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Thanks for the info. Are there {{hr-decl-noun}} for bs and sr? Please let me know if there are any more issues. Would getting the inflection from HML be copyright infringement? I would appreciate a copy of the bot if you make it. - Francis Tyers08:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Well, I realise you can't hold a copyright on the forms themselves (thank fortune!) but people can hold copyrights on collections of information (unfortunately), so wouldn't copying their collection -- or a subset of it still be infringement? (I ask because you might know better). I saw you added the etymology for požar, but only to Croatian. Why not add it to Serbian and Bosnian as well? As it is the same word in all three languages. I'll do it for now, but while you've got the editing window open ;) - Francis Tyers09:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Great, well, keep me informed about the morphological paradigm bot. And many times the "non-commercial, published by an academic institution" doesn't work because of the free-software GFDL licence cannot restrict non-commercial use. I'm mentioning this because in my work I come across this a lot. - Francis Tyers09:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the tips. Btw, as you made the entry in the first place, why didn't you just add the other two entries, it would probably be quicker that way no ? - Francis Tyers14:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
I don't see the point in adding both scripts. One can be automatically generated from the other except in about five or six cases, so for me it also seems like a waste of time. Perhaps there could be some kind of template made for auto-generating three entries from one entry? In the case that they are all the same? So you could just subst: and have it create all the entries instead of having to take the trouble to make them, or correct them by hand? - Francis Tyers16:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Congratulations on a spirited defence of Cyrillic! Although in my experience the use of Cyrillic is only supported by those who are chock full of "Serbian national pride". Or so a shufty over the various websites of political parties in Serbia would suggest.
"there is no way for a machine to know where 'nj' sequence in writing is monophonemic /nj/ and where /n/+/j/. "
As I mentioned above, it is written separately in very few cases. And these could be quite easily extracted from a corpus.
"the creation of most primitive type of entries."
Most of the entries I've come across are of the primitive type, one meaning, one etymology, etc. ... I suppose they tend to be expanded over time. - Francis Tyers17:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Now it is clear, thanks. If you understand something in Lithuanian, could you partake of this discussion, I am in distress, since I understand no whit in this language, but am struggling to quote one cognate in it. Bogorm16:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Combining diacritics
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I came across your four entries of combining diacritics( ҄҅҃҆) . Is there an easy way to work with these squirrelly characters? I can't figure out how to actual make a link to them on mediawiki and they won't show up linkable in categories. The only thing I can do is cut and paste them into the search box. Any ideas? Do you think these kinds of characters deserve a special category (Category:Combining diacritics) that could include ones from other scripts? --Bequw → ¢ • τ10:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Yes, category for combining diacritics would be nice. You can link to them using {l|mul|<diacritic>} or using HTML entities (e.g. ] for titlo etc.) --Ivan Štambuk18:17, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the tip. I found that it depends on the browser. Firefox, for instance, won't display links in either of those cases. On the category page, therefore, I include external style links ( ) that should work in all browsers. --Bequw → ¢ • τ23:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Yes it does.. Uppercased letters in the inflection line are non-standard, it lacks etymology (though simplistic uter+que one), references, links to other related uter derivatives, Romance descendants...and the traditional classification of uterque as adiectīva pronominālia is more likely to be mapped to WT PoS categories as ==Adjective==, rather than ==Pronoun==. Folks who usually clean up Latin lexemes (namely EncycloPetey) are likely to expand the entry in the aforementioned directions; that tag is just for maintenance purposes and in no way is meant to lesser the extent of thy contribution. {{attention}} is abundantly used when patrolling recent changes (all "unpatrolled" edits wait an administrator's attention) for marking edits that are "all right, but could use more care", and thus make space for discerning possible vandalisms in unpattrolled edits. --Ivan Štambuk11:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
I copied the upper-case letters from alius, I mistook them for the standard. Shall I insert {{attention}} in alius? Regarding the pronominal claim, I shall forsooth await the intervention of other knowledgeable editor and his stance thereto or (sourced) refutation thereof. Bogorm11:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps it should be noted here that most of the entries which are currently in Category:Ancient Greek words needing attention are Ivan's creations, which he tagged for attention himself, as he knows they can be expanded by people who specialize in Ancient Greek (namely me). That does not mean that Ivan thinks his own creations wrong or useless (they aren't). uterque is certainly in need of some formatting and expanding, but that does not mean it is bad or not appreciated. I've made a habit of tagging every Latin entry I make with {{attention}}, so that it can be looked over by someone more skilled than I. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί11:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Now I understand the significance of {{attention}}. Let me just justify why I support the Pronoun classification: quis is an interrogative pronoun and the derived quisque is indefinite pronoun. uter means which of these two? and is undoubtedly an interrogative pronoun as well. Methinks that there is accordingly no reason for its derivation (uterque) to be refused the indefinite pronoun status. Bogorm11:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Can you cite a Latin grammar which classifies uter as a pronoun, but not sōlus, alter, tōtus, ūllus and others otherwise traditionally classified as "pronominal adjectives" (which are labeled pronominal solely for their meanings and the genitive/dative singular endings -īus/-ī) ? --Ivan Štambuk11:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Here (Michael Bradtke, Latein. Grammatik kurz und bündig, click on Grammatik, then Pronomina, then Interrogativpronomen) - Interrogativpronomen. Solus, alter etcetera can not be used to formulate questions. Bogorm12:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
AFAICS, it lists all the pronominal adjectives as Pronomen there, but it also lists them on the other subpage as Pronominaladjektive. If uter should be classified as pronoun, so should the other ones. This brings us back to the perennial question of mapping foreign grammar Part-of-Speech terminology onto English.. I've checked some of the Latin grammars on the Internet Archive, so we have:
New Latin Grammar, Bennett, Charles E.: "The following adjectives, also, frequently have pronominal force:"
A Latin grammar, Albert Harkness: "These nine adjectives have in the singular īus in the genitive and ī in the dative:"
Latin Grammar, Joseph Henry Allen, discussed on the section on adjectives: "The following (o-stems) with their compounds have the genitive singular in īus and the dative in ī in all three genders"
etc. My impression is that they're prevalently classified as a special subcategory of adjectives, which take pronominal endings in two cases, and which partially correspond to pronouns semantically. Thus, they are usually discussed within the chapter related to pronouns (which usually follows that of the adjectives in the grammar books), or sometimes even directly in the chapter on adjectives (like in the quoted example from the grammar of Albert Harkness). I suggest that, if you want to instigate further discussion with more knowledgeable contributors on this particular topic, to put this onto the WT:AL talkpage, as I do not partake actively in creating or maintaining Latin entries, or setting Latin-related WT policies. --Ivan Štambuk12:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Do you always post a message to new-comers of Wiktionary? Hm, thank you, but I don`t like nicknames.. Refusing to accept them, I will not answer people who use them addressing me. In fact, I have been dwelling here since August 2008, but I didn`t register because I had not enough time, and when I tried, I was told about "technical changes.. wait till tomorrow". Anyway, now I am "with you". How are you here? Aren`t you Wikiholic?
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Just wanted to thank you for the help on the article. I was slightly confused about the translated parts, but I think I know how it works now; Thanks again. ~ TheSun19:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC) ~Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Generally, I'm willing to rather completely defer to you on all matters etymology related (as you are clearly more competent in it), but I wonder if this edit was really for the best. The original cognates were all from the nominal sw*dr-. Wouldn't most of the ones you've put be better placed at ἰδίω(idíō)? -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί01:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
OK, but that would leave only Alb, Latv. and Armenian etymons, as Latin sūdor is originally an s-stem and 'r' is by rhotacism (like arbor, arboris < arbos, arbosis). Other languages have only one reflex, so we can make exception for Ancient Greek ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk01:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. Didn't know that bit about Latin. Also, may I ask what "Other languages have only one reflex, so we can make exception for Ancient Greek" means? That sentence is completely unintelligible to me. Thanks. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί02:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
I meant to say that only in Greek there are clear reflexes of both the secondary derivation *swidrōs and the original root, so it can choose to link to different set of cognates in different articles. --Ivan Štambuk02:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Do you have the time to fill some of the requests at Category:Requests for etymology (Latin) before the end of 2008? I ask because I've set a personal goal to clean out as many of the various Latin requests this month as I can (requested entries, Tbot entries, attention, etc.), in order to start 2009 fresh. However, the etymology requests I just can't do. Nearly all of the 44 entries currently in the category are ones I put there, and some have been there since at least August (that's when the category was created). Do you think you'll have time to attend to some of these? --EncycloPetey03:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Would you be willing to look at the Beekes link at the bottom of this entry? He says the word couldn't have started with laryngeal (for reasons which are completely opaque to me), and so it was an F????? Is that shorthand for something, like C or V? Thanks. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί07:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
According to B, inconsistency with the reflexes of initial vowels in Greek #ἄ- (< PIE #h₂-) and #ἔ- (< PIE #h₁-) makes it impossible to conclude which one of those is the original one. Since PIE words could not start with vowels, B treats them as prothetic and irrespectively postulates *wers-/wrs-. I've put 'h₂' secondarily solely on my personal observation , but I wasn't aware of the secondary reflex in Greek. Good that we have Beekes :)
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
So, I've been working on a few of these (ποῖος, πῶς, ποτέ, πότε, που, ποῦ, πόθεν), and I'm a little lost on the etymologies (Beekes has a little info that flew over my head, but he seems a bit confused himself). I was wondering if you had the time and motivation to check these out a bit. If not, no worries. They're in acceptable condition as is. I just figured you would probably be able to do something interesting, if you were so inclined. If you do, please feel free to make use of my inbox as necessary. Many thanks. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί01:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Oh, and since I'm sure you were just thinking to yourself, "Man, I'm so bored, I have nothing that I need to do on Wiktionary. I wish someone would give me a task," also see the etymology of ὁ(ho), which would certainly be enlightened by OCS and Sanskrit counterparts. :P -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί20:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
nüс
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Well, Cyrillic alphabet never managed to gain the upper hand in West Slavic languages unlike East and South Slavic and since Polabian is West Slavic... Bogorm21:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
I think what Stephen means is that the first two characters are Latin, and the third is Cyrillic es, not Latin c (the two generally look identical). -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί07:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago12 comments3 people in discussion
I appreciate your work with the Proto-Indo-European appendices, but some quæstions arose. 1) why are some languages written in the appropriate script (Sanskrit, Persian), whereas other are written only in transliteration (OCS, Ossetic). (Avestan is a thorny issue, since its alphabet is digitalised, but scarcely used in the Internet). Ossetic is written in the Cyrillic script (in the Autonomous Republic of North Ossetia within the Russian Federation as well as in the Republic of South Ossetia; the Stalinist try to impose Georgian alphabet in South Ossetia 1938-54 was eventually abolished) and I tried to render some of the words in their proper script. 2) However, to my disappointment, some of the words are not found in this voluminous Russian-Ossetian and Ossetian-Russian dictionary (such as xʷæræ хъæрæ for sister here or fidæ/фидæ for father here). Can you check once again... I am curious why in both cases this was not the only Ossetic word, but a second one, I managed to find the first by a simple Cyrillisation - see xo in the aforementioned dictionary. Actually, there was a second word for xo, but it was хогонд in lieu of хъæрæ. May this be some ancient Ossetic, which is obsolete? Bogorm14:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Those that are written in transliteration are usually so because no one has bothered to enter the native script yet..this esp. pertains to some "less known" Iranian languages like Ossetic. OCS should have had the Cyrillic/Glagolitic spellings, I'm suprised that there are any Roman transliterations of OCS entries left. Avestan will "officially" come with Unicode 5.2 (with Egyptian hieroglyphs and onder über-fun stuff), but at this moment the code points for these two have been frozen in the Unicode planes and it's OK to add Avestan entries, though I know of no fonts on the Internet supporting U5.2 compatible Avestan range (I kind of made one, but it works crappy and screws some other fonts like Greek). The guy who made Aegean.otf (the most comprehensive ancient-scripts font) and other told me that he has no interest in Avestan and he'll publish new version only when Unicode 5.2 becomes official. So for the time being, you can add Avestan-spellings by copy/paste method from Appendix:Avestan alphabet, though care needs to be taken to properly lemmatize them. There are scanned out-of-copyright Avestan dictionaries on the Internet Archive, avesta.org and some illigal websites, if you feel like adding those.
These Ossetian cognates are taken from Manfred MayrhoferEtymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen on IEED pages, it lists: xo/xʷæræ for PIE "sister" and fyd/fidæ for PIE "father". words It could easily be some ancient Ossetic, I have no idea. Leave it and somebody else will probably fill one one day.. --Ivan Štambuk14:24, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I have not deleted anything and do not intend to. However, what exactly is the connection between фыццаг (fyccag, "first") and фараст (farast, "девять") here? Any connection between 9 and 1? Bogorm14:45, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
I have no idea...Semantic development from "first, before" to "one" looks perfectly normal, but that "nine" cognate looks strange. I don't have EWA at hand so.. Perheps we need something like w:Template:dubious for tagging these. --Ivan Štambuk18:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
I think I figured out how to resolve the issue: on Ossetian Wikipedia the main contributor was with native tongue Ossetian. I shall ask him and if he is cooperative, it shall be elucidated why the result is such. But all entries which you have added separately are present in the two dictionaries... Only where there is a pair, a need for clarification arises...vide infraBogorm22:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply I think I resolved the issue, the right member of the pair illustrates the Western Digor dialect, in the Wikipedia article many of the pairs are mentioned. There are some phonetical and even morphological differences, but they are incontestably the same language. However, the Ossetian-Russian dictionary I am using does not comprise Digor items. Bogorm19:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
OCS entries without Cyrillic script are to be found here - sections elbow, dress and some others, here, sections cook, flat, rib, hit, foam and some other. By the way, is really the OCS word for локоть en effet pakŭtĭ and not lakŭtĭ? This transition p -> l looks strange... Bogorm22:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yes, it should be лакъть(lakŭtĭ). That PIE appendix is entirely different thing - it was compiled by folks at Wikipedia and transwikied here. There are few errors here in there in it, and lots of entries are lacking native script..Those appendices that I have created usually have OCS entries in proper script(s). --Ivan Štambuk23:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
OCS
One more quæstion, if you permit. While wading through the etymology of quell/quälen, I read that there should be an OCS cognate transliterated as zali ("pain") ans since Onl. Et. Dict. does not use diacritics, it may well be залъ or зали. In this nice OCS-Russian dictionary I found only the verb залѣзти(zalězti, “to inflict violence”). Do you consider one of the superior forms a possible nominalisation of залѣзти? If you find the noun anywhere, would you please insert it? Bogorm22:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, Vahagn! I did not surmise that z may effectually stay for ж, that was the clue, now it is clear! The word is жаль, the same as in Russian, just that in OCS it meant "pain" as well. Bogorm10:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Very interesting question. Frisk and Beekes completely reject connections of Greek ἀφρός with either Sanskrit, Latin or Armenian etymons. Formally, Greek aphrós and Sanskrit abhrás match perfectly (even in the accent), a both presuppose PIE form *n̥bʰrós with word-initial syllabic sonorant *n̥- (the only prefix in PIE! Though who knows whether in prefix function here..) to account for both initial Greek ἀ- (word-initially in 90% of cases a regular reflex of PIE *h₂, but that can't work for Sanskrit where all the non-compensatory-lengthening laryngeals gave /i/) and Sanskrit a-. That is the form that Lubotsky reconstructs and which I've put into the etymologies. The problem with this that Frisk and Beekes have is in semantic relationship: in Greek it's "foam", in Sanskrit "rain-cloud, cloud etc."
Latin imber is from earlier *imbris, with can be connected with something like *embros (what would otherwise be a regular Latin reflex of PIE *n̥bʰrós) with shift to i-stem, rising of initial /e/ and regular (and also expected and generally very common in all languages) assimilation of /n/ to /m/ before a labial /b/. In Armenain PIE *n̥bʰrós would (I guess) give similarly amb(r) (i.e. amp(r)) which is exactly what we have with ամպ "cloud". OTOH, the real Greek word for "rain" ὄμβρος with -mbr- cluster looks insanely familiar to the same one in Latin etymon, but the initial ὄ- is incompatible to Armenian and Sanskrit forms..
So strictly speaking, for all of those no PIE form is directly reconstructable, though it's obvious that we're dealing it an inherited word because there can't be such similarity in both form and meaning by chance. IMHO the Greek ἀφρός is a regular reflex od the PIE word for "rain-cloud" (coming to meaning just "rain" or "cloud" in the daughters, as when there are clouds there is usually rain or vice versa), somehow semantically shifted to "foam" with another word, that somehow distorted the original form (or being some Late-PIE dialectalism?), displacing it.
As for the Armenian p'rp'ur - the connection to Greek ἀφρός was made by Meillet, but is prob. wrong as these two forms (as Beekes also notices) are formally incompatible (with strange reduplication in Armenian that in PIE is usually confined to verbals, and in nominals only to some expressive and onomatopoeic in meaning, e.g. *bʰébʰrus "beaver" < *bʰer- "brown"). Postulating PIE root *pʰer- would be on the other hand obsolete today as according to the scholarship in the last 50 years or so since PIE apparently did not have "unvoiced aspirate" series (they were postulated in Brugmannian times due to the heavy bias with Sanskrit who had them secondarily, mostly resulting from a combination of an unvoiced stop and a laryngeal, but they didn't know of "laryngeals" until the Hittite was discovered). --Ivan Štambuk20:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Well, to me looks much more probable being as being a remnant of directly un-reconstructable PIE word for "rain-cloud", as that second explanation has even more problems: it presupposes zero-grade of nébʰ- which is not attested anywhere else (nébʰ- was not a verbal root, hence you wouldn't expect it), and this *p (unless it's some kind of common Armenian derivational marker, dunno..) which has a nice match in alternative etymology. I've checked several recent dictionaries and none gives ամպ as a reflex of *nébʰos.. However, according to another source *n̥bʰrós/*n̥bʰrís itself is a likely a derivative of *nébʰos! I'll put it on the appendix page. --Ivan Štambuk21:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Skok
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I am grateful for the link to Skok's dictionary. There I found evidence about the Hittite=Indo-European (it might also have been Akkadian) origin of the word тумач, but the Russian word толмач#Etymology claims some Turkic origin which I am keen to confute. Are the two citations on Appendix talk:List of Proto-Slavic nouns/People cogent enough for that and what do you think? Bogorm17:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply Can you provide some succor in finding the entries for morati and trebati in Skok's Dictionnaire Étymologique? After moral comes Morava, and being keen to find out the origin, I am ill at ease... Is it at some derivative of these two words? The same for vrući - hot. Bogorm22:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
mórati - discussed on the p. 638 in PDF under moći, out of which it is derived (3rd-person singular može > more, and whence analogicalyl to trebati ~ trebam it was derived in Kajkavian-Slovenian area morati ~ moram, and out of it spread to souther regions. mȍći and mȏć are from Common Slavic *mogti, *mogtь (OCS мошти(mošti), мошть(moštĭ)). See further etym. at the OCS entry.
trȅbati < Common Slavic *terbati (> by liquid metathesis OCS трѣба), which itself is according to one of my sources borrowed from Proto-Germanic, and according to the other cognate with it, being inherited from PIE *terp- (whence Sanskrit tarpati, Ancient Greek τέρπω) But then the change of PIE *p > PSl. *b would be problematic, whilst it can easily be explained by Verner's law in Germanic. I can't find it in Skok either.
vrȗć < Common Slavic *vrǫt'ь, in Skok discussed at the headword for vrȅti (< OCS & CS *vьrěti), p. 1077 in Skok PDF. That former adjective is a present participle of the latter verb. --Ivan Štambuk02:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
In the grammar «Сербохорватский язык» (on the same site as Skok) which I am perusing currently, there is this citation from И. Андрић “Дебели и разговорни доктор напустио jе после петнаест дана Сараjево” and the corresponding translation is разговорчивый, which means loquacious, garrulous. Is this meaning present in Croatian as well (because the caption of the entry is such) besides conversational or not? Does is also mean colloquial (as in bg.)? Bogorm22:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Note the difference between 2 different lemmas: rȁzgovōran ("garrulous") and rȁzgovōrnī ("conversational, of or pertaining to the speech or spoken language", i.e. to rȁzgovōr). The definite masculine form of the former overlaps with the latter, but those are 2 different meanings. rȁzgovōran can be found in literary language, in spoken much more common is prìčljiv, govòrljiv, bȑbljav etc. Yes, it can also mean "colloquial", but that meaning is marked and thus much more common term is Latinism kȍlokvijālnī. --Ivan Štambuk01:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yes, because being garrulous is an optional property of a person, whilst coversational is not. It's the kakav ("what kind of") vs. koji ("which one") distinction. All the adjectives having "of or pertaining to sense" thus have only the definite form end in -ski, -čki, -ški, -ni... not -ak, -an...--Ivan Štambuk11:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
kurajlija
Latest comment: 15 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
What bloody Slavonic?!!! Everybody knows perfectly that it is derived from Serbian so cut the crap with your Serb-hating, inferiority complexes and get a life. Next thing I know it's ganna be croatian kajkavian or better still cakavian like your bloody kukac. You are so amusing, did you know?
kukac is indeed from Kajakvian Croatian, and was borrowed from there to literary Serbian (where its less preferred to insekat). It is attested in Kajkavian writings for the 4-5 centuries, whilst in Serbian only from the "Serbo-Croatian" epoch. That it is the etymology in all etymological dictionaries I've read.
vampir is from Common Slavic *(v)ǫpyrь, with prothetic #v- (regular for back vowels, front vowels, had prothetic #j-, as words couldn't start with a vowel in Common Slavic). Nasal vowel */ǫ/ is reflected in /u/ in all Štokavian dialects, and is preserved only in West Slavic (Polish) and some obscure Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects. Hence, it's impossible to come from "Serbian". For such pre-historical borrowings (e.g. to other Balkanic languages) the preferred format is from {{Sla.}}, because it's pointless to speak of individual Slavic languages at the time the act of borrowing occurred (esp. if it occurred at the time when nasal vowels were still present, <12th/13th century).
The current definition ("system or belief") is uncountable. Those plurals on BGC seem to refer to "a prior statement" or "statement within the framework of apriorism", the senses of which are missing ATM. So, methinks that the deletion was pretty much warranted. If you want to expand the senselines with countables, just knock yourself out ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk00:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago11 comments2 people in discussion
In the Croation section for ko only the meaning of who is given. However, from this quotation here it is obvious that some other meaning is required. Is it possible to mean as/like? Ko sjene=like shadows ? Bogorm12:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that ko is a contraction of kȁo(“as”). That form is sometimes spelled more "properly" as k'o, and is (often) pronounced with long /o/, as opposed to the first ko in which /o/ is always short. --Ivan Štambuk12:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Then I would rather not add this meaning, since I am not conversant with the variety of stresses. By the way, the prominent, outstanding Croatian author whom I quoted there, has his article only in the Croatian Wikipedia, so if you are adamant about interwikis solely to English Wikipedia, the respective article should be created. Bogorm12:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
OK, as you wish. I'll create the en.wp article right away ;)
And BTW, the simplification of /ao/ > /o:/ is very common in spoken language (except perhaps in monosyllabics like dao, brao etc.), esp. in active past participles in perfect tense (e.g. imao sam "I had" > imo: sam), which you also may encounter in poetic/literary language but ordinarily people always write 'ao' in cases such as this. --Ivan Štambuk12:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
It is not a wish, since I can read the Croatian Wikipedia with almost complete understanding. I thought that you may be concerned about the non-South-Slavic readers of the entry who are still not an old hand in Croatian, when you advised me to link the article to the English one, provided that it exists. I am completely content with the Croatian article in Wikipedia which informed me about the life of the author more circumstantially than БСЭ, whence I came across him. Bogorm12:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
While reading a poem of Sudeta, I came across the word otava, which I could not find in the Serbian-Russian dictionary I am using. otavom pokrit / išo sam nekud - nešto sam htio. However, one dictionary confirms that there is such word meaning fog. Is there any particular reason why it is not in the Serbian-Russian dictionary? A regional word for fog? In the dictionary I am using the word is magla and the Croatian Wikipedia article for fog is indeed w:hr:magla. Any difference between otava and magla? Bogorm14:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
The Common Slavic word for "mist, haze, fog" is *mьgla (identical in OCS), with the expected loss of weak jer in West and East Slavic, and in the South Slavic the resulting hard-to-pronounce consonant cluster -mgl- untolerable by phonotaxis constraints being expanded with schwa into something like -məgla-, and this schwa later regularly vocalised to /a/ in Štokavian and Čakavian, /e/ to Kajakavian and most Slovene dialects, and I believe it was preserved in Bulgarian/Macedonian (at least the dialect used for standard language). Lithuanian and Latvian both have OTOH Template:lt with the identical meaning "mist, haze, fog", deriving from Proto-Balto-Slavic *miglā, itself from PIE *h₃migʰl-eh₂ "mist, cloud", whence also Ancient Greek ὀμίχλη(omíkhlē) (initial laryngeal in PIE reconstruction is to account for #ὀ- here, it was lost everywhere else), Sanskrit मेघ(meghá), Armenian մեգ(meg) etc, with pretty-much obvious regular reflexes. Very ancient word ^_^
òtava, however, derives from Common Slavic otava (Russian ота́ва(otáva), Polish otawa etc. — cf. entry in Vasmer for further cognates), denoting apparently grass of the second mowing, itself a compound of *o(b)- + PSl. *tyti "be fat". I cannot make out out of the abovequoted verses whether this meaning would fit literally/figuratively in the context, but this is the only sense I could find. --Ivan Štambuk15:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the explication, it was thorough. I am not sure about the grass meaning and how one can be covered by newly emerged grass... Perhaps by wallowing on it... So, the meaning of fog is fake? Bogorm15:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I have never heard the Bulgarian cognate, I should look it up in this dictionary of obsolete and dialectal Bulgarian words, so if you mention it anywhere, it is good to tag it as obsolete, lest anybody interested in etymologies make use of it while in Bulgaria... Hardly anyone could understand it if not a specialist in folklore or Old Bulgarian. If you mention any Bulgarian cognate, I could be of avail by determining whether it is obsolete, as was the case with куна/куница, which no doubt is, so do not hesitate to drop me a line. Here is the explication for куница as meaning money (but only in Volga Bulgaria), originating from the fur of the animal, which was handled. Bogorm15:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yup, the meaning of "fog" is fake. Thanks to that Bulgarian link, it'll be of use. Lots of cognates can survive only in dialects, not so rarely only in some speech any even then only recorded by field dialectologists in some obscure dictionaries. Historical linguistics doesn't care much whether the word has entered standard, literary lexis or not :)
Also, one of the very useful tools to look up obscure words used by writers is the so-called "Akademijin rječnik" (commonly abbreviated as "ARj."), which contains plethora of dialectal information and obscure words, including those that were used only once by a certain writer. Some volumes are avaiable on the Internet Archive:
With 97 volumes published for almost a century (1880-1976), it is arguably the biggest dictionary ever written, and prob. the only one whose first volumes turned out public domain due to copyright expiry whilst the last ones were still being compiled. Note, however, that it was edited by Croatian Vukovians and later by pro-Serb Communist linguists, hence large volume of "unacceptable" (i.e. Croat-only) lexis is missing (Kajavianisms, Čakavisms, but many Šulekisms that were regarded as "unnatural" but today are common everyday words), and all of the onomastics is "Štokavianised" (Split > Spljet, Ivan Belostenec > Ivan Bjelostjenec etc.). Search on the right should mostly work.
Latest comment: 15 years ago10 comments2 people in discussion
In this entry you claim some Proto-Slavic source for this etymology. However, one Bulgarian scholar claims the Iranian origin of the word (semantic cluster №9) based on Ossetic æфсǽрм (shame) and 5-6 other Iranian languages which are terra incognita for me at present. He explains that the Proto-Slavic word is stid (cf. Czech ostuda, Russian стыд) and that the sram-similar words have passed from Proto-Bulgarian (an Iranian language) to Old Bulgarian and then to Russian and other South Slavic languages. What do you think? What is your source for “Proto-Slavic *sormъ”? I just read that P. Skok also claims “Proto-Slavic *sormъ” and mentions Persian šārm (as does the Bulgarian scholar). But does it make sense when the word is in some Slavic languages (Bg, SH, Russian, no West Slavic?) to claim Common Slavic? Bogorm19:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply The same quæstion about SH krčag (jut), Bulgarian кръчма and dated Russian корчма (pub) and Ossetic кæрц (furcoat). He claims together with Selishchev (semantic cluster №2, same source) one Hungarian and one Albanian words to be loaned from Bulgarian. He compares the Indian word kuraka water receptacle and the Yagnobigurčak. Are you convinced that krčag and the cognates have Iranian origin transferred by Protobulgarians? Bogorm19:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply I could not find the entry krčag in Skok's dictionary, should it not be on p. 186, volume 2? Bogorm19:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
South Slavic (OCS) sramъ, East Slavic sorom and West Slavic (Lusatian) srom all doubtless point to Common Slavic (Late Proto-Slavic) form *sormъ with regular reflexes of pleophony and liquid metathesis. See w:liquid metathesis on WP for further details (a bit confusingly written, but fairly complete). This kind of distribution of reflexes of clusters involving a liquid in a closed syllable is attested on hundreds of words, so the original form must be Common Slavic, hence *sormъ.
Common Slavic *sormъ would descend from Proto-Slavic *sarmu, which is than, according to various authors, compared to Old Norse harmr, Lithuanian šarma(“frost”) (the best cognate IMHO, matching formally and semantically - compare another Common Slavic word for "shame" *stydъ which is traditionally related to Common Slavic *studъ "coldness", reflecting different ablaut grades of root vowel u/ū; so exactly the same thing could've happened here in Balto-Slavic period with Slavic preserving one sense and Baltic the other) and Iranian (Avestan šarǝma, New Persian شرم(šarm) both meaning "shame"). So the ultimate origin of Common Slavic lexeme is inconclusive.
SC krčag, OCS krъčagъ, Russian korčága and Polish korczak all unambigously point to Common Slavic form *kъrčagъ, further analysis of which is very speculative. SC krčma, Russian korčmá and Polish karczma point to Common Slavic *kъrčьma whose etymology is also very speculative. My guess would be that these two are related, stemming ultimately as derivatves of Common Slavic *kъrkati "to eat loudly" (SC krkati, Bulgarian къркaм, Czech krkati), itself prob. onomatopoetic in origin. --Ivan Štambuk19:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Interesting... къркaм is a too colloquial word. How do you know such words in Bulgarian? What about Russian метель (snow storm), dialectal Bulgarian мекава who are thought to have originated from Protobulgarian мет, because of Ossetic мит(mit, “snow”) (Ossetic people are the closest relatives of Protobulgarians). Is it an Iranian loanword? (I am asking because you have access to Vasmer's dictionary) Bogorm20:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
No idea on that Russian word, but I'd guess that метель = мет- + -тель (Slavic agentive suffix), the stem reflecting *met- of *metati "to throw", the imperfective derivation of Common Slavic *mesti "to sweep" (Lithuanian mesti, Latvian mest, both meaning "to throw"). This base agrees well with other Slavic words for "snow storm" - SC mećava (< earlier *met-java with secondary iotation), Czech metelice, Polish zamieć (< mieść "to seep"), Slovene métež etc., and also with Slavic borrowings in Romanian omăt and namete "snow", with the original Slavic source prob. meaning " sweeper". If the Russian word is related to the met- stem (very likely IMHO), than it cannot be Proto-Bulgar or Iranian cause it's Common Balto-Slavic. If it's not, I have no idea as my knowledge of Iranian languages (as well as sources on them) are very thin. --Ivan Štambuk21:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, мечава is thought to be present in dialectal Bulgarian as well... But the other Slavic words... But the Ossetic cognate is still convincing and moreover Vasmer regards the Russian word as derived from метать and dismisses the claim about the snow in favour of smite, cast origin: Unrichtig aber setzt Berneker noch ein davon verschiedenes Wort mit *met an. I am tending towards Erich Berneker and our scholar than to Vasmer's метать. You are not? Bogorm21:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Well, as I said, the originally meaning certainly was from the steam meaning "to sweep", and the "snow" came secondarily through semantic expansion. "to sweep" sense, as Skok warns, is secondary to "to throw", as Baltic evidence points to. I can't be able to found the entry in Vasmer (in Trubačev's Russian translation searchable online) for метель?! --Ivan Štambuk21:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Here in original German. I am still convinced by the presence of the Ossetic cognate. I shall wait for the new volumes of Rastorgujewas Этимологический словарь иранских языков (wait for M, heretofore issued till H), which you shewed me, in order to search for other Iranian cognates. Bogorm22:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hmm....judging from the comments on that page, Trubačev's translation&expansion into Russian missed quite a lot of Vasmer's headwords. I was hitherto under the impression that T's version was more up-to-date with the contemporary scholarship, but it appears now that I shall have to resort to the German original (which should be quite a painful experience, as I utterly abhor written and spoken German). Thanks for the link though. --Ivan Štambuk02:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Cheesecracker
Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I can't believe you blocked one of my IPs. How the hell was that not an abuse of power? I just helped block a malicious vandal - who was vandalising more than this Wikimedia project, I'll have you know. This is the last time I try and help an administrator. --128.243.253.11109:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Ivan Stambuk
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Thanks for noticing me, I was hitherto unaware of such blunder on my side. With all those obnoxious IPs, you sooner or later click the wrong hyperlink.. --Ivan Štambuk23:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Some help
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi there. I know that you are a sysop here, which is why I want to talk to you about a page that I believe isn't a word. I put flowings up for speedy deletion and SemperBlotto declined it on the basis that it had Googlebook results. However, just because it shows up on GoogleBook does not mean that it is a word. I've looked on more than 20 online dictionaries, and several in-print dictionaries in real life, and none of them had a definition for the word flowings. I believe that that is enough of a reason for a page to not exist on here. Thanks, Razorflame01:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Ho hum. Are we only to copy what other dictionaries have decreed, ignoring words that have been used but that somebody else neglected to list? This word has been used by significant writers like Francis Bacon ("the first flowings of the Scriptures") and Elizabeth Barrett Browning ("All flowings from the wave and wind"); unfortunately, it's quite hard to get exact dates for these, so I haven't added them to the entry. Equinox16:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
verb, infinitive
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Could you please tell me which verb (infinitive) has the form osunčam (here) which I encountered while relishing one of Sudeta's poems? I could not find anything similar in the dictionary wherein I confide. Bogorm22:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)Reply I came across sunčati se(“to sun”), so if the verb is osunčati, this should mean expose to solar emissions? Is the meaning when I expose its thresholds to solar emission/sun(I kad joj osunčam pragove)=when she (the edifice in its entirety) is constructed(i gotova bude)? I would appreciate your succour. Bogorm22:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
The verb osunčati, the perfective aspect companion to sunčati, with the meaning you state.
I kad joj osunčam pragove i gotova bude = "And when I sun her thresholds and she be completed"
BTW, very neat tool for lemmatising/inferring inflectives is HML, login with "proba/proba" as the message box informs you and enjoy the brain-damaged interface ^_^ (note that in case of osunčam it yields nothing, as it would in the case of many rare words, which you are likely to encounter in poetic writings, but it works great for the general lexis, except that it generates hypothetical forms here and there). --Ivan Štambuk00:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I struggle to understand your indignation when you behold Serbo-Croatian, however difficult it may be for me, but I cannot conceal my repugnance against the addition of Macedonian entries (hopefully you struggle to understand it as well). Therefore I would oblige myself not to use the SC terminology when establishing links to the entries, if you desisted from adding the respective entries. I think there are enough Macedonists for that, are they not? Bogorm21:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Well, Macedonian is ISO-recognised, official language of an independent internationally-recognised country, with millions of people claiming to speak it, with its own grammars, orthographies and its own literature independent from Bulgarian, hence it must be treated as its own language on the Wiktionary. SC, on the other hand, is neither of the aforementioned (even in its best days, it was a collective terms for "two variants").
Similar to Bulgarian attitudes towards the Macedonian are Croat and Serb attitudes towards this "Bosnian", who in the last English-version of the constitution accepted by the representatives of all three Bosnian & Hercegovinan minorities is termed Bosniac (=Bosniak), as it should be and as what is called in Croatian and Serbian (bošnjački), but those Islamic fundamentalists have managed to internationally promulgate the term "Bosnian", as if they're the only ones inheriting Bosnian ethnocultural heritage. Bosnian - the only language in the word not named after the people who speak it (there is no "Bosnian nation"), but after the ambiguous regional appellative. But, regardless of my personal attitudes towards the Bosnian, I do not remove its entries (furthermore, I sometimes add them, when I add pan-Slavic cognates), or try to diminish them - I respect every nations's right to self-determination and language standardisation. Of all the Balkanic people, I personally favour Macedonians the most, as they've been the least involved in some practical forms of ethnic cleansing, genocide...mostly victims IMHO. You should be more tolerable towards other nations and cultures, regardless of some marginal extremists' position, as those do not reflect the majority of the people's opinion. --Ivan Štambuk21:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I struggle not to get incensed, so I'll not be too circumstantial. Just bear in mind that: 1) the three largest West European countries, Germany, France and Spain, use FYROM, one of them is in the Security council, id est no inernational recognition 2) there is no literature in the vernacular we are discussing until 1920es. 3) Both SC and Macedonian emerge as official languages during Tito's time. 4) Take a look at this clear-cut map showing what languages there were on the Balcan peninsula in 1881, i. e. what they are if politic terminology is disregarded. Issued in Western Europe. Bogorm22:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Oh well, I guess there's no point in discussing such stuff (esp. here, given our record of disputes about these ;), it's a matter of conviction. My conviction is there there can be no peace on the nationalism-ridden Balkans until nations come to terms with what they are now, in this instant of time and space, and stop fantasising about some grand "unification" or "Greater X" schemes. Note to an innocent by-passer: the above map is not linguistic but ethnical, made in the 19th century when German "ethnolinguists" were striving to hierarchise nations by their own perception of a language. --Ivan Štambuk22:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I followed your confabulation with considerable interest and I want to express my disappointment that the talk page is locked. Please, release it, if possible. Afterwards I feel obliged to raise the two subsequent objections: 1) Douglas Harper is an established scientist and Online Etymology Dictionary is a leading etymology source for the English language, there is no need in belittling the outstanding linguistic source which it is. 2) Mentioning the highly speculative inept theory about some Altaic origin of the Korean language and taking this far-fetched figment for granted in that discussion is no more cogent than claiming kašika<kaša. You could at least have mentioned that this is controversial. Is the Talk page protected ad infinitum or it could be released? I would like to express mine opinion a bit more circumstantially there. KYPark has interesting, sometimes apt observations, although rejection of PIE origin is probably not amongst them. Bogorm21:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
If you want the talk page unprotected, I suggest you begin with a focused and coherent comment about the word in question. The reason that Ivan (rightly) protected it was that a huge and tiresome debate was occurring which was entirely unproductive and out of place. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί23:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
There you go - unprotected. As for your comment 1) I don't know what you mean by "established scientist" but Douglas Harper is not even a linguist. Etymonline is but a mere copy/pasted compilation of a few dozen etymological sources written by real historical linguists. It's perhaps "leading" in the on-line world due to its accessible interface and hyperlinking, but I can assure you that no real academic publication quotes etymonline. 2) Altaic theory is today still very contentious (all works done by long rangers is, and will probably ever be so), but its status today is that it's discussed by a few dozen people with Ph.Ds in cutting-edge journals, and Uralo-Altaic is maintained by no one, so comparing those two is completely inappropriate. The reason I mentioned it is because I thought Kypark's etymological interest in his native Korean could be channelised into some much-less-controversial constructive work, but after his inactivity from August 20th 2008, when he was made explicitly clear that no Korean-Uralic-IE nonsense will be tolerated, he appears to be gone for good. The feeling I get from discussing with him and his edit pattern (of something like: 100 constructive and exemplary edits, 1 edit with promoting Korean-Uralic-IE), I get a feeling that his all his constructive involvement in this project was to camouflage its destructive complement. --Ivan Štambuk00:24, 14 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
When you created this, were you intending for the "Tupian language family" or one of the specific languages? I ask, because if it's for the language family, I'll move it to {{etyl:tup}} (it will work fine with {{etyl}} but people won't be able to use it as a standard language in other regards). Cheers. --Bequw → ¢ • τ09:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi there. Could you use "rollback" to revert vandalism - that way, the bad edits get flagged as patrolled (and other sysops don't have to look at them again). Cheers. SemperBlotto14:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, that's what I usually do. I was experimenting with these popups in WT:PREFS and the "revert" feature is apparently a plain undo, not the rollback. I'll get back to the usual method.. --Ivan Štambuk15:16, 14 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Skok
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I do not know what your reason behind the obliteration of Skok's Dictionnaire Étymologique... is, but I assure you that I get rabid whenever established linguistic theories which are quoted and sources here get erased without any explanation whatsoever! Skok is a prominent linguist, you shewed me his Dictionary and I am entitled to quote it. If you are disappointed that this word has Gothic origin, you should object not to me (but the author is deceased, so it is useless to raise whatsoever objections against Skok), because I am merely quoting him. Please do not erase this further
Obično se uzimlje da je praslavenska riječ posuđena iz gotske radne imenice lekeis
The usual format for pre-historic Germanic borrowing is "from a (deprecated template usage)Lua error in Module:parameters at line 376: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "gem" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. language; cf. Gothic/OHG/whatever is relevant..". In this particular case, due to the multiplicity of several potential Gothic etymons, so we cannot know for sure. I was gonna write this on the talkpage, but I drifted away to take a nap, sorry. --Ivan Štambuk20:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I would appreciate your opinion about collecting the Balcan turcisms in the etymologies of the South Slavic languages, so that the speakers of one of them know which words are common loanwords in the neighbouring language. The discussion is on User talk:Bogorm#Cf._Bulgarian. Also, a vast majority of the obsolete Bulgarian words would undoubtedly never have an entry here, since they are known only to linguists and a decreasing number of starci/vieillards/Greise (no English word for that, sorry) in the province. Bogorm18:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
The prefix is also ob- (Common Slavic obъ, originally a preposition, cf. OCS объ(obŭ)) but that /b/ is often lost (degeminated, or simply dropped when the resulting consonant cluster is phonetically disturbing), or sometimes expanded with /a/ (from earlier schwa-like sound). So the original prefix is ob-, bit with o- and oba- variants.
Haha, too much consonants indeed. It is a tough language indeed, but with the right learning material it can be rather simple. That is why I am compiling my own website www.chechen.cc to learn Chechen in English, since all good material is in Russian. It is a long way from being done and just oepend 2 weeks ago, I am mainly working on Vocabulary sections now. Once I finish that, then I will work on lessons and such. I asked because I saw most of the Chechen entries here were left by you, so I was curious to meet another learner of Chechen. I can help you if you want, it has been 2 years now almost since I've been studying it. I am still far from fluent and can write it better than I speak it. :) --Girdi01:19, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
The site looks awesome, and I particularly like the fact that it links to some Wiktionary entries ^_^. I experimented a bit with Chechen a while back while not really getting anywhere. Caucasian languages are very interesting, but learning materials (proper grammars and dictionaries) are extremely scarce, which is not so good as they're immensely complex. I'll see how your site grows and perhaps give it a second try ;) --Ivan Štambuk07:10, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yes they are extremely complex. There is a book from the library here in Iceland that is in English called "A short grammatical outline of the Chechen langauge" by AG Matslev translated by Patrick A. O'Sullivan. You should be able to speak Really good English though to read it as you can definitely see it is a direct translation from Russian, poorly translated but very useful book, charts, examples, tables, so on. There is also a Chechen-English dictionary but it has so many mistakes and is really bad, but you can see it for free on google books, but I don't recommend using it at all. There is also "A handbook of Chechen verbal conjugation" also published by Dunwoody press (like the grammar book), it is a very simple book that is similar to the "501 Verbs" series, and shows every tense in Chechen (42) plus 2 missing but they are easy to form as explained in the book. This is also in English. Then the only other material in English is the Chehcen-English dictionary phrasebook which is good if you want to just learn to speak it, but it is written in a poorly latin transcription, personally I don't like it. Do you understand Russian? IF so I can recommend you and give you the ISBN number for some good Russian books. (This information I will put on my site eventually - have to give my material some credit haha). And thanks for the compliments towards my site! Hvala !:) --Girdi12:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
That's very nice, however the problem is that none of these books are available in Croatia :) I found an awesome Russian website recently with lots of scanned books on very obscure languages, and as I can see they're loaded with a few Chechen dictionaries but still no grammar books or introductory texts :/ What do you think on this text? Looks like written very professionally and succintly, but still very scarce on practical usability part.. --Ivan Štambuk23:32, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Zdravo. I bought all of my books online and I have had the Chechen grammar book checked out from the library for over a year now (just keep renewing it online haha). The first site is pretty cool, I need to look into that one more. The second site I have seen before, it is ok if you want to again learn Chechen how to speak it maybe, personally I don't like Chechen books written in Latin letters. I know a teacher in Arizona who also teaches Chechen in Latin letters. Since it will be some time before I actually visit Chechnya, I like to concetrate on the literary language for now since I use that more than spoken. At dunwoody press here, you can see the 2 chechen books they offer, the first one I bought from them and the second I have from the library, both very great books, best materials in English. You can order them online. They are expensive, but worth it if you are serious about Chechen, like both books together are around $100, plus $15 more to send to Europe and plus whatever taxes you have in your country so about $150 USD in total. But hopefully my site will be fully running soon so I can provide this information for free. :) --Girdi23:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
$150 is way too much for me, so I'll rather wait for your site :) Thanks for all this interesting information, I'll take a closer look to Nichols' text some time later and perhaps bug you on some things I found obscure ^^ --Ivan Štambuk00:11, 24 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
prasrodstvo
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
When Skok explains the etymology of paziti, he speaks of prasrodstvo with Latin specere and Old Norse spakr. It is highly intriguing but I cannot figure out how or whether the South Slavic word prasrodstvo (same in Bg) can be rendered in English (in German surely - Urverwandtschaft), so I wrote simply cf. in specio#Etymology. Do you think there is a word which can render aptly the meaning in English? Bogorm19:59, 19 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I have no idea...prasrodstvo would literally be "ancient, prehistoric genetic relationship". The extremely productive preffix pro-/pra- is my fondest Slavic affix =), it's of IE origin and cognate to Ancient Greek πρό(pró), Latin pro-, Sanskrit प्र(pra) etc. So perhaps neologism would be progenicity, procognicity or something ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk22:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
In case you are still interested, the answer is here and is primitive cognation/primitive affinity. But I cannot make use of it, as mine edit at specio was reverted and if I connect olim to lani in the same way, it will probably endure the same lot. Bogorm08:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I suggest you drop mentioning ON/Gothic cognates completely in Latin/AG etymologies until the guidelines for adding them are sorted out at the WT:ETY talkpage. I'm still waiting for the input of A & EP on the issue of Gothic. Per guidelines in their current form, ON would indeed be allowed to be listed in the etymology of speciō, but it could be replaced by Gothic or OE at any time. --Ivan Štambuk08:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Why did you revert my edit?
Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Hello,
I would like to know, why did you revert my edit to Iran? Was it factually inaccurate? I have always heard that Iran means "Land of the Aryans". Just to inform you: I am not a neo-Nazi or Nazi apologist of any kind, and did not insert that because of any belief or conviction of mine. The reason I did was to give more information about the etymology. Also, Reza Pahlavi did change the name to please Hitler. See this article. Jonas 68.96.213.11805:00, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
It was indeed inaccurate and wrong. The word Aryan (see its etymology) has many contentious meanings none of which is either applicable or preferable in the etymology of Iran. The reasons why the country name was changed is irrelevant for dictionary - we here just define what words mean. --Ivan Štambuk06:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
And how exactly is it clear that the Aryan in Land of the Aryans refers to "Indo-Aryans" ? I can't see any connection. Moreover, the phrase Indo-Aryan today is used strictly in linguistics sense referring to Indo-Iranian subbranch spoken in India (i.e. not Iran), so your phrasing is not only obsolete (assuming that once the term Aryan was applicable as ethnolinguistic classificator for the people of the contemporary geographical region Iran), but highly misleading. --Ivan Štambuk06:25, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I stand corrected, and as I am not especially knowledgable on issues relating to this, I will allow you to remove that edit, but the other uncontroversial changes I will put back. Ionas_Freeman(自人)06:27, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion
From what verb does this form originate in this quotation, I could not find it in two big Croatian (-Russian and -English, respectively) dictionaries? In Bg however the verb обадя(obadja) used reflexively means to call, used transitively - to give away, betray. Here the construction is obadeš someone na smth.Bogorm11:45, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I suspect of theoretical obasti, perfective aspect companion of obadati(“to notice, give prominence, pay attention”), a quite regional term (see entry in ARj. - ARj. claims "spoken in Dubrovnik" but I've heard it spoken many times quite elsewhere, but it's prob. confined to Dalmatian area tho), variant of abàdati(“to pay attention to, to notice”) (=obazirati se na, mariti), itself borrowed from Italian (ab)badare(“to pay attention”). Thy quotation is not complete, so I can't see whether the semantics fit, but I have a strong feeling that that's the correct verb.
BTW, I couldn't find this verb anywhere, so my guess it that Sudeta prob made it up, obastiTemplate:pf. : obadatiLua error: Parameters "1" and "2" are required., analogously to the class of verbs of e.g. sjestiTemplate:pf. : sjedatiLua error: Parameters "1" and "2" are required. (2nd-person singular sjedneš : sjedaš), pȁstiTemplate:pf. : pȁdatiLua error: Parameters "1" and "2" are required. (2-nd person singular padneš : padaš) (with the usual dissimilation of -dt- to -st- in the infinitive, itself dated to Balto-Slavic period, cf. Lithuanian infinitive ėsti : present stem ėd-), but now that I think about this, the proper 2nd-person singular of obasti would be obadneš! (or we're dealing with licentia poetica here?). Most of these -sti verbs having both the infinitive and present stem ending in t or d lack this type of perfective-aspect formation, and usually form the perfective aspect infinitive by means of prefixation (cf. bosti, cvasti, jesti, krasti, mesti, presti, rasti, etc.), so this type of formation is very rare..
Another possibility that comes to mind is that this obadeš is a misspelling of obađeš, from obaći(“to pay a visit to”), but again, I don't see the full quote so I don't know which meaning would fit. --Ivan Štambuk13:29, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I appreciate thine explication (shall we keep on thou-ing?) Now that thou hadst mentioned obaći(“to pay a visit to”), I noticed that na smth. may refer to the superior verb nije mislio and completed the quotation accordingly. However minutely I scrutinise the scan I am unable to conclude whether the letter is đ or d. What do you think? The text is here, Ostale pjesme -> Zaborav, first stanza. Bogorm13:45, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Great, but you will have to digitalise them - they are available only as images. It is marvellous that you are interested in this author and intend to expand the section for him in wikisource. I am also glad that I started learning Serbo-Croatian so that I can understand the poetry of Đuro Sudeta and Antun Branko Šimić, they must be consedered the foremost Croatian poëts, right? In Bulgaria ours are Atanas Dalchev and Dimcho Debeljanov and others as well. Your language is a bigger challenge for me than Russian, I must admit. Bogorm15:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Well I wouldn't classify Sudeta on a par with Šimić, but Šimić certainly has its place in the the pantheon inhabited also by Ujević, Krleža, Tadijanović, Matoš, Cesarić and others. I personally am also very fond of older poets such as Gundulić, Marulić...Kamov (esp. him!), as I learn many archaic and old words in the process. Ancient writers were much more liberal in word-building and usage, a tradition that has sadly be gone for quite some time (today it is almost demonized by some). I'm very glad that thou enjoy'st Croatian writers, I wish I could return the favour by reading Bulgarian pœtæ one day.. --Ivan Štambuk16:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Ivan, I've noticed that you have an interest in etymology and comparative PIE linguistics, etc. I've also noticed that you seem to be very passionate about many areas in PIE reconstructions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you of the opinion that the laryngeal (and/or glottal) theory in PIE is bunk? Also, what is your take on the inclusion of Hittite as an Indo-European language? I'm eager to know...—Strabismus00:30, 21 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Laryngeal theory is definitely not bunk, whilst glottalic theory prob. is (at least in the form it is currently advocated by a small minority). The thing is that glottalic theory (i.e. reinterpratation of PIE voiced stops as ejectives, other manners of articulation being voiced and unvoiced with uncontrastive aspiration - as opposed to the traditional reconstruction which postulates voiced, unvoiced and breathy-voiced series) is prob. wrong for "Late PIE". The thing is that with comparative method you can only reconstruct the last phase of a language, when some form of dialect continuum existed and where often you find lots of divergence. in order to reconstruct the state original state of affairs, you need to apply internal reconstruction or have a cognate language family to compare to (which is absent in case of PIE). Now, glottalic theory is very certainly wrong for such "late PIE", but it could be very much possible for pre-PIE as it would very elegantly explain some "anomalous" confinements on PIE root structure, or the extreme rarity of PIE */b/ (which must be there, as PIE certainly had */p/ and */bʰ/, and there were also triplets */k/ - */g/ - */gʰ/, */t/ - */d/ - */dʰ/, */ḱ/ - */ǵ/ - */ǵʰ/ and */kʷ/ - */gʷ/ - */gʷʰ/, so obv. */b/ is needed to "fix the gap"). PIE laryngeals (that name is misnomer, they were prob. not real "laryngals/laryngeals") are directly attested in Anatolian languages as consonants (but even there in a limited set of positions), and have a wide variety of distinct reflexes in a number of other branches. No one questions laryngeals today.. Even modern GT proponents admit their existence, it's just that they interpret some of them as glottal stops to fit their theories, which is not really likely ^_^.
Hittite is 100% Indo-European language. The whole Anatolian subbranch (esp. Old Anatolian languages such as Hittite, Luwian and Palaic) represents and older stage of PIE, so sometimes they're grouped into "Indo-Hittite" clade. The whole IE family consists of Anatolian branch and the "rest", and that rest consists of Tocharian branch and the "rest", in terms of genetic relationship and divergence from mother language. I can easily show you on one trivial example sentence from Hittite (one classical example) how it's obviously Indo-European, if you're interested, but it'll take me some time to type it :D --Ivan Štambuk02:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Oh I know a little about Hittite. You don't have to do anything that would be inconvenient. But one thing you said kind of caught my attention:
in order to reconstruct the state original state of affairs, you need to apply internal reconstruction or have a cognate language family to compare to (which is absent in case of PIE).
That would seem to be true from the standpoint of the regularity hypothesis. But even so, did not Saussure make some wild conjectures on the part of PIE OUTSIDE of the “original state of affairs” when he originally proposed the existence of what would later be called laryngeals WELL BEFORE Hittite was even deciphered? He was mocked and ridiculed by many in his day, just as perhaps the glottalists are today. Although, he was also unduly lionized by nuts who suggested PIE originally had twelve-some laryngeals. But my point is that we mustn't jump to conclusions in comparative linguistics even if we think someone else may be. Saussure, Szemerényi, Hrozný, Greenberg, Ruhlen, and a host of other linguists were at once (and some still are) considered loony. They may not even be to YOUR liking. But they have done quite a bit to demystify many of the uncertainties that are inevitable in a field such as comparative linguistics, you must admit.—Strabismus19:07, 21 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Actually, Saussure's work was mostly ignored AFAIK, until someone drew clear correspondence between his coefficients sonantiques and Hittite /ḫ/-sounds. Saussure's conjectures are in fact a prime example of internal reconstruction, where one postulates the most economic explanation (ablaut + laryngeal "colouring") to explain away what was otherwise described as anomalous correspondences. Perhaps someone mocked him...I wouldn't now ^_^.
I admit that the advancement of science often depends on some loonies laying out weird theories that are made public or accepted by mere chance (e.g. Einstein's annus mirabilis papers when he was still a patent clerk - were Max Planck not the editor of Annalen der Physik, they prob. would've never passed thru). But the thing is, this glottalic theory was at first very much accepted, then discussed at length, and finally dumped as introducing too many problems than solving. Some notable (there are not many at all, by any means) PIE glottalists today abuse scientific discourse and very much slip to crackpotry, by abusing the aura of scientific authority bestowed onto them by the relevant universitiy degrees, ignoring criticism and devising highly elaborate ad-hoc frameworks for what could otherwise be very easily explained in "classical" theories. Read e.g. this and this paper (the former written by a renowned IEist Jasanoff, the latter by one (very smart) Croatian linguist (it's in English, don't worry)), esp. the very unfortunate un-scholarly tone of the discussion, between the chief proponet of modern variety of GT and the those advocating the traditional path. Once the K is gone from research, the GT would be as good as dead.. (which would be very soon I hope as he is severely inhibiting the progress in the field IMHO). --Ivan Štambuk09:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
To my awareness, Saussure's conjectures were considered out of line as they seemed to have no known surviving examples. Yes, the anomalies themselves are noticeable (e.g., irregular e : o : ∅ vowel grade in a few instances). But who would've thought that they would point to a phoneme(/phonemes) which are all but absent in all of the daughter languages? Well, apparently, Saussure. THAT'S how he was working outside of the regularity hypothesis. Although, when you think about it, and after the discovery and decipherment of Hittite, the laryngeals became VERY regular!
I bring up the GT as glottal phonemes and laryngeals have a few things in common as regards area of articulation, their general paucity in many modern I-E languages (barring, of course, the common GS beginning words which "start" with a vowel: e.g., /ˈæ.pl̩/ , the Danish stød, etc.), etc. I'm not championing GT by any means, but it does seem to have some parallels with laryngeals. Of course, that may be a moot point even.—Strabismus20:48, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I thought you might be interested in this discussion, especially since I quoted you. If Old Norse cognates are under threat now, soon Old Church Slavonic may follow. Ja bih te pohvalio, ako vraćeš staronordijsku rijeć u specio, zato što stranica sada je dostupna tek administratorima. Pozdrav Bogorm21:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
I got this from the Baltic inherited lexicon database you gave me a while back, but the roots they give are kinda funny, so I've got another one for you to fix, whenever you have the time :) — opiaterein — 00:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Oh yeah, I also found out that the tone markers used in Lithuanian dictionaries in modern days are used more to distinguish the stress pattern of words. The ~ is more mobile, while the accute accent tends to stay in the same place. — opiaterein — 00:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
The word is not PIE (no cognates in other branches), and the form Derksen reconstructs is some highly-speculative pseudo-PIE, i.e. what would've it looked like had it been PIE. Often you can find in lexicons (including the today's "standard" one - LIV) such PIE pseudo-forms reconstructed on the basis of one branch only (in case of LIV, usually Germanic - sapienti sat), but these are very misleading and have absolutely zero justification.
Also, the forms that Derksen reconstructs are all contaminated with Kortlandt's variety of nowadays obsolete glottalic theory, which they fondly cherish at the University of Leiden (and nowhere else). Not only there is zero evidence for those silly glottal stops where they mark them, but there is also abundant evidence where Balto-Slavic acute arose in non-laryngeal-closed environment. So in short, replace Vʔ in BSl. reconstructions with V: (with macrons) wherever you see it, and that should be it (and preserve the accent marks, as accent and paradigm is reflected in Lithuanian and Slavic).
Also, for your comments on the Lithuanian accentuation - I'm pretty sure that I've read in various places that circumflex and acute denote two distinct tones (falling/rising), and that literary Lithuanian has not some stress- but pith-accent system as West South Slavic languages. Also, accentual mobility and the accent register (or "quality") or orthogonal concepts - the first refers to the position of the ictus (it being "fixed" or "mobile" throughout the inflection), and the latter on its register (acute, circumflex, "short"). So you can get in mobile paradigms (3/4) alternation of different registers in different syllables. --Ivan Štambuk08:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I know that in Lithuanian schools, one is expected to know the difference between the circumflex and acute pronunciations, but I've been told by natives that in most places in regular speech, there is little if any distinction made. I've also never heard a noticeable difference in anyone's speaking. I think it's possible that the practice falling out of common use because it's not as important as the stressed syllable in determining the meaning of a word, like it is in Chinese. — opiaterein — 14:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
in most places in regular speech - this is no real argument: the priority must be given to the literary form of Lithuanian as prescribed by the grammar books, not the irregular urban idiom of Vilnius. For example, the urban idiom of Zagreb, Croatian capital does not make a difference between /č/ and /č/, /dž/ and /đ/ (i.e. kids need to learn those by heart in order to be literate), and bastardises standard accentuation (4-way, free mobile pitch-accent + post-tonic lengths) into a stress-based (i.e. 1-way) with no distinctive lengths, with ictus commonly placed on "wrong" syllables like the ultimate one (by standard ictus can never be on the ultimate syllable except in French borrowings, interjections and similar corner-cases). Does this mean that Croatian and Serbian should have their pronunciations in their subliterary capital's idiom, that bears very little resemblance to codified Neoštokavian? No! Esp. not as long as orthoepy (rules of the proper pronunciation) are prescribed in grammar books published by the relevant authority (some academic institution). I don't know if this is the case for Lithuanian tho. As long as we distinguish different accent registers in the entry headword, it makes some sense to do that in the corresponding pronunciation IMHO.
I mean, there is no problem in adding stress-based pronunciations, but clearly marking them as non-standard ones should be mandatory IMHO. Like we add "UK", "US" and similar qualifiers for English. --Ivan Štambuk14:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Polabian entries
Latest comment: 15 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion
Hello. I noticed that you add words from Polabian English. In my opinion it should be made with a great caution - Polabian is a dead language, never had a unified writing system and what we know as "Polabian language" are only reconstructed words written in arbitrary way by 20th century researchers - and every single source about the language has a bit different method of writing it. So you cannot just write the word, English translation and finish on it - because there is no "single truth" about Polabian language, you cannot write anything for sure.
For example, "Polabian-English dictionary" gives "zaimă" for "winter", "Słownik etymologiczny drzewian połabskich" gives "zaimə", and German Wikipedia gives "zaima" (probably according to Reinhold Olesch). So entries about Polabian are completely useless, because you don't know, which transcription is used there. Someone else could add the same words in different transcription (not knowing about the previous) and readers would be confused - are these synonyms, or does one of them contain a spelling mistake?
In my opinion, every entry in Polabian has to have a reference to the source - this way it would be clear, which transcription system does the entry follow. Generally, I think that every hypothetical or doubtful information on Wiktionary (like etymology, languages without unified writing system) has to include reference to the source, because otherwise it's worth nothing. Greetings, --Derbethtalk11:31, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for your input. The Polabian entries I added to the Wiktionary are all normalised to the usual phonemic transcription (I think). However, it would be the best to create a policy page Wiktionary:About Polabian to specify the details. I didn't look into doing it (now, or any time sooner) due to the extreme obscurity of Polabian, and me being the only person adding its entries here.
We should either 1) agree on the most common transcription system and normalise all entries to it 2) create the native spelling entries as written by the attestors (in the dictionaries, and those very few prose texts) and add the transcription within the //s (this latter method is used for several ancient languages that were written in scripts completely unsuited to their phonology, namely those in cuneiform (Hittite, Akkadian..) and also e.g. Linear B Mycenaean Greek).
OK, Polabian entries are not going to increase numerically suddenly anyway, so we could take all the time in the world. I was thinking on first expanding the Wikipedia article looks pretty miserable, but can do that only when I get the proper books in the library next week. You can freely add your dictionary entries' spelling on the Wiktionary immediately, and we can correct those not conforming to the decided policy later. --Ivan Štambuk12:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Ad 1. - I think it would be somewhat against "five pillars" (NPOV, no original research) to consider one transcription superior to other. We are not professional researchers to judge which one is better than other. Ok, it may be acceptable that we favour one transcription as "Wiktionary standard" - transcriptions of Polabian can be translated from one to another (to some degree I think). But what if sources disagree about spelling of some word? We cannot simply write opinion of one side and omit the other. Ad 2. - but every original dictionary had it own writing system, created by people not knowing anything about the language they were describing. In my opinion it would be worse than any other modern transcription.
It can happen in any moment that someone will start adding new entries to Polabian, so there should be clear rules. As for me, it would be the best to demand all new Polabian entries to have reference to its source, and to create some meta-page for Polabian (like "Wiktionary:About Polabian") stating that all Polabian entries use source X (as far as I see, you use "Polabian-English dictionary") and if any entry is using another source, it should be explicitly provided in that entry.
Actually when I started work on Polabian on Polish Wiktionary, I also chose one transcription (from "Polabian-English dictionary") and translated transcription from "Słownik etymologiczny drzewian połabskich" to the first transcription (both books have the same author so differences are minimal). But because it's not "mine" dictionary and anyone can further develop it in a way he/she likes, I decided that in order to avoid possible confusion between two incompatibile writing systems, every entry in Polabian on pl.wikt has to provide source - and it's consequently so. --Derbethtalk19:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Very nice. However, methinks that it should be easy to agree on one particular transcription system (the most popular one), and proscribe it per policy, and also allow all of the individual attestations of Polabian terms (in dictionaries and those few texts that survived), in the original spelling. I don't see a point in supporting every transcription system conceived by the authors of every Polabian dictionary ever published..
The problem is that Polabian-English Dictionary is quite an old publication and they may be new findings in Polabian research. It would be very unwise and unfair to treat English language books as the most important trustworthy materials. There could be publications in Polish or German never translated to English, that give a new view to Polabian. For example, for me Polański's transcription is a nightmare, because it uses notation appearing in no real spoken Slavic language. It's raw phonetic writing, so writing Polabian in it is something like writing in IPA. Examples from German Wikipedia, which probably took it from Olesch's book, are far more readable and similar to existing languages - but I'm not a linguist to judge if they are as precise as Polański's transcription.
Anyway, I think that what you are proposing is not bad, although I would not create any entries in original notation. All first-hand Polabian dictionaries were unfortunately written in a terrible manner - since all reaserchers were amateurs with hardly any knowledge of linguistics and other Slavic languages, every one used different notation invented by himself, based mostly on German writing. Writing Slavic words according to German ortography is certainly not the best idea. --Derbethtalk19:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, I wasn't aware that there is much new research on Polabian. AFAIK, the language was recorded in a handful of manuscript (dictionaries and some prose) when it was just about to become extinct, and what was recorded then is everything that's left of it...
Polański uses exactly the same transcription in that big The Slavonic languages monography which is a rather recent publication, and probably the most authoritative synthesis on Slavic languages in English today. So I'm rather reluctant to give it up.. However, we could add entries in alternative transcription schemes as soft redirects (similar to English misspelling entries, which are not treated here as "real" words, but only as soft redirects by means of {{misspelling of}} template which doesn't categorise..). That way, entries in German or Polish wiktionaries that would presumably choose another transcription scheme could interwiki each other properly, ultimately all pointing to the wiktionary-specific lemma form.
I agree that attested spellings would be really bad..tåkăč was e.g. written in the original dictionary as Tócatsch. The big advantage of using attested spellings as primary ones would be to completely solve the "which transcription scheme to use" question. The big disadvantage would be to find the original spellings, as basically all Polabian dictionaries (modern ones, not the originals) only write the transcribed word (occasionally mentioning the original spelling for illustrative purposes). So I would allow them, but only as soft redirects (i.e. not real words), and only if properly-referenced (because they're hard to find, in order to ensure that someone is not making them up). --Ivan Štambuk10:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Avestan alphabet
Latest comment: 15 years ago10 comments3 people in discussion
Please tell me what Avestan font you use and how you go about entering data in Avestan. Currently, I can't view the Avestan script, each character appears in the Last Resort typeface which is a bunch of boxes. I have many, many VERY high range Unicode fonts yet not ONE of them features Avestan (which was allegedly added in U5.1). Talk to me! I need to be able to view all characters!!! :)—Strabismus22:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I have a similar problem: while reading from a pdf file I can clearly distinguish (mek, “which, who”), but when I copy it thither, it is not visible (to be precise:visible as uniform meaningless characters). If my Adobe Reader can recognise and display the font, why can my browser not? What need I to do? Bogorm23:11, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hopefully, Ivan will respond soon. In the meantime, I seem to gather that the only Unicode font featuring the new Avestan block is Alphabetum. The complete Alphabetum font is shareware and costs $22 for a simple, one-user registration. Fortunately, you can download the demo and try it out. Furthermore, most of the characters in the complete font are available in the demo. Except there are quite a few characters that have the word DEMO superimposed upon them (e.g., 2 D H K O Q m q and x all suffer from this).—Strabismus00:15, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I edited a version of Alphabetum that supported Avestan fonts, but had it mapped to the non-U5.1 range, so I've simply relocated code points in font editor to make them Unicode-compliant. Avestan wasn't actually officialised by U5.1, and will come only with U5.2, but it has in the meantime gained fixed range in the SMP (ever since the 5.1.2 version ). So, it would be OK to add Avestan-script entries now. There are lots of cool tutorials, books, critically-edited texts and dictionaries on avesta.org and archive.org, if someone is really interested ;) The only particular point that needs to be addressed is the lemmatization scheme, as Avestan is equipped with lots of sandhi (very similar to that of Sanskrit), so nominals should be prob. lemmatized as stems, and verbs as either roots or 3rd-person singular present active (i.e. like Sanskrit, or perhaps in both ways). --Ivan Štambuk04:36, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Ahem. Does Juan-José Marcos know that you've altered his font? If so, good for you. If not, I won't tell a soul if you send me a copy. C'mon, I have no font editing software! I NEED TO SEE EVERY CHARACTER! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sick and tired of seeing Last Resort boxes! This typographical madness MUST end!—Strabismus19:26, 23 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thank you very much! :))) BTW, I still see the DEMO superimposed on some characters. What should I do about this? If, however, it can't be fixed, don't worry. :))) —Strabismus20:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Oh, I always have it loaded, along with Gentium, TITUS Cyberbit Basic, MPH 2B Damase, Code2000/2001, and a host of many other high-range Unicode fonts. :)—Strabismus19:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the welcome, but I'm not actually new...
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 15 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion
Why didst thou do this? I promised thee per e-mail to add ON only in entries where OE and Gothic are not præsent. Now I am being tempted, but if I return the cognate according to the promise, I shall probably be reverted. Do we go on thou-ing? I adore the -st endings, they remind me that English is a Germanic language. Bogorm11:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
As metold thee above, do not add ON/Gothic cognates at all until the guidelines are sorted out. Lest thou shalt be blocked for misruption ^_^ I elevated the protection as it was no longer necessary.. --Ivan Štambuk11:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
After my block I stay away from etymology sections, as thou canst descry, but I do not know for how long. I really want this policy guidelines to be indorsed as soon as possible, they are simple: 1) add always Gothic and OE, 2) if there is none of them, add Old Norse. I did what I can, I supported thee for Gothic and there are no objections, ergo it would be good to add this rule. It is straightforward. Lest goes with subjunctive, so lest thou be blocked/shall be blocked(vide infra, issue resolved). Bogorm11:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Here is a nice example: unless thou bless me (not blessest). On the basis of analogy I excluded the form shalt from a sentence requiring subjunctive mood. Could you ask some native speaker with interest in archaic English to express his opinion? I am not particularly familiar with many users, but I think Doremítzwr may help us. May I require his opinion? Bogorm12:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Feel free to inquire him, or place the topic in the Tea Room (just no link to my talkpage, please!). I could swear seeing lest thou shalt-type of construct somewhere.. --Ivan Štambuk12:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
You have two options here, either leave the modal out, à la Bogrom, or use "shouldst", which sounds most familiar from the KJV: "Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them." (Proverbs) etc. "Lest thou shalt" is used by some writers as well, but the grammar seems obscure to me. Ƿidsiþ14:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the clarification - the subjunctive mood and thou are both magnificent parts of English grammar and when they are combined, it is exciting. Bogorm14:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I was wondering what your thoughts were on {{xlu}}, {{hlu}}. Should we treat Luwian as a unified language, or differentiate the two forms as SIL does? I suppose it seems a bit silly to treat it as two languages based simply on script, but then again, we are pretty reliant on SIL (a policy which I generally support). Although, truth be told, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if Mycenaean would be better treated simply as a dialect of Ancient Greek, instead of a language in its own right....but that's a conversation for another day. In any case, you know a great deal more about Luwian than I, and I would appreciate your thoughts. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί08:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
I think it would be the best to treat them under the same ==Luwian== header. Hieroglyphic and cuneiform Luwian were used to write two closely related dialects of the same language. Anatolian hieroglyphs will not be in Unicode for another 2-4 years so we're stuck with cuneiform Luwian until they arrive.
Mycenaean is doubtless Ancient Greek dialect, but the question is: Does the chronological distance of 7-8 centuries, different script and archaic phonology justify separate treatment? The usage of different L2 headers should not be understood IMHO as an argumentation for "different language", as we already use it in many cases where they doubtless represent the same language (Arabic varieties, Norwegian B/N, standard Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , some would also add Bulgarian/Macedonian and various "Persian varieties" to the pile, but that's more politics than linguistics.) "language" is an artificial construct, usually denoting a particular dialect given prestigious literary status. The difference between those two depends on external non-linguistic factors (politics, ethno-cultural affiliation etc.). In case of Mycenaean, the only concerns would be of practical maintenance nature for Wiktionary editors and users. --Ivan Štambuk09:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hm, Bulgarian/Macedonian is not politics, but hiſtorical and linguiſtic evidence. What about Romanian/Moldavian? I perſonally am an advocate of the Moldavian language, becauſe unlike Macedonian, it had its own writings in Cyrillic ſcript for 5 centuries. But I do not ſpeak it or Romanian in order to know how different they are. The uſerhighteth Bogormconverſation16:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
If we are talking about genetic linguistics, not cultural tradition, than Romanian and Moldovan and doubtless the same language. User:Opiaterein has created quite some shared entries in those two mutually linking among one another in the inflection line. --Ivan Štambuk16:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
See WT:CITE for guidelines and for an example Citations:mauve on how to format them. You can also put them inline after the definitions, which would be much more advisable for obscure terms such as this (e.g. cf. meet one's maker for example of such citation). --Ivan Štambuk 07:20, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok; I cited paramukta. I read it there first but did not notice if it clearly implies my current definitions, but you could look up the words it uses and so on until concluding the definition. I have called paramukti 'alternative.'--Dchmelik08:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Sorry for inadvertent BP deletion
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Just a note for you in case you miss the BP notice ^_^
I really grew fond of those collapsible inflection templates that Opiaterein originally spread (and that by now lots of languages use), so I've made {{sh-decl-noun}} and {{sh-conj}} collapsible. Does that pose a problem to you?
And also the order of cases: perhaps it would be the best to ignore "Western" and "Eastern" traditions completely, and use some neutral one, like those in the The Slavonic languages monography, chapter on SC written by Wayles Browne, who uses the order: NOM, VOC, ACC, GEN, DAT, INST, LOC ? I personally have no problems with either solution, it's just that some might find a particular solution (the last 2 cases: LOC, INST in Croatian tradtion or INST, LOC in Serbian) a PoV..
Also, I plan to write programs that would automate the "transition", as well as conversion to Cyrillic (esp. from accentuated Latin-script entries to Cyrillic with those hard-to-type combining diacritics). In some easy-to-use copy/paste Web interface. I need to learn this horrible Javascript language first tho. I'll notify you when I make some progress :D --Ivan Štambuk15:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
I love what you've done with the examples! As far as the order of the cases goes, I do not have a preference to that. I am fine with the current examples. We can make a compromise as to keeping the Croatian order, but keeping the Serbo-Croatian name, rather than Croato-Serbian! I'm sorry, my mind is fried from studying at the moment, however what you have done so far looks very good to me. The only thing that bothers me just a little is use of diacritics in the translation sections. I think we should keep the diacritics on the actual entry pages, but not in translation tables. --Dijan04:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Of course, but I'm very busy IRL ATM, and those little time I have I'd rather spend on writing the proposal for SC policy before the community votes on it (and exemplary entries that should illstrate how to handle various corner-cases), and only after that these subsidiary issues such as requested entries and appendices should be handled.. I think I haven't chosen exactly the right moment to handle this relatively complex and contentious issue, but nevertheless: bolje ikad nego nikad ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk18:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I don't know anything about Croatian, but if pȍznāt is really the Croatian orthography, shouldn't the word have its own entry? --Duncan16:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
The diacritics are the accent marks, indicating that the word is supposed to be pronounced as . Unlike Czech, and like Bulgarian, Slovanian and Russian, Serbo-Croatian (standard dialect, substandard dialects are markedly different) has free accent (i.e. phonologically unpredictable - you must learn it by heart) in 2-way opposition (short/long + rising/falling), plus optional post-tonic lengths. These diacritic marks are essential for correct pronunciation, and moreover the accents differ amongst otherwise identically spelled words (e.g. pȁs(“dog”) : pȃs(“belt”), grȁd(“hail”) : grȃd(“city”), or inflections of the same words (e.g. of ȉme(“name”): ȉmena, imèna, iménā - all meaning different things).
Accent marks are not part of standard orthography, but more educated users sometimes use them to distinguish words with the same spelling but different pronunciation, esp. in genitive plural marker where they don't use macron but circumflex, e.g. djevojakâ(“of girls”). However, accents are always indicated in the grammar books and the dictionaries, so Wiktionary should use them too, as they're essential to proper pronunciation (SC has prescribed orthoephy..) These diacritics are non-trivial to type (some of them require combined diacritic marks, like r̀, not to mention Cyrillic-script spellings which all require combining diacritics), so we use them only in headwords with head= parameter to {{infl}}, alt= to {{t}} and the second unnamed parameter to {{l}} (for listings in appendices, der/rel terms etc.). Russian entries use it the same way (combining acute onto Cyrillic vowels carrying stress).
Interestingly, despite the brain-damaged orthography which caused >80% native speakers to have very poor knowledge of standard prosody (I was raised in a small town where pure Neoštokavian is spoken so I have no problems, but major cities like Zagreb, Belgrade..are total disaster. Sarajevo is OK tho ^_^), lots of SC speakers will boast of having "perfect orthography" - some 150 year old myth. --Ivan Štambuk16:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Would you take a look at this and critique? Your understanding of PIE morphology is clearly superior to mine. I might eventually get up the gumption to write an appendix for the PIE inflection itself, and then we could perhaps do something similar to what's going on at *bʰer-, a page which has always impressed me as incredibly enlightening. Many thanks. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί21:35, 13 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Good idea. PIE origin of inflectional morphemes in various daughters should better be discussed on one central place, rather than be spread over various sub-appendices (to facilitate learning and comparison). I'll look to start Appendix:PIE declension next week when I get some free time, with comparison tables like on *bʰer- page.--Ivan Štambuk13:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Prūsiska Bila
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
wīrs is made-up term added here by Beobach, whom I warned not to add this invented "New Prussian" spellings. Old Prussian is an extinct language all of which is known by 3 catechisms totaling some 30 pages of text (written in different dialects), and two very short dictionaries (largest of which has 802 words), all of which written by non-native speakers in terrible orthography. No one knows how Old Prussian sounded, as it was not described by native grammarians. This New Prussian is a constructed language no one speaks/reads on this planet and as such is forbidden by Wiktionary policy for fake languages. These "reconstructed Prussian" words are ridicuolous: how on earth did they reach them? Perhaps they invented time machine?? --Ivan Štambuk13:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
I understand your reaction, but German Wikipedia, in which I have full confidence, lists 2000 speakers, who are believed to speak the language as Zweitsprachler. There it is explained that Prussians found refuge from the fierce and atrocious process of Polonisation against them in the region of Masowien and continued using their language or some dialect. Do you think that resembles the situation Manchu-Xibe? What do you think about this list from the Elbinger chronicle? If you are reluctant to read German, the list is the same in French Wikipedia, but for some reason it is absent from the English version. The uſerhight Bogormconverſation15:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Old Prussian is extinct since late C17 (in 1670s the last speaker is reported to have died, according to one source). Whoever added the figure on 2k Zweitsprachler is clearly insane. --Ivan Štambuk12:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Okay, thanks for the heads up. I think I understand the way the scriptorium works now, but please check I did it OK (I don't care about the discussion for believe anymore, so didn't add it to ES). I'll try to remember to use that code in the future. Also, it might be a lot better if WT:TR could use a similar code, to save time on archiving that page. --Jackofclubs13:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Old Polish
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I was wondering if you would be cool with reheadering all the Old Polish words to Polish with a contag of Old Polish, as Old Polish doesn't have a SIL code. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί06:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments1 person in discussion
Hello, Ivan. On otac#Serbo-Croatian you make use of the following: {{infl|sh|noun|g=m|pl=očevi|Cyrillic spelling:|{{l|sh|отац}}}}, but the result displayed does not contain the plural form, it is simply invisible except when one is editing the page. This particular entry has an inflection section below, but obala, where I noticed this flaw, has not and this information is important. Could you kindly try to adjust the template, so that the plural form can spring up? I would rather not dare. The uſerhight Bogormconverſation22:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)Reply Well, having taken a glance at the page's history, I came to recollect that it was me who inserted the template there, you had used it on mleko and mlijeko(uncountable). Now, how can the template be made to work with the plural and display it(not every noun has declension section)? Regards The uſerhight Bogormconverſation21:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)Reply Dijan fixed the problem, you do not need to bother. The uſerhight Bogormconverſation08:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yes. Reflexivity is just a special form of transitivity (the object being he speaker itself). The interesting cases are when reflexive and transitive senses differ. In this particular case, reflexive sense usually binds an object of desire (Ostvarili su mi se snovi/želje/nadanja..). --Ivan Štambuk08:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Ivan, what is your source for claiming masculine nominative 𐌳𐌿𐌻𐌲𐍃? Wilhelm Streitberg considers it neuter with nominative 𐌳𐌿𐌻𐌲, but you probably know that in the vocal declension in Gothic masculines are to be distinguished from neuters only if Genitive, Dative or Akkusative plural are extant. As Streitberg placed a quæstionmark after 𐌳𐌿𐌻𐌲, this is probably not the case here. How do you think we should proceed? Creating a redirect from 𐌳𐌿𐌻𐌲 to 𐌳𐌿𐌻𐌲𐍃? How can this be explained to the reader? Due to Gen., Akk., Dat. plurals not being attested it is possible that the noun is neuter with, its main form being 𐌳𐌿𐌻𐌲? The uſerhight Bogormconverſation18:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yup, only genitive singular dulgis is attested, so it could be lemmatised either as *dulgs m, or *dulg n. In ambiguous cases such as this, the most reasonable thing to do would be to us the actually attested form as a lemma, and provide in the inflection tables both of the possible paradigms, with a usage note that the word could be either masculine or neuter. Some of my sources list it strictly as masculine, and I wonder why is that.. Additional problem is that the Gothic word is isolated in Germanic family (not of Common Germanic or PIE origin), and is either borrowed from or into Slavic *dъlgъ, so it's gender cannot be deduced on the basis of comparative evidence. According to some, Gothic/Slavic word ultimately stems from Celtic source (Old Irish dliged "duty, law", dligim "to earn" etc.). --Ivan Štambuk08:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
etymology of sing, ring, thing, king, wing
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Good morning ! What do you think of my theory ?
Sing< seduct+ suffix= se+ duct( take away), charm, seduce, connected with sect( cut)
ring<reduct+ suffix= re+duct( take back), reduce, connected with rectus ( right)
thing< teductus*= te+duct( unknown + take/drive)connected with tectus( protected, roof) and thetos< thektos( laid in Greek)
wing<veduct+suffix= ve+duct( take away), connected with vectus ( driven)
king<conduct+ suffix( together drive), connected with cunctus ? = driver
