Talk:sphinx
'Ancient Egyptian' etymon
How certain is the etymology "Ancient Egyptian Szp-'nx (shespankh) 'divine image', literally, 'living image'"? The only one I've ever heard relates it to Greek σφίγγειν 'strangle'. Jogloran 01:45, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
- As usual with unattested etymologies, both are just educated guesses. Pick whichever you like. kwami 11:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
RFC discussion: October 2017
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
This user has not been very active, 25 edits in total as of now and 12 of those just this month.
Some of these edits seem destructive (lossy), and the results disagree with etyma entries. See this edit to sphinx, which disagrees with the etymon entry at Ancient Greek Σφίγξ (Sphínx); this edit to pyramid, which likewise disagrees with the etymon entry at Ancient Greek πυραμίς (puramís); or this edit to fantasy, removing what seems to be an otherwise valid link to a doublet.
The user was also slightly disturbingly abusive in commentary at User_talk:Barytonesis#fantastique.
The sum total of this suggests that their edits would bear additional vetting. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 03:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- I've gotta say that I got a big "abusive" feeling from this user too. But I have my slapdown times so maybe I shouldn't try to judge. Still, if you have 20 edits and half of them are bitching, that is not a good sign. Equinox ◑ 04:52, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- FWIW, there's some ... interesting ... insight into this user's etymological thinking at w:Talk:Belize#Etymology. Somebody might benefit from reading this post at Zompist. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 06:51, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- Re-reading that Belize post, I feel a strange compulsion to talk about Windex... </movie_reference> ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 06:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- As far as sphinx and pyramid go, these etymologies have been discussed and debated in the Egyptological literature since the turn of the 20th century, so the comments on these edits immediately show that no research has been put into them.
- The hypothesized Egyptian origin of sphinx from šzp-ꜥnḫ was first put forward by Battiscombe Gunn. I don’t think it’s likely myself for a number of reasons (the Egyptian etymon means ‘living image/statue’, not ‘sphinx’ specifically, and in fact there is no separate Egyptian word for ‘sphinx’; the Greek sphinx is quite a different creature from the Egyptian one; the phonetic match has problems), but I haven’t found a decisive rebuttal, and it’s still quoted in the current literature. Not sure if it should be restored to the English sphinx page or just removed.
- The case of pyramid from pr-m-ws was first suggested by Adolf Erman. This one is discussed in detail at Ancient Greek πυραμίς (puramís). In this case all the proposed etymological alternatives have problems, and restoring the removed content is probably the right choice. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 10:35, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
- I’ll go ahead and restore the removed content, barring any objections. The user’s other contributions have for the most part been cleaned up or undone where warranted. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 05:49, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
RFC discussion: October 2021–April 2022
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
confused verb section with unsourced, random looking cites – Jberkel 22:03, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
Done This, that and the other (talk) 08:08, 19 April 2022 (UTC)