User talk:Hazarasp

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Hello, welcome to Wiktionary, and thank you for your contributions so far.

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Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! --Vahag (talk) 05:25, 6 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

I adore your additions to Middle English entries, a topic that is sadly often overlooked. You seem to be so knowledgeable on this and I greatly appreciate it. If you don't mind me asking, how do you know all this? Do you use specific sources or books or just your memory or something?--Sigehelmus (talk) 15:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

I mainly use the Middle English Dictionary and An Elementary Middle English Grammar, along with Wikipedia's Middle English coverage, though I sometimes depart from their choices (for example, I use the most frequently attested form of a word rather than using the MED's normalised orthography). Hazarasp (talk) 00:55, 22 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Should probably not be chained together (alternative forms should not have their own alternative forms). DTLHS (talk) 03:33, 3 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

hi thanks for creating entries in wiktionary

When you make a Middle English entry into an alt form, be sure to get rid of the etymology and descendants sections in favour of centralising them as well. (This is one of the entries that's my fault, so I saw it pop up on my watchlist.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Why did you revert my edit on yok? It is an adjective! I have two dictionaries that state that it is. I speak Turkish. The Turkish Wiktionary page states that is. What is going on? 83.226.234.175 08:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary sometimes has different policies for determining the part of speech of a word compared to other dictionaries; you being a native speaker of Turkish doesn't change that fact. I don't know what Wiktionary's exact convention is here, but you should probably look at our entry on determiner. --Hazarasp (talk) 08:30, 30 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

What's up with these being lemmatised at separate spellings? Are they not two senses of the same word? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:37, 2 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

I wasn't the one who originally made those entries; I don't mind if you decide to merge them if you think that's appropriate. --Hazarasp (talk) 00:27, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

I know it wasn't you; I'm asking because you edited it and I want your judgement on what to do with them. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:34, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

They probably should be moved IMHO, but I intentionally left that decision for others to make. -Hazarasp (talk) 04:23, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Then I guess I'll do that. Do you think acquerne is the better lemma? And then there's the matter of squirel... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:06, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

I don't really know which would be better, but what do you mean when you talk about squirel? --06:19, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

It's a more common synonym, which raises the question of whether aquerne deserves its own def at all, or just a {{synonym of}} if it's restricted to a certain area or time period. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:42, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I believe we talked before and I still admire your edits with Middle English very much. I've been putting all my effort into the Japheth entry, and I would humbly request if you could help a bit with its parent, Jafeth. I only know of it appearing in the Wycliffe Bible, so if you could cast your magic as you typically do with Middle English entries that would be wonderful, if not I understand. Thank you for reading!--Sigehelmus (talk) 04:39, 9 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

I'll do it in a minute; but I have one suggestion; I don't think Middle English Jafeth can come from Old English due to the initial /dʒ/; /dʒ/ couldn't occur initially in Old English. I believe it would be either from Middle French Japhet or directly from Latin Iaphet, Iafeth. ---Hazarasp (talk) 05:28, 9 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

I of course agree that Old English speakers would have called Japheth something like *Iafet or *Iafeþ, but said form would have been replaced with a new ME form with initial /dʒ/ (rather than /j/). --Hazarasp (talk) 05:32, 9 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the advice! I sadly can't seem to find a hard source for such an aspect and I appreciate your theory. I did put in my edit summary though that I would be very surprised indeed if the name Japheth in some form, and most of the OT names, did not exist in Christian Anglo-Saxon England, at least recorded in lost manuscripts. Therefore I didn't think that it would be replaced entirely by the French or Norman name, although that's possible. Oops your clarified edit addressed this haha, thank you, definitely put those in if you feel they belong.

Actually, doesn't that also mean John is not partly descended from OE Io(h)annes, was it wholly displaced? Or is that a different case? Interesting.--Sigehelmus (talk) 05:37, 9 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much for your edits, this is even better than I wanted. I hope it wasn't a bother for you, this was just my current pet project and I desired it as complete as I could. I also learned something so that's a bonus too.--Sigehelmus (talk) 05:59, 9 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't consider this a conflation because I haven't seen anything that suggests they're not just variants of the same word. In order for there to be a conflation, I would say that you need two ideas that aren't the same thing but get mixed together, like Cronus and Chronos. These two just seem like spelling variants to me. Also, I can't find any sources for the reconstruction *andaswarōną. Are we sure that it's different than *andaswarjaną? —Globins (yo) 02:16, 10 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

One (andswarian) is a class 2 weak verb with a past participle in -od; the other is class 1 (andswerian) with a past participle in -ed; most Germanic languages have a class 1 form here, IIRC, and class 2 was considered the "regular" verb class in OE, so it makes sense that verbs would move into it. However, the discrepancy between root vowels (umlauted "andswerian" vs. un-umlauted "andswarian") suggests that the discrepancy must be old, as I don't think that umlaut was productive enough in OE at this stage to suggest that any verbs changing verbal class would be "un-umlauted", so andswarian can't simply be a derivative of andswerian. --Hazarasp (talk) 03:28, 10 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hey Hazarasp. I didn't know that you were interested in setting FWOTDs! The one you set wasn't quite ready (no quote), and I'd rather save it for a false friends focus week, but in general, I'd be very grateful to get some help. Are you looking to get involved? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:27, 27 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

Possibly; I'm in two minds about whether I should get involved in it; on one hand, it's another thing that I have to do, but on the other hand, I see that the situation with FWOTDs is very tight right now (in terms of having no backlog, etc.) --Hazarasp (talk · contributions) 02:02, 28 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

Well, if you want an intermediate level of involvement, you could start by finding interesting entries, say in Middle English, that could be featured. The biggest issue, as you rightly noted, is lack of backlog to work from. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:28, 28 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

You're a life saver. I'm really struggling in terms of keeping up with all my commitments at this point. I appreciate the help a lot. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:31, 18 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

The removal of the "Hyponyms" section was justified. User:Sae1962 has a long history of adding pointless sections, and this was his work. Every one of the many terms in it was already listed in the "Derived Terms" section and there tends to be no reliable logic to his selections of terms for particular sections. You should undo your reversion. -- · (talk) 01:05, 18 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

Two people clearly think that stuff must be removed. Please engage in the discussion on the Tea Room at water. Equinox ◑ 03:29, 17 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Just letting you know I made hogshead the word of the day for 2019 October 13th; great nomination! Piparsveinn (talk) 18:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hey, thanks a lot for setting the foreign words of the days. If you want some respite, the focus week for terms from English is imho ready for use. It includes nominated terms from some rarely featured languages. I have also set a six-day focus week with German-derived terms for late September and early October (with an interruption), but you probably noticed that. If you want to extend that to seven days, I'd recommend setting the Italian or Ido term for the 29th of September.
I'll work on expanding the backlog for constructed languages by the way. They used to be featured once or twice a month, so the backlog is still quite small. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:53, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

I will borrow this thread if you don't mind. I saw you nomed a bunch of Azerbaijani words yesterday, maybe you can notify my a few days prior to when you plan to set them, so that I can pimp them up. Ketiga123 (talk) 11:22, 11 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hi. It seems that Wiktionary:Foreign Word of the Day/2019/August 31 was set by an unauthorized user. Would you be willing to consider this entry instead? KevinUp (talk) 08:12, 20 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Update: I've added citations to the entry for 双極性障害 and set merdeka as the FWOTD of August 31, 2020 instead. KevinUp (talk) 13:04, 21 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

RMaung (WMF) 14:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

RMaung (WMF) 19:14, 20 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hello! Are you interested in being an administrater? -- Thedarkknightli (talk) 05:45, 25 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

Not at the moment; Wiktionary isn't something that I'm really focusing on right now, and becoming a admin feels like too much of a commitment for something which isn't a focus of mine. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 09:03, 25 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

RMaung (WMF) 17:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

The retention of this lexeme was most likely influenced by the Old Norse form, but not from it, due to the early English form "AGAR", possibly hardened to "ACKER" (obsolete form meaning a ripple on a puddle et cetera). All I know is on its discussion page. Andrew H. Gray 19:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC)Andrew (talk)

Hello. We're missing an entry for Middle English fellowred, which is in the OED. 2A02:2788:A6:935:70B4:B094:6C9C:8738 11:18, 25 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

The entry's at felawrede, since the spelling fellowred isn't attested (For extinct words, the OED often goes with what they think the ModE spelling would look like, even if it isn't attested). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 11:56, 25 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Oh, I see. Thanks! 2A02:2788:A6:935:70B4:B094:6C9C:8738 12:00, 25 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

The reason why they do this is because the word undoubtedly existed into the early Modern English period, even if it wasn't penned down or printed. For instance, felowe-rede was used right up till around 1500, and on 01/01/1500 through the next 50-70 years perhaps, the word still existed in the minds of at least some English speakers and they would have known it despite the fact we don't technically see it attested anywhere in writing. This doesn't mean the word abruptly vanished on 01/01/1500, it absolutely survived beyond that for some time, either conversationally or in memory. Leasnam (talk) 10:11, 19 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I've been mucking around with the usage notes of lay and the usage guides/notes of both Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary state that intransitive use of lay (as in the originally causative verb, not the past tense of lie) dates to the fourteenth century, so to Middle English. Would you mind to verify that and do you know if that usage was general or restricted to a few contexts? @Leasnam ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:10, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

The OED (first edition, so in the public domain, allowing reuse of their material) says the following about this usage:

1908, “lay v.¹”, in James A. H. Murray et al., editors, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume VI, Part 1, London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 128:

In the earliest examples the verb appears to be intransitive for reflexive or passive. Now (exc. in Nautical language, see b) it is only dialectal or an illiterate substitute for lie, its identity of form with the past tense of the latter no doubt accounting largely for the confusion. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was not apparently regarded as a solecism. (For lay in wait see Wait sb.)

The MED also records this use (sense 12); the examples given there allow this sense to be antedated to the 13th century (though it only becomes common in the 15th century). Interestingly enough, most examples there are present forms, no doubt because that is what corresponds to the past tense of lie. Many of the attestations also shade into or can be interpreted as referring to the etymological sense of lay ("set down, make/cause to lie"); this, along with the rarity of past forms, seems to indicate that the "lie" sense of lay was still embryonic in Middle English. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 17:20, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, that has been added to the usage notes. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Hazarasp: I can somewhat sympathise with your decision to revert my edit, because the 'll' form would be expected if its origin were in Gaulish Proto-Celtic. It was just questionable in my mind that such a generic lexeme could have to be borrowed from Latin and as to how much Roman influence there was on Celtic dialects anyway. If you look at the ridiculous etymology of CLAN, you could partially forgive a layman for supposing that Latin was the parent language of at least one branch of Celtic! It was simply due to the proposed logical etymology of Latin PLANTA from Proto-Italic and the Celt-Italic descendant branch of P.I.E. that I adjusted the etymology of 'plant' at all, supposing it to derive from a Celt-Italic root via Silurian, perhaps; but this is impossible to prove. Of the 83 words beginning with 'pl' in the Collins Gem Welsh Dictionary, only 20% of them are genuine Celtic Welsh (excluding PLENTYN, PLANT and their derivatives). Although 'P' is not in the Ogham script, this is no proof that it did not exist in the Celtic alphabet, recognising the Q and P Celtic forms that were believed to have been separated before arrival in Britain. 'Llech', as you state, corresponds with Scots Gaelic 'Clach'; Old Cornish 'Pren' (branch, beam) with Scots Gaelic 'Crann' (tree), et cetera. Old Irish CLAND may be regarded as akin to Latin PLANTA, ie from its root; but certainly not a derivative! Incidentally, Cornish FLOGH (child) is akin to Swedish FLIKKA (little girl) - both substrates of pre-Brittonic origin. There are quite a few such substrates in the Scandinavian dialects and a good deal more than in English. It is all these European forms before Anglo-Saxon invasions in Britain that coupled with the core of Mezzo Indo-European that formed Proto-Germanic, and the latter is given undue substantive value as an easy etymological solution. Initially, I regarded Wiktionary as the most reliable source for etymologies; but within a couple of months realised that I was disillusioned, because too many sources fail to apply etymological logic! Kind Regards. Andrew (talk)

While it's impossible to be definitive about most etymologies, certain etymologies are likely enough to be practically assured. On the other hand, certain etymologies can be, and should be rejected. For instance, the consonantism of Old Irish cland proves it to be a borrowing, as the nasal element was lost from native /nt/ (compare Old Irish dét to Old Welsh dant). While it could've been borrowed directly from Latin, a borrowing from Old Welsh is more likely; contacts with speakers of Brythonic were more intense than those with Latin-speakers. In turn, Old Welsh plant must be a borrowing from Latin planta, because no plausible native with the requisite semantics and phonetic shape is known. Additionally, the parallels with the Latin are too great to be coincidental. The claim that the lexeme is too generic to be borrowed doesn't survive further scrutiny; "generic lexemes" can and do get borrowed, if less often than lexemes for more specific concepts. Furthermore, there's a profusion of Latin loans in Welsh, so one more is hardly anomalous. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 09:14, 26 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Hazarasp. Why aback o' yields o' aback o' in References, I know little about wiki templates and just mimics existing usage. Could you help me correct it? — This unsigned comment was added by Zff19930930 (talk • contribs).

It's a limitation of the template; you must use |url= in situations like this (where the entry is multiple words). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 10:01, 3 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

@ Hazarasp: Regarding the etymology of moor, the change in semantics is parallel to that of Old Cornish 'HAL' (moor), that has gradually changed from the meaning of 'a body of water' to that of 'marsh' to 'moor'. This can happen with a few words; but in this case, the original meaning was that of 'sea', from the Proto-Brittonic MORI, mutated semantically to MOR (marsh) and than as (heath). The correct Proto-Germanic form is Proto-Germanic *mari, as the origin of MERE (pool). Kind regards. Andrew H. Gray 12:49, 8 October 2021 (UTC) Andrew

I never said the semantic change was implausible; it would make little sense for me to say that given that the etymology I reverted to hinges on the same semantic change. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 02:12, 9 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Beest states it is a subjunctive, yet Middle English bist (alternatives forms beest, best) states it is an indicative. J3133 (talk) 08:43, 23 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

That is intended; in Middle English, bist/beest was a indicative, as is stated. Because the English indicative tends to supplant the subjunctive over time, it could of course sometimes be found in subjunctive contexts. From the 1500s on, there was a increason increasing tendency to prefer it where a subjunctive was demanded, making it practically a subjunctive. However, the indicative sense never entirely disappeared, so I'll have to add a indicative sense to beest. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 10:35, 23 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

I have added “beest” and “bist” as indicatives (also “bist” as a subjunctive) to the archaic conjugations. Bist, however, does not state whether it is/was an indicative or a subjunctive. Middle English been also has “be” for the plural (also “been”, which I added earlier) and 1st-person singular present tense: where should those be added to the archaic conjugations (there is a note: “It is also an archaic alternative form of the indicative, especially in the plural”, which does not mention which persons)? J3133 (talk) 11:24, 23 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Etymologically, be would be the expected first-person singular form and the plural form. (I'm not making any personal distinction in the plural as there generally isn't one; even Old English lacks it.) Non-etymological uses of be aren't found outside of dialectal use, so they can safely be avoided. On a similar note, bist should probably be removed from the table; it doesn't seem to've been part of the Early Modern English standard. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 23:13, 23 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

I have removed bist and added be to the first-person singular and the plural (all persons). J3133 (talk) 08:06, 24 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Why shouldn't the Old English word be included? Prahlad balaji (talk) 01:09, 30 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

The Old English word would yield *cheder, with initial /tʃ/ and final /r/. Instead we see cedre, with initial /s/ and final schwa; these are the phonic properties we'd expect from a borrowing from Old French. The ~200-year gap in attestation between the OE and ME words also raises suspicion. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:13, 30 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the advice. Prahlad balaji (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

The claim by the Online Etymology Dictionary is that the two words (the Old English word and the Old French word) "blended" in Middle English. Something like what happened with the word saint (demonstrated, for example, by forms like sainct, seinct, senct), in other words.

Yes, there may be no attested Middle English forms comparable to that for cedar such as, say, "*chedre," but that doesn't automatically rule out the possibility of their past existence. And given that the Online Etymology Dictionary, Lexico, and Dictionary.com found it reasonable to claim in the etymologies that they give that the Modern English word derives at least in part from the Old English word, and even the Century Dictionary found value in at the very least in noting the Old English word, do you not think that that warrants at least mentioning the possibility that the existing Old English word may have melded during the Middle English period with the word borrowed from Old French?

I certainly appreciate the concerns that you have with that possibility, but could you not briefly lay out those concerns in cedar's etymology section rather than removing references to the Old English word entirely? Tharthan (talk) 01:44, 13 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Now Etymonline claims that cedre is a "blend", but the strange thing about this blend is that only one of its supposed ingredients is visible in the metaphorical mixing bowl. One can of course conveniently claim that the other ingredient was mixed in such a way as to conveniently become indiscernible (your hypothetical Middle English *chedre), but when there's no sign it was ever there in the first place, the sensible thing to do is to apply Occam's Razor and posit that there was no blend at all; the only visible ingredient is in fact the only ingredient.

Now one can claim that the other ingredient was sitting in the mixing bowl some time ago (Old English ceder), but it's perfectly possible that the mixing bowl emptied and cleaned, especially as the specific dish isn't made that often around these parts (a word for "cedar" would be infrequently needed in early medieval England, as cedars are not native to England). Alternatively, others can point to how other dishes look like they involved the mixture of ingredients (Middle English seynt), but what holds for one dish doesn't necessarily for another.

At this point I think the mixing-bowl metaphor exhausts its utility. Other dictionaries' support of the derivation of Middle English cedre (at least in part) from ċeder in no way effects my estimation of it. As I have pointed out to Leasnam, other dictionaries may surpass us in resources and funds, but they are ultimately using a methodology that we can apply just as well. If a dictionary says something that doesn't comport with the evidence, then the evidence should be prioritised; of course we may be forced to return to their bosom when we misestimate or lack the relevant evidence, but they can err just like us. Even if the panoply of the lexicographical world is arrayed against us, we may yet be right.

However, I do agree with you that the ċeder etymology is worth mentioning, even though it is almost certainly erroneous. This is as Wiktionary does not exist in a hermetically-sealed vacuum. When our users research the origin of cedre, they will often seek a second opinion by employing other sources, some of which of course postulate a derivation involving Old English incompatible with ours. For the user wanting etymological certitude, this will likely pose a dilemma, as most users will lack the necessary discernment to make a decision after merely seeing the two conflicting etymologies. So it is our duty to provide them with the necessary information to break the deadlock; the most efficient and transparent way of doing this is by explicit discussion of the competing derivation (as in e.g. hondbrede).

This view does not conflict with my earlier actions. When I reverted your edit, I was not in the right headspace to judiciously consider the entry's ideal state; with my limited time resources, there were only two realistic options available to me. Either I could neglect it, meaning that it would be gave undue credence, or I could revert it at the cost of not mentioning it at all. I chose to remove the inaccuracy at the cost of incompleteness. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 04:51, 13 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Hazarasp. Would you be interested in becoming an admin? If so, you'd be a great candidate and I'd be happy to nominate you :) —Svārtava (t/u) • 05:55, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

As much as I would like to don the metaphorical administrative pallium, I cannot give your offer the careful and measured consideration it deserves at the moment, as I'm currently struggling with personal issues; you may have noticed that my edits aren't as frequent or involved as they once were. For clarity, I'll note that even if I was better disposed, I wouldn't necessarily accept; I usually conclude that I'm unworthy of the status whenever I reflect on the matter of potential adminship. I would recommend checking back in with me in six to eight months if you're still interested; by then, I'll hopefully have some indication of whether things will transpire favourably for me. If you feel inclined to inquire further about my situation, feel free to suggest a way to contact me privately, given that this is a intensely personal matter. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 09:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'd say that you're definitely worthy of the admin status and also I'll note that having the admin tools doesn't means that you're forced to use it. You can Special:EmailUser me privately, if you don't mind. —Svārtava (t/u) • 10:11, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

You may well be right; much of my self-evaluation is distorted by the effects of my native pessimism and therefore shouldn't be evaluated uncritically. However, I believe there's little apparent purpose in being vested with the tools when I'm not in a position to utilise them; as I stated, you can make the offer later if this is a matter that continues to interest you. As for your suggestion, I'll contact you in the coming days or weeks if and when I feel well enough. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:14, 12 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

This still contains one entry. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 10:31, 6 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Ask Theknightwho about it; I moved all the contents of the category into Category:Early Scots so we didn't have two categories for the same linguistic variety, but they sloppily reverted some of my edits because they were unaware that Early Scots and Scottish Middle English refer to the same thing (see my discussion on their talkpage). Given my current situation (see my discussion with Svartava above), I don't have the energy to try to win them over, so I guess the current perversity where we have two categories for the one linguistic variety (Early Scots/Scottish ME), which is classed as a ME variety in some places (Wiktionary:List of languages/special) and as a Scots variety in others (Category:Early Scots) will have to remain unless a third party does something to try to break the deadlock. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 13:51, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Hazarasp I have given you an extensive explanation on my own talk page. You don't have to engage, but implying that I'm "unaware" of something that I have explicitly said I disagree with is not the appropriate response. Theknightwho (talk) 13:55, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Also, you are wrong about Wiktionary:List of languages/special, which lists the parent language as Middle English. There is no inconsistency. Theknightwho (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

I said you "were unaware" (at the time of your reverts), not that you "are unaware" (presently or at the time of your response to me). Though I believe my assumption that you "were unaware" was reasonable (though probably not indicative of my best judgement: given the breadth of knowledge you display in your edits, it would've been better to reserve judgement), I agree that it wasn't "the appropriate response" to make a inflammatorily-worded and mean-spirited reference to it as though it was a unqualified fact. For that I offer my sincerest apologies. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 14:23, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

As for being "wrong" about Wiktionary:List of languages/special, you seem to be misunderstanding what is meant by "parent" there. To quote Module:etymology languages/data, it refers to the language which the given "etymology language is a subvariety of". Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 14:23, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your apology - I was just a little surprised, as you'd otherwise been lovely.

Thanks for the info re etymology languages, though the result of that is that Middle Scots is currently classed as a variety of Middle English in the etymology tree due to its parent being Early Scots, which is clearly false. Theknightwho (talk) 14:34, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

The treatment of sco-smi there is a clear mistake; see Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2019/November for some discussion. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 14:40, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. In time Middle Scots should probably be given its own L2, but given the paucity of Scots contributions as it is, I doubt we'd see enough entries to make it worthwhile at the moment. Theknightwho (talk) 14:44, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello Hazarasp,

I saw that you are among the people who posted the enm-conj-xxx templates. I am Dutch and I wanted to post the conjugation of the enm verb smoren on nl.wikti (See) based on wat I found here. But I am a little confused. The table here seems to suggest that the 2nd pers plural ye should also be followed by smoren. Should that not be smoreth? No idea what is should be in the past tense.

Thanks

Jcwf 2603:6081:2243:4810:750D:3888:D1C:36A5 23:20, 29 May 2022 (UTC) (sorry, lost my password)Reply

No, it should be smoren/smore; see our entry for smoren. Some dialects do indeed have smoreth/smoreþ for the plural, but I've excluded that from the table because it would make it too cluttered. This smoreth/smoreþ is the etymological form (c.f. Old English smoriaþ), but in the dialects of Middle English ancestral to the modern standard language, this was levelled out based on the past plurals and subjunctive, which all had endings that collapsed to -en because of vowel reduction in Late Old English. For instance, the past indicative plural of smoren would be smoreden (often reduced to smored(e) (that also answers your other question; c.f. Old English smorodon). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 04:10, 30 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your etymologies for Modern Greek. The old template {etyl} has been changed to either inh or bor by chance, without any reference (most of the time). Normally, I never add etymologies (I do greek pronunciations), but sometimes I add an etymology.ref. Greek‑from‑Greek words are either inherited, or internal learned borrowings. The dictionary {{R:DSMG}} (also, not online, {{R:Andriotis 1983}}) mark the words as follows:

• < αρχ. = αρχαίος (archaíos, “ancient”). This is inherited from grc. (or ελνστ = Hellenistic Koine)
• λόγ. < αρχ. = λόγιος (lógios, “learned”). That is a learned borrowing from grc. The term (explained at the dictionary's intro), is diachronic learned borrowing and the Category has more than 20.000 words. (in contrast, the synchronic borrowing is not learned; it is a borrowing from a dialect, a word that enters Standard. It is very rare.)

Unfortunately, the template {{lbor}} puts the words, also under Category:Greek terms borrowed from Ancient Greek, which is not desired because bor would mean a direct speaker‑to‑speaker loanword. (cf. Grease.2022.06#structure of Borr.categories). So, i sometimes write Learnedly, from {der}.
Thank you for your interesting ref at άνθρωπος (pity, i cannot read it). I have added some refs. About theta (θ) and ανθρ- and αθρ-: as i see at most dictionaries, they are both accepted as inherited parallel forms by most greek etymologists (unlike the cluster νδ anc./nd/ > modern , hypercorrected learnedly as , as you, very nicely, marked at Αλεξάνδρεια (cf άντρας, άνδρας). Thanks, have a nice summer ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 12:04, 6 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

I didn't got a chance to read your comment until now, as I'm unfortunately able to devote very limited time to Wiktionary due to chronic illness. It's great to have you share your thoughts, and I mostly agree, but I do have one minor quibble. You say that use of {{bor}} and placement in borrowing categories indicates a "direct speaker-to-speaker loanword", but that's not how I would naturally interpret things; to me, placement in that category can refer to any kind of loanword (hence why Category:Greek learned borrowings from Ancient Greek is a subcategory of Category:Greek terms borrowed from Ancient Greek). When e.g. Category:Greek borrowed terms refers to terms that are "directly incorporated from another language.", I don't believe it's intended to refer to direct speaker-to-speaker transmission. Instead, I think it's meant to stop editors from putting terms in categories like Category:Greek terms borrowed from Ancient Greek if they were mediated through a third language rather than being directly taken from one language into the other (a example would be Αίτνα (Aítna)). This is a mistake I've actually seen editors make when working on other languages because the names of borrowing categories are worded ambiguously. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 14:13, 8 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Hazarasp, sorry to hear of your health problems; please take care of yourself. Etymologies for modern greek are slightly differently described in our main sources (like {{R:DSMG}}) I hope that in the future, there will be a restructuring, plus some el-specific templates. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 05:16, 12 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Personally I can't think of any reason why the standard templates can't be used for Greek too; maybe some of the "Greek-specific templates" you speak of could actually be useful for other languages too.

(This reminds me of when I suggested that User:Martin123xyz should set up the code for Category:Macedonian terms containing fossilized case endings so similar categories could be created for other languages, which let me create Category:English terms containing fossilized case endings.) Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 05:39, 12 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hi Hazarasp. This is in reference to your recent edit.

Yes, the forms with /dʒ/ or similar are surely borrowed from Gallo-Romance, however, many of the ones that you have removed instead have /j/, as in Venetian formajo. That is not a likely outcome of an original affricate in these languages. It appears to reflect a form inherited in some Gallo-Italic variety via a development like /forˈmadeɡo/ > */forˈmajɡo/ > */forˈmajk/ (ultimately with a loss of /-k/). For the latter two forms, compare Genoese salvaigo and Piemontese (Valsesian) salvaic < Latin salvaticus (source: FEW; screenshot, page link).

It is far from trivial to determine which outcomes are 'regular' in which Gallo-Italic language and which are the result of mutual borrowing. Further comparison with the descendants of volaticus and erraticus reveals a rather confused picture. Nicodene (talk) 20:13, 29 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for not responding to you earlier; I've in absolutely dreadful health at the moment, so it's unfortunately not always easy for me to respond in a prompt fashion To address your point, I agree that any borrowing of OF /d͡ʒ/ as /j/ would be very puzzling to say the least, but I couldn't think of any alternative when working on the entry. I don't have any objection to your proposal; though it is by no means perfect, I cannot think of a more compelling explanation for the facts. As for your comment about the expected phonological development of -aticum being nontrivial to discern, I don't disagree, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. I am of the opinion that careful linguistic detective work can result in a surprisingly accurate, but necessarily always tentative) picture of the development of things. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 08:34, 2 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hope you get better.

As for which Gallo-Romance variety was the source, I'm inclined to think Piemontese based on the phonological shape, but a single pair of examples (Piemontese servai~sarvai < salvaticus) may not be much to base this theory on. From a historical perspective, I agree that Genoese/Ligurian would be a likelier source of borrowings in general, but I'm not sure it's the case here. Nicodene (talk) 09:33, 2 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

I see you've added etymologies to some verb and noun forms semi-recently (e.g. appultreen); according to WT:ETY, we shouldn't be adding etymologies (and therefore categorizing entries) to regularly formed words. I'm not familiar with Middle English, but it seems to me that appultreen doesn't need an etymology any more than modern apple trees. Keep in mind we depopulated Category:English terms suffixed with -s years ago. Ultimateria (talk) 20:01, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Ultimateria Hey, I saw post about WT:ETY where I think your are referencing Wiktionary:Etymology#Lemma. I was wondering how you would view Taibei's etymology, since Taipei is the lemma, as I understand it. Perhaps my understanding of what Wiktionary means by the lemma form is not strong enough, but doesn't the etymology at Taibei break the WT:ETY rule? Why doesn't it break that rule? Is Taipei a lemma, per Wiktionary:Lemmas, or is it something else? Note that I strongly support including the etymology at Taibei, but a glance at the wording of Wiktionary:Etymology#Lemma leads me to believe that the etymology there is not technically allowed under Wiktionary policy. I think I must misunderstand something. Thanks for any guidance. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:19, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Geographyinitiative: The section I've been referring to is WT:ETY#Inflected forms, not Lemma. (Keep in mind that page is a think tank and needs work; that's why it was nominated for deletion recently.) There are some situations where alternative forms are treated like non-lemmas (e.g. avoiding duplicate etymologies and categories on these pages), but generally they are considered lemmas. The etymology at Taibei gives information about that specific form, and should be kept for that reason. It's very different from an etymology at e.g. fathered showing father + -ed. Ultimateria (talk) 21:38, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

while I do agree that generally speaking, nonlemma forms shouldn't receive etymologies, I believe that principle shouldn't be absolute; in some cases, such as highly irregular verb forms, the addition of etymological information may be worthwhile (adding that information to the lemma page would clog up the etymology section too much; besides, a majority would probably think to look for the specific form first). I wouldn't now classify ME plurals in -en as highly irregular, but when I created the category, I thought such a classification might be justified as I was unsure about how many there were; t was only partway though populating the category I realised the sheer profusion of them. I kept adding them regardless as my plan was to eventually remove them and place the corresponding singular forms in something like Category:Middle English weak nouns when I get round to creating ME noun-inflection templates, but the deterioration in my health and cognitive ability over the last year or so has prevented me from carrying it out. If someone could create and populate that category for me, that would be great; given my current state, doing the work myself would be highly inadvisable. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 10:11, 8 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

I've just realised that it may be better to recategorise the relevant plural forms in Category:Middle English nouns with weak plurals, corresponding to the way English irregular plurals are treated, rather than moving the locus of categorisation to the singular form. Middle English reflects a transition from the model older Germanic languages, where each noun has its own paradigm which determines all inflectional forms to a modern English-like model where plurals are the only forms that can differ between nouns, so it's hard to know whether to categorise things like Old English (where lemmas are categorised into Category:Old English a-stem nouns, Category:Old English nd-stem nouns, etc.) or Modern English (where the plurals are what gets categorised; e.g. Category:English irregular plurals ending in "-en" or Category:English irregular plurals ending in "-ges"). A third option would be to apply both kinds of categorisation, but this would introduce a major redundancy (seeing as there's over 2,000 entries in Category:Middle English noun plural forms). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 10:52, 8 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

— Sgconlaw (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Seconding this. Theknightwho (talk) 12:16, 16 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello Hazarasp,

I have read Liberman’s etymology on the word heifer and would like to ask you about the source of the last sentence: “However, this etymology fails to explain…”

According to him, the word most likely had a short diphthong. Does Middle English /ɛː/ actually require a long diphtong in Old English? heyfre had /ɛi̯/ and /ɛ/ (see entry).

Concerning the existence of the suffix -fore, Liberman provides fieldfare < Old English felofor and elver < *ǣlfore and assigns the meaning “dweller/occupant (of)”, originally “belonging to or pertaining to,” rather than “traveler, goer; carrier.”

I would be glad if you share your thoughts with me on this.

--Latisc (talk) 10:19, 17 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

The entry explains the origins of forms with /ɛː/ as follows:

Forms with /ɛː/ continue Late Old English hēafru, which develops from a syncopated hēahfru with simplification of the resulting consonant cluster /xfr/

This explanation would of course fail if the original form was *hĕahfru with a short diphthong (otherwise you'd get Middle English /ɛ/; this is of course attested, but the forms with /ɛː/ then go unexplained), and I don't see how the forms with /ɛː/ could otherwise be derived (open-syllable lengthening would probably not be possible in any EME form). I also cannot agree Liberman's approach of reconstructing an suffix *-fore without any etymology or much justification for a disparate grab-bag of items, especially when they can mostly be otherwise etymologised:

• hēahfore is of course a "high-goer", as opposed to a ċealf that travels. The construction is definitely somewhat unusual, but it's better than "pen-dweller"; calves also inhabit pens.
• elver is plainly Middle English el (“eel”) +‎ fare (“group on a journey”); note that the oldest attestation (in the Rolls of Parliament for 1533) refers to a group of elvers. There is no need for the compound to go back to OE; v- for f- can be a Southernism like vane, vat. This makes much more sence than Liberman's suggested "eel-inhabitant".
• Old English felofor cannot be etymologised at present, but Liberman is wrong to equate it to fieldfare; the dialectal forms he mentions could've easily came from simplification of /ldf/; notice that all forms with a intervening vowel in the EDD have /ld/, not /l/.

Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 12:34, 17 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello,

thanks for your quick reply. I don’t know much about the phonological developments in Old and Middle English, but could compensatory lengthening explain the /ɛː/ if Middle English heyfre developed from *hĕahfru with the loss of /x/? In that case, /ɛ/ would occur if it descended from an already syncopated *hĕafru. Middle English has /ˈhɛi̯frə/ (diphthongisation of /ɛː/?), where the diphthong corresponds to a long vowel sound. The different vowels might be due to dialectal variation. Does this make sense or is this phonologically implausible?

Also, how do you explain the underlying meaning “high-goer” and what does that have to do with young cows? Did it use to be a generic term for hill-climbing animals which later acquired the meaning “young cow” through semantic narrowing?

--Latisc (talk) 14:00, 17 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

I have thought of another idea: If we assume that Liberman’s etymology is correct, maybe Old English hēah influenced the original form *hĕahfore and produced an alternative form *hēahfore. Thus, both /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ could be explained. --Latisc (talk) 15:00, 17 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm not very taken with the possibility of "assuming that Liberman's etymology is correct"; as I pointed out, his supposed suffix *-fore is a bit of unetymologised duct-tape to lump several disparate terms together. Furthermore, the first element "hedge" that he suggests should result in Old English hæġfore > Middle English hayvere (with voicing of the medial consonant occasioned by the open syllable; analogical restitution of the unvoiced consonant would not be possible as the compound is opaque). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 03:46, 18 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

I can't say that's plausible, as I'm not aware of any cases of the kind of compensatory lengthening that you're describing in ME; one would expect later loss of /x/ in *hĕahfru to result in a ME form with /ɛ/ (or maybe /a/), just like earlier loss. In fact, the lack of forms in /a/ is further evidence against a original short vowel in "heifer", as OE ĕa ordinarily results in /a/ in most ME dialects. ME also /ˈhɛi̯frə/ cannot come from diphthongisation of /ɛː/ as that vowel doesn't randomly diphthongise like that; it must come from a form where /x/ was retained long enough to trigger diphthongisation ("breaking").

I probably wasn't clear enough about what I believe to be semantics of hēahfore ← *hēah-fāræ "high-goer"; "high" would probably mean "tall", (OE hēah is also "tall"), so a "tall-goer" (or maybe "tall-farer"; Old English faran can already mean "to proceed, to act") would be a adult cow as opposed to a ċealf. Thus hēahfore would've originally been an (informal?) term for any adult cow, only later being specialised for one that hasn't calved (note that the OED states that it can refer to a cow that's only calved once in some dialects). On a tangent, it's possible that there was at one time a corresponding *hēahfora m (“bull”). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 03:45, 18 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

I see, thanks for your clarifications, that makes sense. So would a long diphthong in Old English *hēahfore explain /ˈhɛi̯frə/ as well? Do you think positing *hēahfore is perfectly reasonable in both phonological and semantic terms or do you still see any difficulties regarding this etymology?

The main reason Liberman dismissed the form with the long diphthong is because “*‘ighstepper’ as the name of a young cow would be a kenning, which alone makes this etymology of heifer improbable.” Is this a valid assumption? --Latisc (talk) 09:05, 18 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Yes, /ˈhɛi̯frə/ could regularly develop from hēahfore, though such a form could also be develop from *hĕahfore. However, if the OE form was *hĕahfore, I'd expect a collateral form /ˈhau̯frə/, which would probably predominate in Late ME and result in modern English *hafer (like safe < Middle English sauf); compare the outcomes of OE ĕah in the following words:

• /ˈɛi̯xt(ə)~ˈau̯xt(ə)/ "eight" < ĕahta; ModE unexpectedly reflects the form with /ɛi̯/ here.
• /ˈlɛi̯xən~ˈlau̯xən/ "to laugh" < hlæ̆hhan, Anglian form of hliehhan; OE æ and ea generally merge in late OE (whether short or long).

As for Liberman's argument about kennings, it's a response to a specific interpretation of hēahfore as "stepping superbly", which is not the interpretation that I have adopted. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

You added an etymology for Swahili kilema (Borrowed from Arabic كِلَام (kilām)). Do you by any chance have a reference for this? Thanks! MartinMichlmayr (talk) 12:28, 17 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

 Added to the entry. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 12:43, 17 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hi Hazarasp ! I saw your edit summary comment, and it appears cut off (I assume you meant that should be tying the OE and OSX terms back to a PWG reconstruct (?)). If so, that's a tricky one. It all depends on whether the PWGics had a term meaning "heavenly kingdom" outside of its Christian sense. OFS, OSX, and GOH had analogous terms (e.g. Old Saxon himilrīki) but I would need to research if this was a concept borrowed from Gothic, or if the term was an Anglo-Saxon translation of regnum caelorum and spread via AS missionaries. My gut instinct is that it's the latter. Leasnam (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm well aware that other West Germanic languages have parallel formations, hence why I considered reconstructing the term to PWGmc. However, as the speakers of PWGmc were likely still mostly pagan, ultimately quite definitively rejected the idea of reconstructing Proto-West Germanic *hebunarīkī~*himilarīkī, because of the lack of evidence for pre-Christian currency of the term (which is a fairly specific Christian phrase, unlike, say, *kirikā, so that non-Christians would have no opportunity to use it). Additionally, the formal variation (fluctuation between *hebun~*himil exactly parallel to that seen in the simplex; nominative singular *hebun/*himil following Gmc. compound formation vs. genitive plural *hebunō as a more direct adaptation of Latin caelōrum) points to a new, unsettled formation. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:38, 10 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm sure you have multiple more accesses to Middle English writings than do I, yet, based on MED, only one example of an infinitive as weste can be found, the one a1425 <<Wynd in mannis body is caused of þis wys: kynd hete is lytyll or ellys less þan nede were & unmyghty for to resolve, id est to breke & undo & weste away & distroy þat wyk hu.>> All other verbs shown as weste are the preterite ("wasted"). This is why weste should be included as an alternative form on the entry, but it is not noteworthy enough to be shown as a normal Middle English infinitive. At the time, were the language standardised, this would have been considered bad grammar, just like how people today say "I is" or "you was"...just because it's attestable doesn't make it correct. Leasnam (talk) 17:16, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

My comment referred to ME infinitives in general, not that of weste(n). However, I'll respond to your misinterpretation by noting that the MED only supplies one example of a infinitive with /n/ (in a passage of Laȝamon's Brut) This means 50% of infinitival attestations lack /n/, which hardly makes leaving the /n/-less forms out of the relevant {{desctree}}s as "not noteworthy" defensible. Furthermore, your claim that it would've constituted "bad grammar" is a ridiculously unwarranted logical leap; you could at least do me the decency of supplying evidence that this particular sociolinguistic variable. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 18:10, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

It is therefore from here that we look at ALL Infinitives together collectively, for ALL VERBS, and when you do so, you will observe that the majority have -n. Leasnam (talk) 03:33, 25 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't think so, especially given the increase in text production in the Late ME period (when infinitival -n was recessive). I'll illustrate with a few examples from the MED (disagreeing mauscripts are counted seperately):

• adressen: adresse 3x, adresce 2x (adressen 0x)
• adreden: adrede 6x, adreden 3x
• aken: ake 1x (aken 0x)
• angren: angre 4x, angir 1x, angren 1x, angrye 1x, angur 1x, anngrenn 1x (Orm, probably MS. <anᷠgrenᷠ>)
• awen: awe 2x, agh 1x (awen 0x)

Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 03:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello ! B&T has an entry for this, but are you able to check if it were actually attested, please ? Leasnam (talk) 03:06, 17 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

It doesn't seem to be attested except as a alternate or inflected form of calwer (you'd need to check the context of the relevant gloss). By the way, you do know that you'll get twenty free logins if you create a DOE account, right? Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 04:08, 17 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I did not know that, but I reckon I'll use those up pretty quickly. I should just pay the subscription cost. I'm thinking about doing it... but Thanks :) Leasnam (talk) 06:15, 19 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

The given definition for calwere (“a bald place on the top of the head”) seems to be unrelated to calwer (“curds”). Leasnam (talk) 06:19, 19 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello, Hazarasp! Can you please use your bot to make some changes in the entries with Category:Macedonian adverbial participles (308)? What I need is to replace the generic definition template code {{head|mk|participle}} with {{mk-advptcp|a}}. Later I will manually edit the entries with Macedonian adverbial participles that end in -е́јќи and will replace the parameter "a" with "e". Thank you. Gorec (talk) 19:58, 28 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm not very well at the moment (see my main userpage); while I may be eventually able to get around to this, you might have more luck asking somebody else. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 02:12, 29 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry, I just saw your user page. Get well soon; I wish you many health and happiness in the new year!

If I can't find someone, then I will edit all the entries manually, when I have the time. Thanks anyway. --Gorec (talk) 12:18, 29 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

 Done I upgraded the template with more parameters and I edited all the entries manually. Happy holidays! --Gorec (talk) 12:51, 31 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hiya - thanks for your outstanding etymological work at ब्राह्मण (brāhmaṇa). Just in relation to Mongolian galik characters, my inclination is not to use them for the Mongolic languages themselves (outside of those which have come into general use). Instead, I think they’re more suited for direct transcriptions of Sanskrit or Classical Tibetan. With this term, the transcription is (likely to be) something like ᠪᠷᠠᢗᠾᠮᠠᢏᠠ᠋ (brāhmaṇa), whereas ᠪᠢᠷᠠᠮᠠᠨ (biraman) has been phonologically adapted (e.g. to avoid the word-initial consonant cluster, and by dropping the word-final short vowel). In any event, the galik “i” character is probably going to be deprecated as a glyph variant at some point anyway. Theknightwho (talk) 13:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the thoughts, though there's a good chance I won't be working with Mongolic material instead; I'm not well, and am therefore avoiding doing much on Wiktionary for the time being (see my user page). As a result, most of my efforts involve fixing mistakes or inaccuracies involving material that I know well (not Mongolic!). For instance, my edits at ब्राह्मण were prompted by the page's statement that Hindi ब्राह्मण (brāhmaṇ) was inherited from Sanskrit (a obvious falsehood); I then got a bit carried away. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 04:19, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

No worries - I just wanted to give you a heads up going forward. Theknightwho (talk) 18:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I was wondering whether you know how the modern pronunciation of "eleven" came to be. All the Middle English pronunciations that you added on elleven show that the stress is on the first syllable, so how did the stress shift over to the second syllable? 2601:640:8A80:98E0:701E:877E:B7CC:F25D 07:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Due to illness I can't look into the matter further, but the reason for the stress shift doesn't appear to be known; the expected modern form would probably be something like *elve or *enve (< ME *elven/*enven < *enlven). or *elven/*enven if from the inflected form like five, seven, twelve (the regular outcome of the uninflected forms would be *fife, *seve, *twelf). However, it seems that the stress-shift was completed by the ME period, so I'll change the page appropriately. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 07:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi - is there a reason why we seem to lemmatise Middle English at spellings that are as different as possible from moden English? For example, at English shrink, we give the etymology shrink < Middle English schrynken < Old English sċrincan. Note that the MED lemmatises at shrinken (), which seems far more intuitive to me.

I've noticed this pretty consistently across Middle English lemmas, and wondered what the reasoning behind it was. Theknightwho (talk) 19:51, 26 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The apposite criteria are listed at Wiktionary:About Middle English#Alternative_forms, though that section could benefit from expansion and clarification. Regarding the particular spelling selected for schrynken, I decided to employ <sch> as a standard grapheme for initial /ʃ/ since the majority of extant entries employed that form, though some entries with <sh> remain due to my declining health and avoidance of normalised or otherwise unattested forms; with that constraint imposed, <schrynk-> seemingly marginally predominates over <schrink->.

However, your intuition about the avoidance of orthographic choices resembling Modern English is not entirely incorrect; some spellings persist from a time when that was indeed a objective of mine (for instance, eie remains despite <eye> both predominating and being more consistent with other entries; though examination of the edit history of e.g. man will provide a counterexample). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 10:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

You wrote IPA^(key): /ɪˈmask.jʊl.lət/ as the RP pronunciation of adjective emasculate. I seriously seriously doubt this. This would mean there is a geminate (long) /l/ in this word. Geminate consonants simply do not happen in English outside of a few cases like unnamed and bookkeeper where there's a clear morpheme boundary between two morphemes each of which contains the same consonant. Perhaps you are thinking of the idea that /l/ is "ambisyllabic" and in some sense belongs to both syllables? This may be the case but this is still not how you notate this. Benwing2 (talk) 04:27, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

You should consider that a slipup originating from incautious copy-pasting rather than a intentional choice. By the way, you neglected to notice the inconsistent notation of secondary stress introduced in the same edit; I evidently wasn't paying attention when editing. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 08:00, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Hazarasp OK thanks, I'll fix if you haven't already. I did in fact notice some weirdness with secondary stress but didn't look into it more carefully. Benwing2 (talk) 08:24, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK, you already fixed it. Thanks! Also there is an inconsistency between RP and GA in the placement of the syllable boundary vis-a-vis /sk/, which I don't think corresponds to any actual difference. Benwing2 (talk) 08:26, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply