User talk:Chasewho

You "removed unnecessary comment that did not add to definition, and could appear Antisemitic in implication and tone." So are you saying it's actually untrue or just that it might upset some people? Equinox ◑ 20:48, 12 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

That the claim is not supported by cited evidence (whether true or not),and it adds editorial comment at the expense of a concise definition.

I am not trying to impugn the writer at all, I just take the position that any probative value of such a comment is outweighed by its possible inflammatory nature and the unnecessary length it adds to the definition. Chasewho (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Correct attitude, methinks (unlike with the bloke before who, by his offension, removed every explicit statement why the connection is attractive). The argument would benefit though from some, possibly less inflammatorily formulated, link about the ethnic or linguistic composition of slaveholders in antiquity. For Rome herself, there has been some notion about slave trade taking place (more often than would correspond to the ubiquity of slave trade in the ancient world) via Carthaginians. Under w:History of slavery#Rome Wikipedia even has the bold generalizing statement “Romans inherited the institution of slavery from the Greeks and the Phoenicians.” But inheritance is not the right notion for most Latin-speaking areas since it is about alien traders and labourers finding niches which have been opened by the Romans, as Rome herself wasn’t a Phoenician city and in most historical Semitic areas of the Roman Empire one spoke Greek while the term did not pass to Greek but it came directly to Latin, from there only once ἀλάπη (alápē); there is an attestation constellation from which one imagines the passage of a foreign word via sociolects which may be amplified, though we consign those displeasing historical stances to the backs of our minds, to elucidate it for those who know less. The historical point of view is of course which point of view was effective, to reflect upon language. It is a notorious problem that people lean to confuse and equate historical divisions with current factions and political, economic and social rifts, which has its reason also in that portrayers exhibit the past purposefully to influence the present, and it is an art to use language that is currently en vue and at the same time true to and distinct in describing the human matter as well as pulling punches. Fay Freak (talk) 15:07, 13 February 2021 (UTC)Reply