellowship - as confirmed by correspondence with Balliol and by reference to the respective college websites.

Manuel Castells

In its brief entry on sociologist Manuel Castells EB claims that he is an American. Wikipedia notes that he was born in Spain, and has lived in France and the US. (I've submitted this as an error of fact to EB six months ago - still no response or correction.)

Should probably change "six months ago" to a date, so it remains accurate... -- Timwi 12:57, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Did EB state he was born in America? It's quite possible he has American citizenship. Please clarify.

 He is Spanish and currently works in Barcelona.

No such entry exists in the 2004 DVD (URS) edition, or in the online version. Article seems to have been dropped. Although in the DVD it says in a reference page for Castells, that he is an "Am. socio.", but this is not mentioned in the online version.

Nanking - History

-Britannica's Nanking, History article states:

Nanking?under the name of Chien-yeh?emerged as the political and cultural centre of Southeast China during the period of the Three Kingdoms, when Sun Chien and his son Sun Ch'üan made it the capital of the kingdom of Wu from 229 to 280.

Sun Jian never settled in Nanking; he was the governor of Changsha while a Chinese warlord and killed by Liu Biao's army while governor. It was Sun Quan who moved the capital of his state to Chien-yeh in 212, following the advice of a dying Zhang Hong. There was no Wu state at the time, as Sun Quan had not yet crowned himself emperor.

By the way, I am using Pinyin, while Britannica still uses Wade-Giles. Here is the transliteration of the Wade-Giles in this Britannica article to Pinyin:

Chien-yeh - Jianye Sun Chien - Sun Jian (156-192) Sun Ch'uan - Sun Quan (182-252)

Invention of the Safety Razor

EB wrongly credits King Camp Gillette with the invention of the safety razor. The safety razor was invented in the mid 1870's by the Kampfe brothers long before Gillette's first razor.

Henry VIII and Leviticus

According to EB's entry on Henry VIII, he resolved to appeal to the Pope that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been against divine law under "the biblical injunction (Lev.) forbidding marriage with a brother's widow". The entries in Leviticus both forbid a man sexual relations (18 v.v. 16) and give the promise of a childless marriage (20 v.v. 21) with his brother's wife. The inclusion or exclusion of a brother's widow in any interpretation is POV. Under Ecclesiastical law at the time of Henry, a man could in fact marry his brother's widow if the marriage was not consummated. In reality, Henry unsuccessfully lobbied the Pope for an annulment of the marriage claiming that Catherine had lied when she said she hadn't consummated her marriage with Arthur. Dainamo

Tudor Vladimirescu

According to Britannica [1], Romanian revolutionary leader Tudor Vladimirescu was assassinated on June 7 instead of May 27, the real date.

The facts that these dates differ by 10 days and that the event in question takes place in Romania in the 19th Century suggest that the discrepancy is due to the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. See Gregorian_Calendar and Old Style and New Style dates. Both Britannica and Wikipedia should specify which calendar is referred to. 64.230.161.79

Fixed in Wikipedia. :-) Bogdan | Talk 12:21, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Birthname of William J. Clinton, 42nd US President

Britannica lists the birthname of William J. Clinton (Bill Clinton) as "William Jefferson Blythe IV" [2]. It has been confirmed by the Clinton Library [3] that the correct birthname is "William Jefferson Blythe III". Refer to respective Talk thread.

Sheila Scott's birth date

According to Britannica she was born on April 27, 1927. The Oxford DNB, based on her birth certificate, confirms her birth date was actually April 27, 1922. Lotsofissues

Titles of Scottish peers

Many Scottish peers are referred to in the style of John Carter, 6th Viscount of Mars, rather than the usual John Carter, 6th Viscount Mars. As Mackensen put it, almost all Scottish viscountcies use the preposition "of". No other viscountcies do this. Britannica refers to, for instance, William Gordon, 6th Viscount Kenmure instead of William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure. grendel|khan 20:44, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

John Mitchell's birth date

The American National Biography, Washington Post, and Guardian confirm his birth date was September 15, 1913 not "Sept. 5, 1913", the date given by Britannica. lots of issues | leave me a message 22:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Biography of Josquin Desprez

Recent research has established that Josquin Desprez was born between 1450 and 1455, and first went to Italy in the 1480s, NOT in 1459 as Britannica has it. The confusion arose because a singer with a similar name was part of the Sforza chapel in Milan from 1459 to 1472; this is now known to be a different person. The New Grove online also has it right ([4]). Josquin was in France the whole time, and Britannica is writing about a completely different person. Antandrus (talk) 03:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Math

Big O

Big O notation, also called "Landau's symbol", is now common in mathematics and computer science. It compares the speed of growth of functions. It was first described in 1892 by the German number theorists Paul Bachmann and Edmund Landau; reference to it has not yet been found in EB.

Cauchy sequences

In the algebra article, subsection "Completion of fields", Cauchy sequences are defined as follows:

A sequence {x_n} = {x₁, x₂, x₃,...} of elements x_n of F is called a Cauchy sequence (for the valuation φ) when, given ε> 0, there is an integer N such that the value of φ at the difference of two elements with subscripts sufficiently large is less than ε.

This is formally correct but unnecessarily complicated: the inclusion of the variable N makes no sense unless it is also mentioned somewhere after the words "such that". There is an appropriate way to do that, at which EB makes no attempt.

They should have used general 'distance of two elements' or 'absolute value of the difference...' because otherwise it may be a negative number. --AC

".. the value of φ at the difference of two elements ..."; it sounds a bit like nonsense to me. --Fibonacci 03:06, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Epimenides paradox

In "number game" under "logical paradoxes" in EB it is claimed that the statement "All Cretans are liars", if uttered by a Cretan, is self-contradictory. This is false; see Epimenides paradox for the correction. Axel Boldt sent a letter to the math editor of EB to point this out and received an answer three months later saying that his "sources" disagreed and considered the text to be correct.

According to the "correction," the statement is "necessarily false" if liar is taken to mean someone who always lies, so saying that it is a self-contradictory seems to be correct (though possibly not from the exact same line of reasoning assumed in EB) --Esrogs 20:33, 9 May 2004 (UTC)~[reply]

so it all depends on whether this rather unusual definition is clearly given? --AndrewCates 14:00, 20 May 2004 (UTC)(talk)[reply]

No way! See the Wikipedia article Epimenides paradox. No matter what definition is used, there will be no contradiction, mainly because he said "All Cretans", and there are other Cretans, who may or may not be liars. --Fibonacci 01:34, 26 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Suppose Alice of Crete says, 'All Cretans are liars'. The solution to the "paradox" is that Alice of Crete is a liar, but Bob of Crete is not a liar (i.e. Alice lied, since some Cretans are not liars). --Tetromino 20:56, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

But if Alice lied, and some Cretans are not liars, then maybe Alice didn't lie... Therein lies the paradox. --202.74.211.55 06:12, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What? No. 202.74.211.55, your assertion makes no sense. If "Alice lied, and some Cretans are not liars," then Alice did indeed lie. Therein lies no paradox whatsoever. As for the case where all Cretans actually are liars (in the sense that they never tell the truth), read the article, and also the liar paradox article. --164.76.162.246 3 July 2005 02:23 (UTC)

If you consider that a liar is a person who frequently lies, but is still capable of telling the truth; then you can see that in this perticular case, the cretan is telling the truth, while remaining a liar.

Some people are having a lot of trouble with this one. Let's assume that Crete is a very simple place where each person is either a consistent liar, or a consistently honest person, and that there is at least one Cretan in each group. If one of the liars states that "All Cretans are liars", he is, in fact, lying; likewise if he states "No Cretans are liars". An honest Cretan would say "Some Cretans are liars" David 21:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. But you forget the implied syllogism in the proposition. If Alice is Cretian, is a consistent liar and says "All Cretians are consistent liars", she automatically implies "I, Alice, am a consistent liar". Which is then true. Hence the paradox. The paradox should be seen on the author's characterisation, not on the stated honesty of all Cretians: Alice (or Epimenides) knows she's implying something true. A less controversial way to see this paradox would be for Epimenides to state: "I always lie".

Logarithmic spiral

EB's article on spiral suffers from severe problems in the layout of mathematical formula, at least in the online version. The formula for the logarithmic spiral is given as exp θ cot φ, which should be exp(θ cot φ). See logarithmic spiral.

Where φ is what? --Fibonacci 03:33, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NP problems

In "NP-complete problem" you can find the statement

A problem is called NP if its solution (if one exists) can be guessed and verified in polynomial time;

The insert "(if one exists)" makes clear that the author does not understand that only decision problems belong to the class NP. Every instance of every problem in NP has a solution: it is either YES or NO. Only YES answers need to be verified quickly. See Complexity classes P and NP.

Arguably, they weren't actually talking about the Yes/No solution to the NP problem, but a solution to the underlying problem (which in our lectures was called a "certificate"). Example boolean satisfiability: Whether an expression is satisfiable is a Yes/No question, but if the answer is "Yes", you'd really like to know the truth values that satisfy the expression. It is my understanding that a problem is indeed NP if you can verify such a certificate in polynomial time. -- Timwi 13:04, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That doesn't resolve the fundamental mistake: the insert implies that a problem may be in NP even if a solution does not exist. This cannot be: if a solution really didn't exist, the problem would be undecidable, or at least only partially decidable, but certainly not in NP. You're right when you say that a problem is in NP if it has a certificate verifiable in polynomial time, but a problem without a solution has no certificate at all. (NO answers have certificates too, but these need not be verifiable in polynomial time.) The author of the sentence might indeed have been thinking about the underlying problem (either conflating "not satisfiable" for SAT or "YES" answers without an accompanying certificate with "no solution") -- that explains it, but doesn't correct it. As an aside, the sentence is also sloppy when it states that the solution "can be guessed and verfied in polynomial time": the author means "can be guessed [nondeterministically] in polynomial time and [has a certificate that] can be verified in polynomial time", not (as might easily be read) "can be guessed and then verified in polynomial time". Not wrong, but not award-winning either. --JRM 11:20, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Guessed in polynomial time, and then verified in polynomial time? Please forgive my ignorance, but, wouldn't that be P instead of NP? --Fibonacci 03:16, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, it is correct with the right interpretation of "guess". What this really states is that one can make a guess in polynomial time and then proceed with the computation verifying in some way if the guess was correct (all in polynomial time). It does not mean that it should guess the correct solution on the first try, just that it can make one guess in polynomial time. The core property of NP is that the time the computation uses is defined as the time the longest computation path a guess can cause uses. If one wants a "realistic" view on how a device that calculates this works it actually makes all possible guesses at once and then proceeds with all the following calculations in parallel, when all computations paths are done it will answer "yes" if and only if one path answered "yes". I suspect that the wording about solutions existing is really meant to talk about decision problems about existence (which is after all what most decision problems come down to), it is still not quite right to say that a NP problem is always solved by guessing the solution and verifying it. Sure some guess about some property of the problem is made, it is far from clear that it must (or even that it can) always be the something one should call the solution.

Yes, this seems correct in EB, even if it could be better expressed. It mixes the notions of FNP and NP but this is a rather finicky distinction and is often glossed over in informal prose. Gdr 06:33:50, 2005-08-03 (UTC)

Numbers vs. Numerals

In the "number system" article, EB exhibits a deep confusion about the difference between numerals and numbers (see numeral system and number). The most egregious sentence is

Note that only in base 10 do the coefficients translate directly to numerical value without requiring a multiplication.

Please provide a correct version of the sentence --Esrogs 20:37, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Not mine but:

1) Replace multiplication with conversion: you do not change the base of a number by multiplying it by something.

--(talk)AndrewCates 15:19, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively:

1) Note that only in base 10 do the coefficients represent the numerical values we are familiar with, since everyday numeral systems are base 10.

Which is trivial. --Fibonacci 03:23, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Poincaré Conjecture

The EB entry on Henri Poincaré gives the following description of the Poincaré conjecture: "Poincaré asked if a three-dimensional manifold in which every curve can be shrunk to a point is topologically equivalent to a three-dimensional sphere (a solid ball). This problem (now known as the Poincaré conjecture)..."

It would seem that EB is equating a 3-sphere with a solid ball, which is completely wrong. The actual entry on the conjecture is part of the topology entry and is correct. Not a surprise really, since the topology entry was written by RH Bing.

Wikipedia's entries on Poincaré and his conjecture make no such mistake, or any mathematical mistakes, for that matter (as of now).

Real numbers

In the article about "real number", it is claimed that

The real numbers can be characterized by the important mathematical property of completeness, meaning that every set that has an upper bound has a smallest such bound

This is incorrect, since it doesn't take the empty set into account, which has an upper bound but not a smallest upper bound.

The class of real numbers is generally extended to include the first transfinite number

This is not correct. In integration and measure theory, the real numbers are sometimes extended by adding two symbols, +∞ and -∞, neither of which is a transfinite number. A transfinite number is either a cardinal number of an infinite set, or an ordinal number of an infinite well-ordered set. See real number and extended real number line.

Should also say "... every subset that has ...". --Fibonacci 03:25, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Transfinite numbers

The entry about "transfinite number" in EB claims that aleph-one is the cardinality of the real numbers. This is in fact neither provable nor disprovable in the currently accepted formalization of set theory; see cardinality and continuum hypothesis for the full story.

Are you sure about this? As far as I know, it is well possible to show that aleph-one is the cardinality of the real numbers; the problem posed by the continuum hypothesis is if there is anything "in between" aleph-zero and aleph-one.
Wikipedia is correct here. Aleph-0 is the smallest infinite cardinal. Aleph-1 is the next-smallest. There is nothing in between. ZFC can neither prove nor disprove that aleph-1 is the cardinality of the real numbers.
- Thanks. I had a misconception about the definition of the alephs.

Science

Crookes Radiometer

EB states that Crookes Radiometer rotates the direction it does because of pressure differences. This is false. Actually it rotates due to the effect of the gas molecules on the edges of the vanes.

Is it false? The Einstein effect on the edges of the vanes is a pressure difference. The Reynolds effect of thermal transpiration is also a pressure difference.

It is debated, which is exactly what the Wikipedia article goes on to say. EB simply states the one opinion as fact.

Leap years

EB claims in its leap year article that years divisible by 4000 may be non-leap years. This is in fact not an official rule and would not increase the calendar's accuracy. See leap year.

Lungs and swim bladders

In its article on fish, EB claims

Most bony fish have a swim bladder, a gas-filled organ used to adjust swimming depth. In a few species the swim bladder has evolved into a lunglike respiratory organ, enabling these fishes to breathe air.

This was the view of Charles Darwin; nowadays it is generally accepted that primitive lungs came first and swim bladders evolved from them. See e.g. [5], [6].

I think your assumption "that it is generally accepted" is false. Richard Dawkins agrees with Darwin on this. I would suggest it is still open to debate.

In The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins' newest book, he says that swim bladders evolved from primitive lungs.

The EB is correct. A small number of ray-finned fish have developed mechanisms for breathing air using their swim bladder, for example the tarpons, Megalops spp. See for example [7], [8]. (The general point about swim bladders evolving from lungs is correct too, but I think that is not what the EB is referring to here.) Gdr 06:50:29, 2005-08-03 (UTC)

Speed of X-rays in glass

Under "refractive index" in EB, the definition of the refractive index does not clarify the crucial distinction between phase velocity and signal velocity; it is stated that the velocity of x-rays in glass is higher than the velocity of x-rays in a vacuum. This is true for the phase velocity, but the speed with which information can be transmitted is not higher in glass than in a vacuum.

I agree that that is pretty serious if correctly represented --AndrewCates 15:23, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Sperm storage

In the entry on "Semen", EB writes:

Sperm mature in the epididymis; they then pass through a long tube called the ductus, or vas deferens to another storage area, the ampulla. [...] During the process of ejaculation, liquids from the prostate gland and seminal vesicles are added

In fact, the vas deferens propels sperm directly from the epididymis to the outside during ejaculation. Sperm is stored before the ejaculation in the epididymis, not in the ampulla. They describe it correctly in their article on "Ejaculation". See also Ejaculation and vas deferens.

Statcoulombs

The article on "Electric charge" claims that 1 Coulomb equals 3 billion statcoulombs. This is incorrect.

The original quote is:

One coulomb of electric charge equals 3,000,000,000 esu, or one-tenth emu.

Ok, so the exact number is 2,997,961,386.257345. Perhaps they should have added roughly 3,000,000,000 esu. --Cantus

Which could be pretty serious if you were relying on it! --Soapy

Sure, this is nitpicking, but it is wrong, and it helps make the point that even the most "authoritative" general reference still contains errors.

They should at least make it clear that they're only giving one sig fig instead of 10. --Laura Scudder | Talk 23:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, to anyone who would use the number, sig fig rules imply that there would only be one. And for those that need the number that critically, but don't know how to use sig figs.... well, yippie for them.

Anyone who needs the number that critically should probably be getting it from a technical publication, not a general reference...mzellman

Uncertainty Principle

EB has two articles about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: one about the principle itself and another one inside the quantum mechanics treatment. Unfortunately, the two articles give different formulas: one uses h/2π and the other h/4π. Furthermore, they never make clear what exactly is meant by "uncertainty".

The latter is true. I'm not sure why they would have the first one in there. The only non-editing mistake explanation I can think of is if they took some specific example. The principle is that Δx Δp ≥ h/4π, so it is possible to pick specific examples where Δx Δp = h/2π. Still sounds fishy. User:laurascudder

Zymase

In the article Organic Compounds/Alcohols/Ethanol, EB claims that yeast secrete an enzyme called "zymase" to convert sugar into alcohol. In fact there is no such secreted enzyme; the conversion is much more complicated and takes place within the yeast cell. See alcohol dehydrogenase.

Rotor machines in cryptography

In their article on cryptology, Britannica credits US inventor Edward Hebern for the rotor machine (a type of cipher machine of which the German Enigma machine is the most famous example). Research published in January 2003 revealed that the machine had been invented earlier by Dutch engineers Van Hengel and Spengler. This has been reflected in the Wikipedia article on rotor machines since September 2004; EB are still out of date. — Matt Crypto 19:13, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Languages and linguistics

Dogon

In the article 'Dogon language' the EB recites the popular belief that Dogon, the language spoken by the Dogon peoples, is one language (acknowledging that 'six dialects of Dogon have been identified'). However, starting with Bertho (1953) it has been established that Dogon is in fact a family with a high internal diversity and that the varieties are not merely dialects of one monolithic language. In the most recent published survey, Hochstetler (2004) distinguishes at least seventeen distinct speech varieties, noting that many of these are not mutually intelligible. The Wikipedia article Dogon languages has all the details.

Bertho, J. (1953) 'La place des dialectes dogon de la falaise de Bandiagara parmi les autres groupes linguistiques de la zone soudanaise,' Bulletin de l'IFAN, 15, 405–441.
Hochstetler, J. Lee, Durieux, J.A. & E.I.K. Durieux-Boon (2004) Sociolinguistic Survey of the Dogon Language Area. SIL International. online version

— mark ✎

Kwa languages

In the article 'Nigeria', section 'Linguistic composition' the EB (2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD) claims that the Nigerian languages Yoruba and Igbo, among others, are Kwa languages. It is true that Joseph Greenberg classified them as such in his 1966 The Languages of Africa, but since Bennett & Sterk 1977 it is widely accepted that the Yoruboid and Igboid languages are in fact members of the Benue-Congo family, as acknowledged in the Wikipedia article Kwa languages. Strangely enough, EB's article on the Kwa languages has it right; it seems that they have updated the main article, but have forgotten to update other ones affected by advancing insights.

Bennett, Patrick R. & Sterk, Jan P. (1977) 'South Central Niger-Congo: A reclassification'. Studies in African Linguistics, 8, 241–273.

— mark ✎

Gbe languages

In its article "Kwa languages", EB2005 claims that "..of these languages [i.e. the Left bank Kwa languages] the Gbe cluster (better known as Ewe) is by far the largest with some two million speakers."

This statement is erroneous and misleading because it first equates Ewe to Gbe and then takes into account only the speakers of Ewe, the largest of the Gbe languages. According to recent statistics (Ethologue 15th edition, Kluge 2002), Ewe has about three million speakers and other Gbe languages like Fon and Aja account for at least another 1,5 million each. EB2005 furthermore fails to mention that Ewe as a term for the Gbe cluster as a whole has fallen out of use at least since 1980 (Capo 1988, 1991, Kluge 2002, Ameka 2001). To add to the confusion, EB2005 claims in its article 'Fon' that Fon is a dialect of Ewe and that "the Fon numbered some 3,010,000 in the late 20th century"

Capo, Hounkpati B.C. (1991) A Comparative Phonology of Gbe, Publications in African Languages and Linguistics, 14. Berlin/New York: Foris Publications & Garome, Bénin: Labo Gbe (Int).
Gordon, Raymond G. Jr. (ed.) (2005) Ethnologue report for Gbe. (Ethnologue, 15th edition.) Retrieved May 11, 2005.
Kluge, Angela [2000] ‘The Gbe language varieties of West Africa – a quantitative analysis of lexical and grammatical features’. [unpublished MA thesis, University of Wales, College of Cardiff].

— mark ✎

Belarusian language

The entry (I saw it in 2000 or 2001 editions, needs to be checked):

"Belarusian also spelled BELORUSSIAN, or BYELORUSSIAN, also called WHITE RUTHENIAN, or WHITE RUSSIAN, Belarusian Beloruska, East Slavic language that is the major language of Belarus. Belarusian forms the link between the Russian and Ukrainian languages, since it has dialects transitional to them both. Although two dialect areas exist, standard Belarusian is based on the dialect of Minsk, the capital city of Belarus. The language contains many Polish loanwords and is written in a form of the Cyrillic alphabet. An older form of Belarusian was used by the Lithuanians as the official language of administration during the 14th century, when they were in control of the area of present-day Belarus."

I couldn't understand the purpose of this word "Beloruska" implanted into the English-language text until I looked up the entries for other languages. In the article on Bulgarian language it said "bulgarski ezik," so I figured here we should have the name of our own language in our own tongue. This should then have read "bielaruskaja mova". To the best of my knowledge, "Beloruska" is the adjective "Belarusian" in Bulgarian and some other Slavic languages.

More mistakes or misconceptions in this short but error-ridden entry

Kalenjin

In its article "Kalenjin", EB2005 defines Kalenjin as follows: "any member of the Nandi, Kipsikis, Pokot, Tatoga, and other related peoples of west-central Kenya, northern Tanzania, and Uganda who speak Nilotic languages of the Nilo-Saharan language family".

First, a glaring error: the Tatoga (Datoga) are not Kalenjin, but form together with the Omotik a separate branch of the Southern Nilotes called Omotik-Datoga (cf. Rottland 1982, Ethnologue 15th edition). This is outlined in the Wikipedia articles Kalenjin languages and Southern Nilotic languages.

Second, this entry could be interpreted as suggesting that the Maasai and the Luo, also speakers of Nilotic languages and certainly historically and genetically related to the peoples mentioned, are Kalenjin peoples as well. In fact, Maasai and Luo are Eastern Nilotic and Western Nilotic languages, respectively, whereas the Kalenjin languages are Southern Nilotic languages; EB2005 fails to make this important distinction.

Third, EB fails to make clear that there are two crucially different uses of the term Kalenjin and indiscriminately uses 'Kalenjin' in wholly different contexts. In its article 'Eastern Africa', subsection 'Identifying and classifying peoples', it observes that "the Kalenjin of western Kenya have come into being since 1960 by a conscious fusing together of older and smaller peoples". 'Kalenjin' in this context is the name various Nandi-speaking peoples adopted in the late 1940's/early 1950's when they united to form a larger ethnical and political entity (cf. Kalenjin and references cited therein). This use is different from the term 'Kalenjin' in the linguistic sense as outlined in the Wikipedia articles Kalenjin languages and Kalenjin language.

Omosule, Monone (1989) 'Kalenjin: the emergence of a corporate name for the 'Nandi-speaking tribes' of East Africa', Genève-Afrique, 27, 1, pp. 73–88.
Rottland, Franz (1982) Die Südnilotischen Sprachen: Beschreibung, Vergleichung und Rekonstruktion (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik vol. 7). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
Sutton, J.E.G. (1978) 'The Kalenjin', in Ogot, B.A. (ed.) Kenya before 1900, pp. 21–52.

— mark ✎

First extant book written in an African language

In the article 'Niger-Congo languages', section 'Early records', the EB (2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD) tells us that The first extant book written in an African language was published in 1624 (...) It consists of a catechism in Portuguese with an interlinear translation into Kongo. It probably should have read "the first extant book written in a Niger-Congo language", because literature has been produced in some African languages long before this; see for example Old Nubian language, Coptic language and others.

— — mark ✎

Meta

Largest English-language Encyclopedia

History

Birth year of Abraham Bosse

Education of Thomas Bradwardine

Manuel Castells

Nanking - History

Invention of the Safety Razor

Henry VIII and Leviticus

Tudor Vladimirescu

Birthname of William J. Clinton, 42nd US President

Sheila Scott's birth date

Titles of Scottish peers

John Mitchell's birth date

Biography of Josquin Desprez

Math

Big O

Cauchy sequences

Epimenides paradox

Logarithmic spiral

NP problems

Numbers vs. Numerals

Poincaré Conjecture

Real numbers

Transfinite numbers

Science

Crookes Radiometer

Leap years

Lungs and swim bladders

Speed of X-rays in glass

Sperm storage

Statcoulombs

Uncertainty Principle

Zymase

Rotor machines in cryptography

Languages and linguistics

Dogon

Kwa languages

Gbe languages

Belarusian language

Kalenjin

First extant book written in an African language

Other topics

Hip-hop

Fenghuang ("Phoenix")

Matsu Island[s]

Quemoy Island[s]

Frank Zappa

Qala'un Mosque

The creator deity of the Gbe peoples

Reseau Jean Bernard

Giacomo Casanova

See also